Categories
Newsletter

To Rest is Radical

Yoga Nidra: A practice of resting into the center of your being, into form and formlessness.

Hello Beloveds!
The veil is thin and the days cooler, shorter and darker. Rest beckons yet we may resist. Recently I went to a Yoga Nidra event led by a teacher from the UK, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli PhD. It rocked my world! The approach she uses is very feminine, circular, non-prescriptive and inviting. The intention of the practice is to assist ourselves in coming home. I did not fall asleep, which is a common use of Yoga Nidra. I actually experienced an awakened awareness that connected me to my form and formlessness in an exquisite container of softness.

Here’s a sample by a student of Uma’s I really like. See what you think!

With all the business of life, a practice of conscious rest can be considered a form of activism.
With love,
Lizz

Categories
Newsletter

what is the risk of living fully?

This is a little meta. Or maybe more a bit like taking the local bus rather than the express. But bear with me.
I want to point you to this essay about the film “Free Solo” (trailer). That essay will take you to the documentary itself, about climbing El Capitan alone and without ropes. From that stop, you’ll have your own journey about the questions of courage, risk, perfectionism, and purpose.
This movie, even just the thought of it, makes my body tense. I hold my breath. Yet I also feel seduced by an invitation to know the potential we hold within each of us.
If the veil is thin, shimmering and undulating in some psychic breeze, then that movement invites the question: what makes us feel alive and how much more room might we actually have in that aliveness?
xo,
Amy

Categories
Newsletter

honoring the process of death

Everything ends. Everything is fleeting, temporary. This feeling, this open wound, this particular phase of the moon — we want it to be the way it is, but it isn’t. It is the way it will be, and will be after that.
Don’t get too comfortable. Don’t get too used to one thing, because it will become another. Don’t worry. You won’t stay as you are, either. This body is not the same one you had a year ago, ten years ago. Have you kept up with who you are now?
What will you continue to teach after you’re gone? Who will have your name in their mouths? What if it is no one? What if you are never internet famous, what if you never run a start-up that is the next cover of Wired, what if you do not leave a patented invention? What will you do with your life if you knew all you had was just your feelings when you create, your connections, your kinetics?
The great divine energy that is all that is loves to experience. The divine loves experiences so much that they have shattered themself into an innumerable amount of beings, each able to feel and see and hear and taste and love in different ways. They are moving through you to explore all there is to explore in your unique form. Do not deny the world your insights.
Do not be so selfish as to keep your gifts to yourself — even if they, too, will be temporary, will end, and may never be what you want them to be.
When something is dying, what happens? A withering, a crash; a crunch, a soft fading. Sometimes, things to do not go between the worlds willingly. Sometimes there is struggle. There is struggle all around, right now, as the old systems are dying.
Rage, rage, into the dying of the light.
Is there struggle in you? What is struggling to die? What should you be letting die with dignity, but aren’t? What wishes to sing itself into the great long slumber?
Me, I am shedding layers built up and I cower feeling the wind on my raw skin. It is hard to believe this is better, that this is where I should be: to look at the hard thing that I know will gut me and do it anyway. And I do it, and I do hate it, and that hate fades, and I have done it. Everything is fleeting, temporary.
Everything ends.
This body, too, will be a corpse.
Merry Samhain; happy Halloween.

Categories
Podcast

Wonder Body and the 3rd Chakra: The Solar Plexus that asks “Can I be me?” paired with the power of connection

Season 3 of the Pleasure Lab podcast: The 3rd Chakra
In this fourth full episode of Season 3, Amy and Alex talk about the 3rd Chakra (the Solar Plexus). This is the potency center, where the question is “Can I be me?” yet the words and drawings that emerged are wacky. We can’t wait to see how colorists bring this page to life (you can download  it here). Amy and Alex deep dive into the back story and then connect this chakra to the “4th Chapter”. This is the final section of the book that only emerged after the 2016 elections as we wrestled whether or not a coloring book was trivial in the face of all this tumult. We stake a claim to coloring as a pathway to embodiment which is the fundamental tool of empathy. And that’s what we need.
You can get your own copy of the Wonder Body Coloring Book! – http://wonderbody.us
Plus here’s your downloadable page  for this episode, so you can color along with us.

Categories
Newsletter

Passing Equinox and heading towards Solstice

The pivot point of equinox has passed, the nights are getting longer and temperatures are cooler.   I anticipate a season of curiosity and reflection.  And time for illuminating awareness and playing in realms of consciousness.
This summer in my community, Tahlequal, a member of the southern resident orca pod of the Salish Sea, carried her deceased infant for 17 days and nights.
She swam through the waters of Northwest Puget Sound and Canada, her grief palpable and visible.  Humans, sea mammals, mountains, and waters witnessed her expression.  I could feel her grief song, which vibrated in the water of my cells connecting me to this watery planet.
It was a state of non-ordinary … some would even describe this as a unitary consciousness.
How do I describe the non-ordinary? I think of ordinary awareness is the area of the mind.  Linda Bark, in her book What would you like to Change? based on the work of Jean Gebser, describes that the mental dimension “is a place of being and knowing which is based on logical, sequential, critical and mechanistic thinking.  Non-ordinary awareness is the realms of magical, mythical, the divine source.”
Another source book that has assisted my understanding is Consciousness Explained Better by Allan Combs.
What do you think the orca whales have to say about realms of consciousness?  I listen to whale songs, and settle into the mystery.

Categories
Workshops

Announcing: Entering the Long Night

Hello beloveds —
Alex & I are doing an energy & BDSM focused workshop, Entering the Long Night, in Seattle in December, and you’re invited.
It’s all gender, all orientations, clothing optional. It’s limited to 12 people, and it’s already half full — so if you’re thinking about it, sign up quick & save a space. 
This is related to the Wicked Equinox SM workshops Alex & I have done in the past, but this time we’re doing it at the very beginning of December, as we approach solstice and the subtle time of the year.
Here’s the information. Hope you can join us <3  Zed
The winter solstice is a time to pause and reflect. The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and what few hours we have with the sun are extra crisp and clear — even crystalline — particularly in places with snow and ice. With all the winter weather, hibernating plants and animals, and the sun low in the sky, it might seem like there’s no life activity; but underneath all of that, life is still there, resting, pulsing, waiting for the reemergence.
That’s the kind of resting life we will engage with in this weekend workshop.
Sometimes aliveness at its most full and actualized by being big, bold, and loud, but there is just as much vivid vibrancy in the small, subtle, and soft.
We’ll use various tools to explore the energy body and tap in to the wisdom of the body, through play, sensation from subtle to bold: intense sensation, bondage and holding, stillness and movement. We’ll build energy up, then slow everything down so we can reflect and embark on an internal journey. Using principles and theories of the energy body, of BDSM, of group dynamics and interaction, we’ll craft our own rituals to dialogue with our deep aliveness with curiosity and kindness.
This is an opportunity to meet the challenges, external expectations, and obligations of the (American) holiday season with intentional pause and stillness, strengthening a felt inner sense of home.

TO REGISTER

Go to the bodytrustcircle.com/year-wheel page and fill out the interest form. 

Space is limited to 12 participants
Tuition: Pond $375-450, Lake $450, Ocean $475-595 (you decide)
Registration Dates: Open now until October 27th (six weeks before the workshop)
Open to all genders, all sexual orientations; participants should have previous experience with Body Trust or equivalent.
Accessibility: Private space has 5 cement stairs; we request all participants be scent-aware and do not wear scented products (we will provide additional information about that).
Questions? Email alex@bodytrustcircle.com

Categories
Podcast

Wonder Body and the Sense of Taste: one of the big 5 senses, super-tasters, and the pleasure of going subtle

Season 3 of the Pleasure Lab podcast: The Sense of Taste
In this third full episode of Season 3, Amy and Alex talk about the sense of Taste. One of the big 5 sense, we often take this one for granted. But what is taste and what are the 5 types we can sense. Are you a super taster? Some experiments for you to try at home about taste and the pleasures of going slow and subtle.
Resources mentioned:

Plus here’s your downloadable page for this episode, so you can color along with us.
Thanks to the folks on Patreon who are supporting this podcast and all of Body Trust’s other work! Go visit Patreon and become a patreon yourself to support the free podcasts, newsletters, and resources that we create for you.
Music: Grateful to Little Dog Big Ears for their Creative Commons licensed music She Sees Mice (intro and outro). Make sure to subscribe in iTunes or Sticher. And give us a 5-star review in iTunes, it helps us reach more beloved explorers.
xo,
Amy & Alex

Categories
Newsletter

Take a deep breath in honor of trees and bushes

I am grateful for the abundance of living vegetation in my neighbor.
I asked my friend, who is an arborist, “What happens to the plants and trees when there is smoke from the fire in the air?”
He responded, “They like the CO2 from the fire, it is like fertilizer to them”.
Abundance. Look around and gather the garden vegetables, pumpkins, squash, plums, blackberries, apples, pears, late strawberries dripping from branches. And there are tall trees, shrubs, plants and flowers. I am harvesting not only the produce, but also the emissions from photosynthesis by the green leaves and needles.
Harvesting air by breathing.
Oxygen is food for your cells, breathing has the ability to excite to readiness or to calm and expand. I practice diaphragmatic breathing. During an inhale, notice the expansion of the lower ribs (points for contact with the diaphragm) to the front, back and sides. At the end of an exhale, the next moment all things are possible. At the end of an inhale, all is abundant.
The green leaves and needles that live around me, offer their silent photosynthesis. Today, I visit these neighbors and breath with them.
xo,
—Alex

Categories
Poetry

Erotix is published!

A baker’s dozen writers come together to explore the idea of what it is to be adventuring in a body: what is it to connect with others? What is it to experience intense sensation? What is it to transform? What is it to live in this particular body that we have? Using erotic touch, somatics, BDSM, love, and more, this journal explores the poetry and prose of the erotic experience in many different forms.

Learn more and get your copy here.

Categories
Newsletter

Report from the field of combustion

Smoke from the fires is what we hear on the news. According to the agency monitoring Washington State air quality, the last four days Seattle has had “Unhealthy” air quality. A step away from “Hazardous.” This comes with a recommendation to stay indoors, close all windows, and use an air conditioner (who has one of these in Seattle?). It is also recommended to refrain from strenuous activity outside for people and dogs.
Here is the laboratory: confinement, heat, energy, plenty of vegetables, water, art supplies, two humans, and two dogs.
This is a perfect setting for experimenting with pleasure.
“There is power in pleasure. Pleasure can balance, restore, and transform us. It can change us physically, energetically and emotionally. Our bodies are designed for pleasure.”
     – From Wonder Body: A Sophisticated Coloring Book for Curious Adults
Moving through emotions of anxiety, fear, joy, frustration, and ease—we wore pajamas all day, we drank ice tea, made homemade dog treats that included zucchini from the garden, groomed, painted, and painted some more. This bizarre daylight with the red sun created unique shadows and changed the color on the canvas. We sang loudly, watched musicals. I don’t know what will be next but we have pinpoint focus on our next breath.
We are trying to make sense of the unrecognizable sun. Every living being is being affected by the smoke.
We are cooked, creative, in an altered state from the containment.
How are you?
xo,
Alex