Massage and Movement

• *Stand on some real earth (vs Sidewalk) for a few minutes, barefoot is ideal, but it still works with shoes on. This is part of why you see folks practicing Tai Chi etcetera outside in the parks--these practices connect with the elements, and help facilitate our balance, harmony, and connection with our bodies, the earth, and the world around us.
• *Make a conscious connection with that Earth, by, on each Exhale, visualizing/feeling a cords going from your head, down your spine, to your sacrum, down each leg, thru your feet, and down into the earth. Try increments of 10 feet at a time until you are 80 feet down. On each Inhalation, 'drink' in the nourishing energy of the earth.
• *Eat Rice and/or root vegetables (yam, potatoes, carrots, daikon.....)
• *Do activities that put you in your body more: walking, stretches, yoga. If your energy is low, gentle yoga or simply being aware of your body can help alot (ie: as you inhale and exhale, feel the breath going down the airways, and notice the movement at your belly and lungs).
• *Splash some cool water on the back of your neck, forehead, and hands

April 1, 2012

Stone Ridge, NY @MaMA, Marbletown Multi-Arts

"We start with the body, your Body, tuning into its connection with the earth the sky, and the space around you. Feel your feet on the floor, sensing through your crown the space above you. Feel your heart beating--coming more inside, strengthening your ability to embody, to be in this body. To sense through it, perceive/propreocept via it...to smell, see, hear, sound, and touch. These senses that we are blessed to have alive and functioning...the information that we glean through them is helping us to use different parts of our brains, and shifting how we experience the world.

Last June I left New York City for the Berkshires, for 12 days, for a 'leg' of the Somatic Education program that I am in. I was so looking forward to being in the country--to sitting in the sun on my friend Deborah and Davio's deck in between classes, to visiting local nature spots, and to enjoying the light streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows of the dance studios at Earthdance.

It rained almost every day.

 (forest illustration: painting by Heidi Smith:"Spring Runoff in Santa Barbara Forest", http://heidismithartist.com/)