Category: Newsletter

May’s theme is all about potency. What power is rotating at about your core? What kind of vortex are you creating by your very being? As kids, we might have imagined ourselves to be Spiderman, WonderWoman, or a pirate witch who transgressed cultural norms. Somewhere inside, though, we knew we held deeper capacities than our mundane world acknowledged. We knew we had superpowers.
So what is your superhero name? What is your superpower? Your tool, sword, or cape? How do your superpowers show up in your life, especially in the erotic realm?
Perhaps your sensible adult has grown a bit rusty at this whole superhero name thing. Never fear! Just use this chart as a starting point to determine your superhero name. Once you have your mighty moniker then what do you think your super power might be? What is it’s symbol? And, unlike Clark Kent oblivious to the tiny untucked corner of his cape peeking out of those 1950s trousers, how can you let your superpowers be known this month?
— Amy

It is that time of year for me, springtime is cleanse time. Each spring for many years I do a ritual cleanse. This year also included a time off grid at a natural hot springs. This gave me an opportunity to consciously shift my intake of food, internet, usual activities and then support release. I now feel the flexibility and resourcefulness of my whole body.
And every spring I read the detox chapter, Chapter 8, of Radical Healing by Rudolph Ballentine, MD. This chapter assists in identifying what kind of detox, for what purpose and how to detox. I also follow the guidance of my naturopathic physician, where she suggested a particular type of cleanse that fits my body and health needs.
Here is a simple approach to detox taken from Radical Healing, pg. 318:
For maintenance of…

• Colon: Exercise, High-fiber diet, water
• Urinary Tract: Water, Diet low in fat, salt, protein
• Skin: Water, aerobic
• Lungs: Complete Breath

Ahhh, getting clear and cleaner. Why don’t you join me this year?
—Alex

How about you? What holes are calling? What feels holy? How are you becoming whole?

I have two major goals for Body Trust entry-level workshops—which are the same two things we expect people to be able to do in the inter
mediate or advanced workshops: 1. to communicate about what they want their experience to be like, and 2. to be able to stop or change an experience that they don’t like.
Writing those two things out, they seem so simple to me … and yet for my own exploration of desire and pleasure in my body, I know it has taken me years to even reach a moderate level of competence in those skills.
I remember feeling dread when Alex would say that we were going to play the Three Minute Game, knowing that I could freeze up when it came to what I wanted to do for my pleasure. It took more time and practice to get a little rolodex of things I could generally always ask for and enjoy (for example: foot massage, solid pressure on my back and shoulder
s, pounding on my butt, wrist and hand massage, energy exchange at a chakra, castor oil on some scar tissue), and to be able to flip through it and chose one on command.
Even though it takes some time to develop, in hands-on clothes-off whole body work in groups, the ability to identify and vocalize what one wants, and the ability to identify when something is not going so well, are momentous and essential.
As we continue to build and grow the curriculum for the Dedicated To Your Body workshops, I am keeping these two things in mind, and we are breaking down those skills into smaller parts and increasing the exercises to strengthen those parts. I’m sure th
ere are many more things that our entry-level workshops explore, but right now, these two feel like The Big Two, the things I’m particularly interested in encouraging us as a community to play with and strengthen. They feel so essential to me in order to go into the more intense work of sensation play, restriction, increasing the body’s capacity, and moving energy.
So, that’s what I’ve been pondering lately. If you feel like sharing it with me & the other Body Trust folks, I’d be curious to know: How did you develop your capacity to ask for what you want, and change things you didn’t want? How did erotic embodiment work in community help support your agency around this? What exercises helped this click for you?
—Zed

It is the time of planting, of digging caverns in the soil to plant a seedling.
It is the time of Easter, Passover, and the Hindu New Year.
It is the time when the impulses and intentions of March begin to find themselves taking form and following their telos towards wholeness.
And April is a great month to feel into those impulses in the body.

• What holes in your body demand your attention?
• What is Holy to you right now, sacred and essential?
• Where in your life are things coming into form?

It can be a kind of unruly mess, this springing into being that is April springtime, that is the April showers that bring May flowers. What better than a little poetry to bring order to the chaos.
—Amy

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Budding Scholars

BY APRIL HALPRIN WAYLAND
Welcome, Flowers.
Write your name on a name tag.
Find a seat.
Raise your leaf if you’ve taken a class here before.
Let’s go around the room.
Call out your colors.
I see someone’s petal has fallen—
please pick it up and put it in your desk
where it belongs.
Sprinklers at recess,
fertilizer for lunch,
and you may snack on the sun throughout the day.
Excuse me . . .
what’s that in your mouth?
A bee?
Did you
bring enough
for everyone?

April Halprin Wayland, “Budding Scholars” from Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems. Copyright © 2010 by April Halprin Wayland. Reprinted by permission of April Halprin Wayland.

How about you? What holes are calling? What feels holy? How are you becoming whole?

Nettles are here!
These deep green stinging nettles are deeply nutritive and in abundance right now. Harvest them (using gloves!) while you can and experiment in the kitchen. I love to use nettles for pesto. I put it on steamed veggies, toast, raw vegetables, eggs or over pasta!
Here’s an easy recipe to try. I hope you enjoy it.
—Lizz

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Recipe: Nettle Pesto

• Prep time: 10 min
• Total time: 10 min
• Serves: 2 cups

Ingredients:

• 4 garlic cloves
• 3/4 C pine nuts ( I often use almonds or walnuts)
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 3/4 C parmesan or asiago cheese, shredded (for a vegan version I add nutritional yeast)

Instructions:

1. Put a pot of water on and when its boiling dump the fresh nettles in for just one minute.
2. Strain well and get as much water out as possible. Add nettles to blender or food processor.
3. Add garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, sea salt, lemon juice and cheese if you’re using it.
4. Pulse until smooth and creamy and salt to taste. Enjoy!

Source: http://www.nakedcuisine.com/?s=nettle+pesto

How about you? What do you feel quickening in your body? What are you hoping to bud?

As spoken to the Tantra SM equinox celebrants.
Lay on the floor or the ground.   Relax your body.  Notice your breath.  Let your breath move your body. With the inhalation and exhalation, your tissues will respond with the expansion.   With each breath, sink into the ground.   Gravity is the earth’s embrace.
Continue to notice your breath, follow the in/out breath through your nostrils into your nasal passages.   Breath into the area between your eye brows.  Once firmly aware of the place between the eyes, with your breath move your attention back into the middle of your mind, into the inner eye located behind your eyeballs.    From your inner eye, scan down your body. Allow the zenith of the sun to illuminate the seeds to be planted, or the germinating seeds already there.  Notice the potential.  Scan your whole body, noticing the ripeness, the quickening, and the seeds swelling.  Planted to express through the coming months.   Fertilized by yearning and desire.  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Focus on your breath, following your breath back toward the place between your eyebrows, and then your nasal septum.  Breathing into the place between your nostrils.   Next, follow your breath as it goes from your nostrils all the way into your lungs.  Breathe deeply into the region of your heart.
Become aware of your limbs, feeling the periphery of your body.  Gently wiggle your fingers and toes.  Take some time to bask in the relaxation and illumination.
Thank you
Alex