Welcome

Sue Doherty, M.A., is the author of Kinergetics: Dancing with Your Baby (Barricade Books, 1994; revised edition 2021). As a cultural anthropologist, she specializes in oral history and cultural landscapes. Her award-winning research on the Song Wong Collection documented Chinese American heritage in Santa Rosa’s Chinatown from 1877 and aided in developing the museum exhibit Sonoma Stories. Sue is also a certified mindfulness teacher (UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center) and offers guided meditations and selective consultations. Email storiesmatter@yahoo.com 

Sue holds an M.A. in Cultural Resources Management (Anthropology) with expertise in child development, holistic health, and heritage preservation. Her anthropological work focuses on how communities preserve identity, memory, and resilience across generations—from immigrant narratives to embodied cultural practices.

Her research on the Song Wong Collection traces a prominent Chinese American family’s history from their arrival in Santa Rosa’s Chinatown in 1877, documenting generations of community building in Northern California. This work contributed to Sonoma Stories, preserving vital oral histories that might otherwise be lost.

Dancing with Your Baby bridges Sue’s anthropological understanding of culture with developmental science, exploring how music and movement strengthen caregiver-infant bonds across cultures. The book draws on both traditional practices and contemporary research.

As a certified mindfulness teacher trained through UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center (under the guidance of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach), Sue has worked with diverse populations and now offers guided meditations through this site. She provides selective one-on-one consultations, particularly for clients managing mental health challenges.

Sue is currently working on several writing projects exploring cultural memory, place, and the stories that shape personal and community identity.

Sue is currently at work on several projects: an autobiographical novel about a woman who escapes fundamentalist Catholicism for Buddhist practice and literary success, only to face whether compassion requires returning to her collapsing family; a YA nonfiction adaptation of her Song Wong research bringing this Chinese American immigrant family’s story to young readers; and articles on social prescribing—the practice of connecting patients to community-based support rather than solely pharmaceutical intervention. She is also developing a science-based mindfulness book for general readers.

Introduction to Mindfulness Class–Course Description
If courses are available, they will introduce the student to the “practice” of mindfulness in daily life. It is informed by theories and practices that draw from a confluence of contemplative traditions, science, and the major disciplines of medicine, psychology, and education. Instruction will be on learning to pay attention to and self-regulation of every experience of the body and mind.

Six themes will be covered: mindfulness of the breath, body, thoughts and feelings, loving kindness and compassion, emotions, and integrating the practices. Each class will follow a similar format: welcome & check-in; short guided mediation; talk by the instructor; mindfulness exercise; processing the exercise (sharing) and Q & A; closing words, homework (not written), and short sit.