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Your body is a temple, a place of meeting with spirit.  Divinity—however we name or perceive it—flows through you and I as the animating force of our existence.  This experience is immersive, the water in which each of us swim.  Ironically, the experience of living is often so full that it is easy to lose sight of our inherent divinity amidst it’s more mundane aspects.  At times we may face the loss of our spark, gratitude, and love for life.  When this happens, and perhaps always, we benefit from consciously returning to our bodies.  Your body, no matter it’s shape or condition, is available to be met through the somatic language of movement and awareness.  If this statement finds a deep knowing in you, or just stirs your curiosity, I’d like to invite you home to your body in the simple loving action of somatic practice.  You are worthy of your love, and there are no prerequisites to uncovering it.  You need not feel any particular way about yourself, have had any particular experiences behind you, or subscribe to any particular viewpoint to arrive here.

The tools of the BraveSpace Virtual Body Temple are simple yet profound: 

-We engage our awareness and shift our state of consciousness with somatic practices in breath, movement, sound, self-touch, and conscious conversation.

– The zoom call is a guided practice that also holds emergent space for your individual exploration and expression.  Continued prompts guide your engagement.

– There is quiet, organic music assisting you to feel the flow of your own vitality.

– We close with a sharing circle to frame and learn from the experience.

All elements of participation are optional and consensual—you are always at choice about what you do and are not pressured.  You are asked to take response-ability for yourself in your practice, and I with my co-facilitators support you to do so.  The flow of our conscious shared practice may feel a bit like a psychedelic plant medicine ceremony or a shamanic journey.  You may also recognize the format of Ecstatic Dance, yet this is likely more internal and meditative.

You will need some floor or ground space—approximately 8’x8’ to participate, and privacy is suggested.  If you have pets who are not used to witnessing you moving on the ground, then it’s advisable to either keep them out of the space or expect them to interrupt you.  You are welcome to practice in physical presence with others if you feel at capacity with embodied consent; some basics will be offered if couples/groups are present.  Wear clothes like you might for a yoga class or ecstatic dance:  It’s good to avoid belts, buckles, or anything else that could impale you or restrict your movement.  A journal is recommended.

This container is being launched free of charge for a limited time as part of the BraveSpace® Focus Group—a research project and somatic facilitator training. You do need to sign up in advance to get the link, and a brief application is required.  It is important that you arrive on time so that we may generate the BraveSpace together.  Every session will have a theme based on the principles of BraveSpace which you can find below.

Runs 3-4:15pm Mountain time every other Wednesday–see signup for dates.

Schedule Appointment

The nature of BraveSpace®:

We create BraveSpace by attending to the conditions that make it possible to be vulnerable together in our bodies.  Your vulnerability is offered in your willingness to feel, and especially in feeling your body in the presence of others, even online.  How does this state of intimate authenticity land for you now as you read?  Perhaps you feel it the way I do, as a longing for belonging in yourself and with others.  For me this arises at the familiar edge of my fear:  What if the state of my feeling is too much for me?  What if the expression of my feeling is too much for you?  We all experience fear, and these are valid fears amongst many possible ones.  The container of BraveSpace is intentionally constructed to be safe enough to acknowledge such fears without getting stuck in them, while also honoring and inviting the truth of our inevitable discomforts.  In BraveSpace we choose to take the risk of being vulnerable so that we can playfully grow, heal, and rejoice in the resulting freedom.

Find more BraveSpace info and events at this link.

Holding BraveSpace® together has fundamental principles:

• Somatic Research: We notice the sensations, emotions, images, and movements that we can perceive in our bodies.  We collect this data without jumping to conclusions about its meaning or significance prematurely.  Simultaneously, we recognize that the truth of our bodies cannot be manipulated away by our minds.
• De-shaming: We recognize our bodies as nature, both wild and civilized.  We recognize and hold our judgements lightly in order to openly witness ourselves and each other.  While we mindfully choose our actions, we release the need to control our experience, asking of our bodies and each other’s bodies what is being revealed through our perceptions.
• Trans-formation: We recognize that our movements and personalities are comprised of patterns that take form in our bodies and behaviors, and that these patterns may include traumatic responses.  We are willing to change our form, face trauma, and invite discomfort in order to grow in alignment with purpose, truth, and community.  We simultaneously seek to avoid injury to self, other, and world.
• Improvisation: We invite awe and wonder as we inhabit the mysterious gap between knowing and not knowing.  We allow truth to emerge through us and recognize power as the ability to be with what is.
• Response-ability: We reposition ourselves in relation to others and the world in each moment seeking our consensual and coherent place of belonging.  If we become overwhelmed, frozen, or otherwise unable to respond we do our best to speak to it openly and honestly.  We do not attempt to control others’ actions in order to avoid shifting our own relationship to the external world, although we may share our perspectives and invite change.
• Heart-Centeredness: We recognize our hearts as portals to spirit and communal consciousness, with the potential to guide us through the limitations of our minds and individual identities.  We embody qualities of unconditional love, healing presence, innate harmony, and compassion by calling our attention and energy back to our hearts and to the communal heart.
• Tensegrity: We recognize tensional integrity as a systemic wholeness of our physical bodies in space and also of the interpersonal and spiritual realms we inhabit together.  We value and hold the tension of opposites as a necessary and healthy aspect of consciousness, and as a key to improvisational emergence.
• Risk: We recognize life as a place of inherent mortality and choose in BraveSpace the risk of intimacy with ourselves, each other, and the divine, knowing that none of us will complete our journey on this planet alive.  Every phrase has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  We embrace fear without being led by it.
• Eros: We recognize our bodies are charged with a force of life that is inherently erotic and which manifests differently for each of us.  We celebrate our pleasure, vitality, and longing by meeting masculine and feminine dynamics within ourselves.  In BraveSpace we direct sexual energy that may wish to fixate on others into making love with spirit in its many forms, including attuning with others.
• Interbeing: We recognize that we are simultaneously individual and collectively conscious beings in concert with an animate world. We attune to and contribute to communal fields of consciousness by noting our own values and preferences, voicing and moving them as they are given to us to share, and being willing to release them to impermanence.