When you enter the dance space, you arrive in a place and a community where you are fundamentally welcome to be yourself. Please wear comfortable clothing that supports your freedom of movement.

Every class invites you to have a total body/mind/soul/spirit experience through the layering of somatic, shamanic, ecstatic, and expressive invocation. The facilitator gently and subtly infuses his or her teaching with aspects of all four pathways to embodied oneness.

*Please do not wear any kind of synthetic scent.

A TYPICAL PRACTICE CONSISTS OF:

ARRIVAL

The experience of arriving sets the tone. Come early, ground, relax, open your heart, stretch your body. Open to whoever or whatever shows up.

CIRCLE

We gather together to open the dance. The circle is the SPACE OF COMMUNITY. This is a time for you to check in with yourself and to become aware of your personal prayer(s). The circle has its own intelligence – it will reflect and expand your individual experience if you let it. Being in a circle is about listening for and making space for the voice of the community to emerge through individuals.

THE TEACHING

Empowering inspiration, liberation and participation for the fulfillment of human potential and spiritual growth. We take time to focus the prayer of the dance through a single theme or teaching. Remember – your life is the core teaching. The theme given offers an opportunity to connect the lessons that are appearing in your life with bigger themes in spiritual and self-development.

ELEMENTAL WAVE

Our playlists travel EARTH, WATER, FIRE, AIR, and ETHER – an ecstatic, shamanic, alchemical wave. The wave creates a progression energy that has a Beginning, Middle and Ending. The elements are allies that reflect and support different qualities of consciousness and transformation.

HARVEST

At the end of every practice, we take the time to gather the insight gained through the practice. We harvest the knowing of the body, the heart and the higher self. These are the primary three layers we explore again and again in stable practice over time. This stable, consistent mindfulness check-in helps you to identify and deepen awareness of the self. You will start to identify and understand the different layers of knowing and experience that are happening all the time within your personal experience of being a human/spirit. At the center of the practice is the choice to show up in the space of awareness to see what’s there - to access deeper connection to the real experiences, learning, passages, and insights of your life.

SHARE-BACK

We sit with one another and simply share our experience. This is intimate. It can feel very vulnerable for some people. It bridges the practice into a shared space of communication. When we speak and are heard or listen and see another, we expand our awareness of the experience we have just had and of what has happened for others within our practice community. We grow together. Sometimes we also journal.

THE INNER DANCE

When we have time, we do a second cycle of practice in duets. This is a more subtle and internal space where we go deeper into the material of our prayers and our Harvest. It is an into-me-see practice where we hold each other in sacred equality. One person dances with his or her eyes closed while the other witnesses in a space of compassionate non-judgment. We dance for a particular amount of time – often 10 minutes. Then, we switch roles. In the Inner Dance, we invoke the sacred position of the witness and the sacred position of the dancer – the still-point and the creator. The inner dance reflects the primal dynamism of the universe within which all of existence happens as a dance between the active, creative, material aspects of consciousness and the still, subtle, fields based and transcendent aspects of consciousness. In the Inner Dance, each person has the opportunity to experience each role. Each role implies both a giving and a receiving and a deepening of self-awareness as it relates to one’s own life dance.

CLOSURE

Clear endings are a great gift to consciousness. We complete our practice with a final Harvest circle, a thanking of the space, our support team of elements, ancestors, directions, guides and guardians, and a gesture of closure and grounding. We dedicate our practice to peace, freedom and love for all beings.

Keep dancing. The dance is our meditation. So, we bring our attention again and again back into the dance practice to see what happens, what arises.

Pay attention. The depth of your attention and awareness will determine the outcomes of your practice. Attention plus intention create depth in prayer. Place your attention on the dance to find out more about yourself and move more deeply into your potential as a person, as a creator, as consciousness.

This is a Non-Verbal Space. Use movement, sound, breath, energy, texture, repetition, theme and variation, copying, countering and stillness within the space of practice. We bridge into the dance of words during Harvest – after we have danced.

Dancing With Your Eyes closed As Much As You Wish. Start the dance with your eyes closed. Tune to the inner experience of your body and your awareness. Unplug from the labeling and knowing function of the visual sense. During the practice, feel free to work with your eyes opened or closed – to come out into connection or to go within to connect with yourelf.

Touch Is Sacred. Contact improvisation and connection are welcome. Listen to what feels appropriate. Respect your own boundaries and the boundaries of others.

This Is A Substance-free Space.

SIMPLE. SHOW UP. PAY ATTENTION. PLAY. SEE WHAT HAPPENS.