What I'm Giving Up for Lent... and it's not what you think...

This photo… it’s full of stories that you can’t see when you first look but it’s layered so that when I look at it, I get flooded.

This was from right before I met Craig. This was when I was living in such a way that I woke up each day excited. I was living in such a way that I startled myself with the sound of my own laughter that came from so deep in my belly and that erupted from me so very easily.

This was from when I was doing All the Things. And I wasn’t doing All the Things out of some sense of “MUST” but rather out of “could” and “happily so.”

After so many years of serious depression, I had finally gotten back to what I call my “gooey center.”

Then a lot of shit happened that I don’t want to review.

I’m sharing this photo to say… here she is… Here is me.

Here is the me who spent time in spiritual practices every single day without the need to schedule them.

Here is the me who danced every single day BESIDES all the movement teaching she did almost daily.

Here is the me who went to the lake, who walked in the park, who spent time outside every day.

Here is the me who ate so healthily because she finally felt the difference and it stuck.

Here is the me who put herself first because only by doing that are we the best version of us for those around us.

Here is the me who felt like a fucking superstar just by living her own life.

So here’s what I’m giving up for lent this year:

I’m giving up NOT doing what I know makes me feel great.

I’m giving up HIDING.

I’m giving up this mousey, playing small that I seem to have fallen into.

I’m giving up too much damn quiet.

I’m giving up the lethargy and the apathy and the what-if-ism and the only-if-ism and the regret and the doubt and the self judgment.

Oh… and gluten. ((ha))

You?

Two Week QUICKIE JoyBody Movement Research: 20 Minutes, 3x a Week, Live or RECORDED

If you’ve never done a zoom class with me before, PLEASE READ ALL THE DETAILS HERE. It includes how to handle music. If you’re not totally tech savvy, make sure you experiment and find glitches before we start so you can send me questions if you have them.

And if you’ve never taken classes with me but have always been CURIOUS, this is a perfect opportunity to see what the heck I am up to! Without a lot of any sort of resource commitment.

DAYS: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
TIME: 9:30 to 9:50 AM Eastern US (OR WHENEVER YOU WANT TO WATCH THE RECORDING)

NOTE: I log on at 9:20 in case you feel like chatting, have an issue to discuss…

DATES: February 22, 24, 26, and March 1, 3, 5
(Recordings will stay available for one week after the short session ends.)

COST: Two tiered. Please select what you’re comfortable with. If neither works for you, please let me know so we can work something out that does. Either $35 or $25

(Pay 35 here)

(Pay 25 here)

WHAT is JoyBody MOVEMENT RESEARCH?

It’s pretty much what it sounds like. We’ll be researching different kinds of movement in your body.

Each day for 20 minutes, we’ll explore something new. One day, it might be yoga heavy, the next it could be Butoh (Super slow), the next might be about falling well or balance or biomechanics, and the next, it could feel like an energizing DISCO!

You’ll get a little bit of everything and you’ll definitely get to learn something new about your own movement and what brings you into alignment with this idea of JoyBody.

#BeautyGazing: A Catalog

Every now and then I’ll share a post of a collection of things I’ve been sharing across a bunch of platforms for #BeautyGazing. These are meant to act as Micro Meditations through the senses. Take a moment and breathe and just be. I’ve described this idea over here.

Ballerina Anna Pavlova by Ira L. Hill Studio, 1914

First, if you’ve not done so, check out my TikTok. I know, it might seem redonk to some of you… TIKTOK!? But I find a lot of joy and peace over there and I’m curating my own page to be nothing but these micro meditations.

If you love tarot and fashion, oh, my, are you in luck! This mini film by Dior is breathtakingly beautiful.

This one is under two minutes: Colorized film of 1920's Paris. We can’t travel and this felt like a moment of bliss.

Did you see that a teen intern at NASA discovered a new planet!?!? And it looks like freaking CANDY!

If you’ve never seen skies filled like RIVERS with monarch butterflies… I could watch this over and over and over. It’s only a couple of minutes.

This shaman video on Facebook about our interconnectedness with nature… it says everything.

And some of my recent photos from my beauty seeking in this new and interesting home city…

RESCHEDULED: Kundalini Yoga's Meditations, Mudras, and Chants -- A Two Hour Workshop (Live or Recorded)

REGISTER BY SELECTING YOUR PAYMENT TIER (Pay what you can). Either $40 or $30

DATE: Monday, February 15th
TIME: 5 to 7 PM Eastern Time (USA) (You can participate LIVE OR ON YOUR OWN after the recording is available)
RECORDING available within 24 hours and for one week following the workshop.

SEE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS

$40 regsiter here:

$30 register here:

Join me for a two hour intensive meant to realign your internal compass as we move into the Aquarian age.

We’ll be exploring through a yin like practice of Kundalini, including an emphasis on slowing moving meditations, mudras (hand postures), and chant.

This segment of time (yuga in yoga terms) is a long one — 2,160 years, and it’s significant. We’ll be moving into a time of ideas, dreaming, imagination, and community. The emphasis on material gains is old news. Thank God!

In yoga, specifically, we’re moving into the time of Truth. Wouldn’t that be freaking amazing!?

But this stuff doesn’t just shift on its own. We have to do our part, and in order to create a more loving world, we ourselves have to BE more loving. We have to learn to choose love and joy over despair and apathy.

This sounds so freaking wishy washy woo woo, right? But it is the freaking hardest and most serious of all spiritual paths.

We’ll be working from Kundalini yoga, tantra teachings, and Bhakti (the yoga of devotion) rituals and routines.

THE HOW OF IT

We’ll be meeting on Zoom. You’ll get a zoom invite. When you click the link at the right time, you’ll be asked to wait a moment so I can “let you in.” This is for security reasons.

You will also get a music list. I provide it via Spotify and YouTube so whichever is easiest for you to use. 

THIS IS EXTRA IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE you know how to use Zoom AND your music TOGETHER before attending. We do NOT have time for tech problem solving once the workshop begins. If you have any questions, ASK ME BEFORE FEBRUARY 14th.

FOR MORE ABOUT DOING ZOOM CLASSES WITH ME GO HERE.

WHAT YOU NEED

You will need the following:

• a yoga mat
  
  

• a blanket for comfort
  
  

• either some yoga blocks or a stack of pillows at the ready
  
  

• water
  
  

• pen and paper
  
  

CREATE A SACRED SPACE

Think about how you want to feel during the workshop and consider gathering things like:

• twinkle lights and candles
  
  

• sacred statuary
  
  

• rocks and crystals
  
  

• incense
  
  

• tarot or oracle decks
  
  

• photos of loved ones
  
  

• anything that gives you comfort and elevates your mind
  
  

February Yoga Philosophy Practice: Satya (Truthfulness)

(This is part of a year long series, in which I’ll be personally diving into each of the yamas and niyamas. One per month. There are 10 so that leaves me with 2 months to review. The main text I’m using is this. I’ll be checking in over the month with thoughts, explorations, practices. I would love for you to play along.)

I’m just starting the chapter on Satya. This is not easy stuff, is it? I’m only a few pages in and already… ouch. Challenging, to say the least.

We all like to think of ourselves as basically honest and then we read something like this:

“When we are real rather than nice, when we choose self expression over self indulgence, when we choose growth over the need to belong, and when we choose fluidity over rigidity, we begin to understand the deeper dynamics of truthfulness and we begin to taste the freedom and goodness of this jewel.” (Adele, p. 44)

You can begin to see, too, how this grows from and builds back into the first jewel of ahimsa, nonviolence.

You can begin to detect the way that we then convolute all of these things and become trapped by those twists and turns.

How, for example, do we not hurt someone’s feelings and remain truthful? Sometimes it seems those things are not possible together.

But is it hurting someone’s feelings to tell them something that is necessary to their own growth? Nope. Not as long as we watch how we are doing it and why.

I’ve definitely been choosing nice over real when it comes to a personal situation that has created boatloads of shame and stress for me. Someone has stolen a significant amount of money from me and I remain quiet about their treachery. Is this right of me? I’m certainly not helping anyone who might be taken in by their lies and deceptions in the future.

Am I valuing my own sense of pride and privacy over truthfulness? (I don’t have the answer to this one yet but I’m sharing here as a first step.)

I’ll leave you with a quote from the very next page of the text:

“What is driving you to distort yourself or silence yourself?…Or as Carl Jung would ask us, what is so dangerous in the moment about the truth that you are choosing to lie?”

Like I said, ouch.

#BeautyGazing and the surprise of tiktok as a spiritual practice

Yep. I said that. Tiktok as part of my spiritual practice? Have I lost my mind? Nope. Hear me out…

My niece kept telling me that I needed to be on tiktok and I was like, whatev. When I see what’s going on there with dance, it’s fun but it’s not something I felt the need to contribute to. So I started by just observing. For over a month now. I’ve just been watching and getting some much needed humor and inspiration and peace from it. Imagine that! From a social platform! We’ve all grown so accustomed to being agitated and made angry when we’re online.

Once I realized it was making me… dare I say, happy!?… I started paying even more attention.

Then quite suddenly I realized HOW I wanted to use it.

TikTok + #beautygazing = my little way of bringing some goodness to the world via another channel.

I was excited to get started. But something unexpected has happened:

This has totally refueled me. I needed this.

It gives me some focus. It pushes me to create in a new way. It makes me see the world differently. Now I’m just so excited to find the beauty and joy and to somehow create an artifact from it.

If you’re not over there, you don’t need an account to just look around. I’m sharing the micro video I made for Imbolc.

And here’s my profile.

@joybodystudio

My mixed path #beautygazing #joybody #tarot #starmantarot #bowie #imbolc #tantricyoga #devotion #oracle

♬ Sparkles - Raccoon With a Groovebox

Beauty Gazing: Meditation through the Senses

This is no trivial thing. Imagine spending hour after hour, day after day, seeking out, finding, and contemplating the beauty of this world. Imagine how this could change your mind and heart.

This simple act of noticing and then spending some breaths with that noticing is a life’s practice.

You can start the minute you awaken. Take a moment to really see your surroundings. As you shower and get ready for your day, notice the beauty of your own body.

As you move through your day, re-notice things that you’ve started to take for granted. Very likely everything around you carries meaning beyond utility.

That favorite pen? Isn’t it beautiful how easily the ink glides onto the paper?

That wall color. That particular pillow on your favorite chair. The tree outside your window. The specific color of the sky. The smell of your coffee. The feel of your feet on ground or in your cozy socks. The sound of the quiet or the resonance of the music you have playing.

Notice, too, when you intentionally deny yourself some sort of beauty or beautiful experience.

Notice when you intentionally shut out beauty. When you close your senses. When you don’t pause.

Notice without judging and see how quickly you can course correct.

Perhaps add some focused beauty gazing dates to your week. Go places specifically to seek these sorts of experience out. Take notes. Take photos. Sketch.

And then SHARE it with others. Remember that relationship is the foundation upon which we evolve and heal as humans. Invite others into your beauty gazing experiences and notice how much more solid those experiences feel. When we share, we create history together and memories and we change our brains on yet another level.

Dance is an Act of Rebellion

Dancing has always been an area of control for the dominant culture. Patriarchy, for example, has always equated the female body dancing with prostitution, and dancers, to this day, are statistically the most in poverty of all professionals in all arts.

Dancing is freedom. Dancing is expression of truth. Truth cannot be hidden in a dancing body.

And dancing is joy. Joy is power. Joy fuels us. Joy reminds us of who we are and that we are worthy. That is too much for the patriarchy... they want us seated and still.

@notoriouscree

Crow hop styles ##dance ##native ##nativeamerican

♬ Crow Hop - Northern Wind