My friend and colleague Mollia Jensen is  transitioning from teaching Nia to Soul Motion (check her work out at Maha Flow!) and I will be taking over her Nia Tuesday class beginning July 22! For those of you who have never tried Nia before, please come and join me at Mt Baker Community Club for an evening of conscious and blissful movement that nourishes your body, mind and soul!

For those of you who loved taking Nia with Mollia, consider continuing your Nia journey with me. It would by my pleasure and honor to move on the dance floor with you!

Did I mention that  it’s on me ? Yes, this class FREE! Consider this a summer gift from me to you! I am just excited to be moving into this beautiful space and thrilled to be moving with hopefully new and old friends so soulful and sensual tunes.

Also – for the rest of the summer from July 29 to August 6 – we will have a 5-week Special Summer Series for $45 and save $10! Keep your body moving to Joy for the rest of summer. Buy now this Paypal by clicking the button below.

There is so much I want to write here my heart could explode, but then I’d just be random bits of unfinished poems. See, I’ve been following  the #Yesallwomen hashtag conversation on Twitter and thinking about the #bringbackourgirls campaign and so much more.  And all of that makes me angry. That we still have so much more to go in our collective fight for freedom.

I’m not in the mood for fighting. I feel exhausted from all the fighting I’ve done growing up, trying to save the world on my own terms.  And then I hear that Maya Angelou has passed away and I come across her words that set me free.

And I realize that it is in the flow that I can help bring about freedom. Not in the fight.

Never in the fight.

 I fight in fear, never in love.

But in the flow.

Oh in the flow.

I flow in love. But never, ever in fear.

And so I give you Maya Angelou’s words that flow like honey in my feminine soul. Let’s be the phenomenal women we already are.

Phenomenal Women by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.

I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman”

Note: Move Into Bliss is starting very soon and I wanted to devote the next few weeks to sharing with you my experience with movement as medicine for my body and soul. I want to start by sharing an old blog post I wrote on my other blog, A Nourishing Home, two years ago. It was the beginning of my journey as a Nia teacher. I know everyone will experience Nia and movement different but I hope this inspires you to make that step into coming back home to yourself. Starting with movement.

Have you ever experienced a moment so sacred that no words were enough to describe it?

Well, that was how my Nia Intensive experience was so far.

Yes, it was delicious and juicy, with many many moments pulsating with a kind of bliss and freedom I’ve never felt before.

But mostly?

It was Sacred.

TRULY, A HOLY MOMENT.

I don’t know exactly how to share my experience with all of you dear readers, because it feels a bit of a travesty to try to describe it with words. And that feels quite odd to me, being that I process my experience mainly through writing. But I’m learning that perhaps I’ve over-relied on the written word throughout my life. And while much of that has kept me sane, functional and connected to my creative and intellectual capacities all these years,  it has rarely brought me to a state of Bliss, Joy and profound Aliveness the way my body has, especially in this last few days.

I’ve written so much about Being Present on this blog, with Presence as my over-arching life theme for this year. And yet I totally didn’t connect Being Present to Being Present in our Bodies until this past weekend.

And here is what I’m discovering:

OUR BODY IS WHERE ITS AT.

The answers we are searching for, the healing we are seeking, the happiness we are wanting. The life I thought was simple got even simpler: Be In Your Body. Fully Present in Sensation. Em-Body.

We look for spiritual experiences in all the wrong places. The Body is as Sacred as it gets. We look for healing in words, in our wills, in our minds. The Body holds far more wisdom for healing that we can ever imagine.

COMING HOME TO MY BODY

I’ve never crumpled on the floor sobbing like a child with people I just met. And yet I’ve never felt safer, loved and held just as I am, without sharing the slightest bits of the stories I’ve carried throughout my life. I felt a release and a kind of deep healing I didn’t know I still needed. My fellow Nia Intensive trainees and all the Nia instructors embodied the kind of Love and Community I never knew I wanted. I adore each and everyone of them, quirks and all.

I didn’t sign up for this when I said yes to my Nia Intensive. I just wanted to dance. And yet, there it was. A healing moment where my spirit returned to my body in a safe container of community, and it finally felt like home at long last.

Do you feel the tug to say YES and move INTO bliss this May? Read more here and register below. Scholarships available.