Dear Community,
My family and I, after much ado, have made the decision to travel in these wild times. We are heading to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica Wednesday, Feb 17th – March 5th. I will be hosting my annual yoga/surf retreat with a group of friends and families eager to join the community, release some of the heavy layers, and be enveloped by the abundance of the jungle. It has been nearly a year since we had to cancel the last retreat due to the pandemic being declared around the world. What followed that decision was full of many waves of emotions, shapeshifting, and changes for many.
The image above depicts a classic term in surf culture coined “party wave.” This is when multiple people enjoy the thrill, joy, and ride of a single wave. I can nearly see, hear, and feel the ear to ear smiles, hoots, and fist pumps that followed that epic moment in time. I am hoping for many party waves in the days to come. Hoots and ripples that will travel to reach each of you. I believe that our energies are intricately connected, and, that there is a call now for more play, more joy, more ease. If you ever visited Lila East End Yoga, you may remember painted on the wall across from the desk, a list of commitments created by the teachers for our community. The last commitment said, “joy is contagious.” I really believe it and want to help spread joy.
We need ways to process, move with, and through the magnitude of energy that is present in our lives. We need ways to metabolize all the feels. Belly laughter, free dancing, moving, all of this as ways to shift, transfer, and move as a form of medicine.
Author Gabriel Roth shares, “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: “When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?… Where we stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul. Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.”
When was the last time you laughed, danced, welcomed unbounded play into your life? How can you lean into more of what brings you joy, play, and laughter? Maybe travel is out of the question for you right now, but, I also believe that joy is innate in each of us. Are there ways you can help spread more joy in your own day? For you, for your community, for the earth?
My hope is that during the time I am away you maintain your practice, either with any of the amazing Lila teachers live or via the online video library. Check out the live class schedule here: live zoom classes.
The New Online Video Library has over 100 recorded classes, varied lengths – 10, 20, 30, 60, and 90 mins. You can search by specific categories “hips” “shoulders” “neck” etc, and you can also search by teacher. Search for what you need, when you want to practice. The online library is only $30 a month! That is for unlimited access to a on-going growing media library (new classes added each week). You can purchase the media library here: https://app.namastream.com/#/live-lila/buy/product/25918
There is a chance that while I am in Costa Rica I might be able to stream a class or two. Stay tuned in these newsletters to find out more information on this.
I hope you take time for yourself to move energy as a sacred form of medicine. For yourself and for all of us.
With love,
Genell
Dancing the Planet
by Susa Silvermarie
The turmoil of our times
dances round the world,
stamping, frenzied, furious –
Kali destroying, Durga creating.
In the storm that tosses tiny earth,
let us cry and whirl with them.
Earth’s equilibrium demands
that we dance the planet.
Lightning flashes all around us,
but even as we shudder,
we shall be the rods that ground it.
As we mediate the thresholds,
let us earth each other.
Though we shake and tremble,
we become conductors,
transmitters of Change.
Let it turn us inside out
until protection disappears, until
we wear our hearts outside our shell.
Unleash it now, the oldest form of worship.
Bow and whirl, leap and dart,
Sway, gyrate, and quiver.
The turbulent disorder
of these times that we were made for,
calls for us to meld the parts of self
until the fusion powers us like stars!
Ride uncertainty and tumult.
Dance bedlam – into balance.
