Remembering to use The Peony Method on MYSELF because... it works (duh and oy)

From pre-Craig in my Girl on Fire Movement Studio, Erie, PA

There has been so much change over the last six years that I don’t think I could list it all. It started with meeting Craig and then from there it has been this wild roller coaster ride from moving to Vermont to moving back to Erie to experiencing some really painful things to moving to Columbus and then buying a new house and then losing my sweet Peony most recently.

That doesn’t even really begin to cover it, and in the meantime, I lost my daily dance practice. ME. The teacher of daily dance.

For about 8 years, between teaching and then doing my own practice, I was dancing anywhere from 2 to 6 hours a day. You read that right. It typically was around 3 but it could easily be in that 2 to 6 range depending on the day.

Let’s back up even more…

About 13 years ago ((!!!)), when I first started to dance again, just putting on my favorite music and moving was enough. There was so much joy in my body that was aching to be expressed and I had been away from dance due to that shitty chronic depression for so long that it took very little to get me going again.

Then I started to train and I realized I was really missing moving with other humans so then just being with other humans in a class was enough to get me going.

Over time and through working with so many different populations (from traumatized children to people living with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and everyone in between), through all my studies in somatic psychologies and different movement modalities, I’ve composted and then synthesized and recreated and grown new ways of working with people to process trauma and grief and move into their joybodies.

This has evolved into the newly named, Peony Method.

After Peony died, I knew it was more important than ever to get my personal dance practice back. I’d been trying for a couple of years but it wasn’t clicking.

Then I had a big AH-HA moment… just the other day…

I’ve been just putting on good or interesting music and then expecting myself to, well, move.

And I get bored or distracted or just feel lethargic and apathetic.

But not when I teach. When I teach, I also move. And I never have a hard time getting going or staying moving.

Why?

BECAUSE I’M FOLLOWING MY OWN DAMN PROMPTS.

Which are GOOD and serve a damn purpose! (I’m yelling at myself there and laughing at myself at the same time.)

Telling people to “just dance” isn’t the answer.

People are stuck. They feel numb. They’re tired. They’re sad. They’re disconnected. I include myself there.

They’ve lost any understanding of really being EMBODIED, of being able to find PLAY.

It’s the whole freaking reason I have designed the work I have.

Now my dance practice will move forward because I’ll TEACH MYSELF. I’ll use my prompts.

This will lead, of course, to learning new ways to teach and prompt because I won’t feel stuck, numb, lethargic, or disconnected.

Instead, I’ll feel interested, curious, fascinated, playful.

Duh.

And OY.

Calming your nervous system, diving into basics, and exploring connection

NOVEMBER CLASSES start next week of course:

For November QUICKIE Yoga, we'll be focusing on the parasympathetic nervous system so lots of breath work, including new practices, and lots of work with the vagus nerve.

For November PEONY METHOD, Tuesdays (and I'm excited about this) we'll be deep diving into all the basics. Whether you've been with me a long time or are new, beginner mind is such a fruitful space to inhabit!

Thursday PEONY METHOD will remain focused on the fascia. There's just so much to do with that material... we've barely begun!

REGISTRATION and more details here.

"Fitness" "Influencers" and Ageism

This meme has been going around. I think I even shared it in the Sanctuary just for the giggle of it. But it stayed in my head for a couple of weeks and I finally figured out why.

But first, let’s clarify some things.

The ideas of fitness and exercise, as they are currently packaged and taught, are repugnant to me. As usual, our culture thinks you can a) buy something that will fix all your problems and b) that the body is somehow this separate mechanism from our minds and hearts and culture and family and c) that certain kinds of bodies are the “goal” and d) that certain kinds of bodies represent “health” and and and…

It’s ironic (or a bunch of other things) that the person who made this meme go so very viral and who crossed out the 30 to replace it with 40 is a very, very, very thin, white actress. I’m assuming she doesn’t understand the layers of meaning she added when she, a representation of so many problems with our ideas of bodies and success and beauty and health, was the one to up the age to 40. (I could go on forever with this stuff but it’s not my point so I must move on…)

And the idea of “influencer” is just, well, GROSS.

All of that said, the reason, I finally realized, that this meme really bothers me is the ageism. And I don’t mean the ageism of assuming only 20 year olds are the epitome of beauty.

I mean the ageism of assuming that someone in their 20s doesn’t have something to teach us.

The ageism of assuming that just because you’ve gotten to… 40… means that you do have something to teach us. ((cough meme creator case in point cough))

Just because you age doesn’t mean you’ve gained any deeper self understanding.

Just because you are young doesn’t mean you don’t already have a deeper sense of self understanding.

Self understanding and the ability to challenge one’s self to grow are the prerequisites to good teaching and they have nothing to do with age but everything to do with experience and then what we do with that experience.

So here’s what I don’t want in a teacher or a guide on my body/mind/soul journey:

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not struggled and been challenged by and in their bodies.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had a serious injury and then worked their way back from that.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had to struggle with moderate to severe mood disorders and fought like hell to get back in their bodies to heal their minds and hearts.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of not just their own trauma but of the myriad ways that trauma can manifest and the unique struggles of traumatized brain when it comes to getting back into our bodies.

And I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not experienced heart shattering grief and still managed to breathe and move in some way through it all.

That doesn't fit on a meme so of course we distill it and think it has to do with age because that's simple.

It's not age... It's experience.

And it's not just experience but CONSCIOUSNESS AND EFFORT relative to those experiences.

And finally, the person I am interested in working with, learning from, or even teaching (as I do) is the person who gets that the body is no less and no more important than the mind and the heart….

…that mind, body, and heart are not separate but integrated and separating them does violence on a personal, cultural, and global leve.

…that the body is a vehicle to process life.

…that the body is an expressive tool to say things that can’t be said with words.

…that the body is not a story of your goodness or your badness.

…that the shape or size or condition of your body is in any way a moral proclamation regarding your personhood.

…that fitness is actually about wholeness and connection and has nothing to do with your abs or how many fucking burpees you can do.

SURPRISE! Sunday night Kundalini Yoga for six weeks starting October 17th!

I know… it’s been a while since we’ve done the Sunday evening thing. I taught Sunday nights for so very long and the break has felt good but we need this longer, one hour practice.

I’ll be offering a six week session of this every couple of months. I won’t be running these one after the other like I do other classes. Just a heads up!

HOW?

As always, you can participate live or watch the video on your own or do both, because the videos stay available for the whole session.

I’ll stream out of Zoom.

You’ll get the recordings in a private Facebook group.

Music will be provided via a Spotify list and a YouTube list. You’re in charge of using it for yourself or you can do this class in silence, of course.

DETAILS:

DATES: Sundays, October 17, 24 (skipping Halloween), and November 7, 14, 21, 28
TIME for LIVE: 5:30 PM (Eastern United States) to 6:30 PM (and I get online at about 5:20 if you wanna chat)
COST: $85 (for six classes that you can use over and over during the six week period)
*As always, if the cost is a stretch, just message me and we’ll figure it out. Please don’t miss out for that reason.

WHAT?

If you’ve never done my Kundalini classes, go here for more details about my approach.

For this session, we’ll be going back to basics. Which is pretty much what we always do in Kundalini but we’ll be re/membering this practice form the ground up.

October Session Themes: Overall joint health and connection to self and others via the fascia

October classes start next week, of course. Please remember that these are LIVE but also RECORDED. So you get the best of both worlds. The recordings don’t disappear after 48 hours like in so many virtual studios. You have access to them for the whole month.

In quickie yoga, we’ll be focusing especially on the lower three chakras and the joints of the lower body, including lots of FEET action. The goal is more emotional balance with its mirrored physical body balance.

For Tuesday’s Peony Method, we’ll be focusing on exploring all the joints of the body. This will be a freeing investigation of mobility, strength, and internal alignment.

For Thursday’s Peony Method (excuse the 80s chick who wrote the title for the class), we’ll be deep diving into the fascia and what that means for your individual body but also how that awareness affects your body in space and in relation to all other bodies.

Go here to register.

As usual, if payment is, for any reason, difficult, just email me.

Peony's Legacy

If you’ve not been following me on Facebook, you might not know that Peony Yuki passed away a week ago. She had been struggling with some chronic issues for quite some time, but what was hidden from us was an underlying heart disease that finally, and thoroughly, showed itself. To say we are devastated is an understatement.

My life is changed, as always happens with death, but this time, I am able to feel the devastation and to navigate the crashing waves of grief with a level of awareness and self-compassion that I have never known.

Part of this is, of course, the result of a stable love in my life. In the past, I have lost myself when I lost dear animals because their loss exacerbated my own, very real aloneness in the world. Not this time. Thank the Big Cat in the Sky for Craig. And thanks for spiritual practices that over time have, well, worked.

As most of you know, Peony has been around for most of the 12 years during which I’ve been developing and refining and reimagining and adding to my movement art/dance based therapeutic practice.

I’ve named it here and there but no name has ever stuck.

Over a month ago, the right name hit me and then I let it go, second guessing myself as usual, and then Peony passed away and I knew it was beyond right.

Peony blooms are delicate and vulnerable, and thanks to ants, which seem quite agitating, they are protected (from other petal eating insects) and then they are able to bloom into their fullness.

Much like our practices and their effects on our hearts.

And so I introduce to you, in her memory…

Things Pretty Much Suck and Yet We Still Must...

I’m writing this the day after the Texas fuckery. I don’t have the capacity to really write about that yet. I’m seething.

It feels like the world is just falling apart… or imploding… Like I said, I don’t have the words yet.

Which makes me feel like, oh, right, duh… movement.

Isadora Duncan was once asked what one of her dances MEANT, and she said, “If I could tell you then I wouldn’t need to dance.”

Exactly.

At times like this, it can be easy — for me anyway — to succumb to an externally created depression. To just give up. Lay down. Do nothing.

Which is what evil shits want, right?

Getting into these bodies and feeling the anger and the grief and the overwhelm is the only way. Once we do that, we can start transforming that energy into something to counter what’s happening — even just in tiny bits at a time.

Like in that image to the right… I was working some serious stuff out there. Without the need for words.

Anyway… like I said… I’m feeling pretty quiet.

But if you need space to move and be with others, the next session starts on Tuesday, September 7th.

All the yoga and movement art are right here.

AND remember that you can participate live or use the video whenever you want.

AND FEEL FREE TO WRITE TO ME TO ASK ABOUT A DROP IN IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT WE DO.

The Power of the Gayatri Mantra

I don’t remember when I first came across the Gayatri Mantra, but it was at least over 10 years ago. And there was a time, when I would turn on a version of this and listen to it on looping for a huge chunk of my day. I could feel it repairing some part of my mind/heart without even understanding, at the time, what it was about or how mantra worked in general.

The Gayatri Mantra comes out of the Vedic tradition and is probably from around 1500 BCE (Before the Common Era, for those in the world who are not Christian and therefore would not say BC).

It’s also mentioned in my favorite text, the Bhagavad Gita (link is to my favorite translation/commentary), as the “poem of the divine.”

In Hinduism, it’s said that chanting it or even just listening to it brings happiness and light.

I’m sharing a version from Deva Premal because I love her and find her easy to chant with. This video has it looped a few times to make it longer. But just go on YouTube and start searching for the one that really speaks to you.

The Gayatri Mantra in Sanskrit:

Om bhur bhuvah svah

tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

The Gayatri Mantra Translated:

The eternal, earth, air, heaven
That glory, that resplendence of the sun
May we contemplate the brilliance of that light
May the sun inspire our minds.

*Translation by Douglas Brooks

As is usual with Sanskrit, there are so many translations. Sanskrit is a deeply poetic language and is difficult to translate into English.

Here are some more translations. I believe spending time contemplating these can open new spaces in our mind/heart. Try them out, especially, first thing in the morning, when it’s said to be the most auspicious time to work with this particular chant.

"O thou existence Absolute,
Creator of the three dimensions,
we contemplate upon thy divine light.
May He stimulate our intellect and
bestow upon us true knowledge."

Or

"O Divine mother, our hearts are filled with darkness.
Please make this darkness distant from us and
promote illumination within us."

And one more:

"We contemplate the glory of the light
that illuminates the three worlds:
dense, subtle and causal.
I am that life-giving power, love,
radiant enlightenment, and the divine grace
of universal intelligence.
We pray for that divine light to illuminate our minds."