Thoughts Provoked On Breathing
We do not honor our great Mother. We do not look to her future. We do not listen to her needs. We only pay attention when she is really pissed off and blows a volcano, tosses a tsunami, or hurricane our way. We do not offer sacrifices and bow in celebration every day, as she [...]
Read more Gaia’s Sanctuary
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Sometimes when least expected, a magical event appears from haphazard seed. It seems all the more special as magic is in short supply these days. The following tiny story comes to you full of magical possibility, born of an odd thought in an insouciant moment Our Yoga community celebrates. We create ritual for the earth [...]
Read more Amazon Queen
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The reason the world is round is it keeps us from looking too far down the road. Another reason is that- roundness is symbolic of a mandala, a magical circle. Roundness delineates birth. It is the womb. The inmost shrine of an Indian temple is called a garbha, the womb. The center of a mandala, [...]
Read more Roundness
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A newcomer to class, observing a Shakti Yoga Dance for the first time, told me he was surprised at how strongly it affected him. He asked how I chose to put them together, why connect those particular Asanas? Surprised by the question I had to question, how do these dances grow out of the mat? [...]
Read more Sometimes When We Dance
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Despite the dizzying sense of speed, the structure of fall’s equinox provides a moment of stillness, a symbolic cross road that divides the year into one of its four seasonal quadrants. Like spring’s Vernal Equinox, along with the Summer and Winter Solstices, Autumn’s equinox is an astrological transition when we open a door to the [...]
Read more Autumn’s Equinox
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To be at one with Self we must have, and be at home in our own rhythmic archetype. We must be able to move with the flow inherent in our internal rhythms. Our early relationship with rhythm begins in utero where we are soothed with mother’s heartbeat, the pulse of her blood flow, even her [...]
Read more Musical Shape Shifting- Exploration of Teaching Modalities
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Rib bones picked clean under a desert sky, finger bones sucked of their sweet marrow, and skulls stacked in columns, legacy of ancient rites are within and side by side to young bones, tender under soft skin, and high cheek bones stating beauty, hip bones swaying to and fro in warm winds, and brittle bones [...]
Read more I Will Remember You
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Last week I wrote of the many layers, the pentimento, creating a life. This week I’m dancing with cycles, literally, for I have just completed choreographing new piece on the Wellesley College Dancers to old time songs. They embody the needs and musical focus of the late 30’s, early 40’s, which was another cycle of similar extremism. Then, [...]
Read more Old Times-New Times
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Any conversation between Itzhak Perlman and Charley Rose plays at the highest levels. In a recent interview, Itzhak was asked, how he saw greatness, genius even, in his students. The following responses were interesting from a musical standpoint, but fascinating from a life-support POV. * “Potential for greatness is in our response.” Is a powerful [...]
Read more Noted
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To expand daily life and make it more livable, I vote for ritual, instead of chores. Or, chores as loving ritual. I vote for celebration instead of speed and mayhem, or… celebration of speed. Being caught in the crosshairs of too many chores and too little time is the crazy-making struggle. In olde days, ritual [...]
Read more Sacred & Profane
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Is it our mythic self that yearns for ritual to take our hand and guide us toward wider dimensions? Does this mythos carry our ‘true name,’ that is the name holding the energy of our mystic, magical Self, the soul-Self? Mythic beings require ritual and celebration, talismans and shared Grace. The drudge of daily-do can [...]
Read more Ritual Reprise
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Is it our mythic self that yearns for ritual to take our hand and guide us toward wider dimensions? Does this mythos carry our ‘true name,’ that is the name holding the energy of our mystic, magical Self, the soul-Self? Mythic beings require ritual and celebration, talismans and shared Grace. The drudge of daily-do can [...]
Read more Rites of Spring
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As the earth held her moment of perfect balance between night & day, a tiny band of brothers circled a fire to celebrate. We stood as witnesses, called as our ancestors had been called to celebrate ‘The Queen,’ to partake and believe in her mysteries. In this last breath before tidal waves of change create [...]
Read more Equinox Ritual
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Being an Astrologer, I am fascinated by questions of fate. I am engaged and delighted by an endlessly revolving relationship to the cosmos, especially to the Sun, giver of life. Weaving and un-raveling around those relationships reveals that God is, indeed, in the details. During the days of the Summer Solstice, as earth ‘stands still,’ [...]
Read more Solstice Dream Weavers
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Come May someone, somewhere begins walking to Pomp & Circumstance. The hymn of graduation hums along for all, it is simply more audible in certain lives. Just as Ma Nature graduates to full-bloom- glory come spring, we fling off old garb, open windows, and show intimate skin, to take next steps. Revealing ourselves anew is [...]
Read more Graduation Blooms
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When the ‘moveable feasts’ of Passover and Easter tango together, religious rituals fill the air, and tastes of childhood linger on the tongue through matzo, or peeps. The sour and sweet of holy ground offers both guilt and redemption. It can open the numinous, or close down possibility by orthodoxy. Religious roots can send us [...]
Read more Sweet & Sour of Holy Ground
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