I was always very aware of my dad and what was going on at work. I was fascinated by it. My first job was stuffing envelopes for my dad’s company on Saturdays. I was 10 years old. I spent hours putting marketing materials together and then into envelopes. I liked making the money and most of all, I liked being part of what was making the business go.

My dad’s job was also my first lesson in deception and betrayal. Several years into the partnership, my father found out that the other two partners had been quite dishonest with him, to put it lightly. He had been so stressed out before this and then as a result of this situation that it took his body by storm. An already constitutionally weak GI tract problem blossomed into a terrible case of colitis. My father had to have a full colostomy and in leaving the hospital realized he had to leave this partnership.

I was in 6th grade when my father created his own company, Gem Computers. Part of the buyout deal with his partners was that my father could take some of his clients with him. Since he had always been good at connecting with clients, getting new clients via word of mouth was easy for him. Soon, he was making more financially and also enjoying his work in a way I had never seen before. I continued to work with him throughout, doing data entry and always watching him interact with his business. He loved his business. He called it Gem Computers because it was a gem to him. And to us. That business supported our family and helped to send three daughters to expensive colleges. That business still supports him to this day in his retirement.

My mother had a part in this too, of course. She was my role model for following your dreams. My mom was a school teacher in Uruguay. Teaching is her vocation, her passion, her gift. When we moved up here from Uruguay, she could no longer teach since she spoke no English and had to take care of three little girls without the village that we had in Uruguay.

When we moved to Long Island in 1976, my mom met Barbara who was a clothing designer. She too was an entrepreneur, working out of her basement in a house up the block from us. She made high end bar mitzvah/wedding attire for women. Since my mom was an excellent seamstress, Barbara took her on and within a year, my mom became Barbara’s partner. I worked for them too, through my teen years, sewing, modeling and doing other support work for them. And I watched. What mostly intrigued me was watching my mom negotiate the relationship with Barbara and finding her power and her voice. Any collaboration always brings up issues of who is doing more and who is doing less and what the compensation for that is. In an entrepreneurial endeavor, the rules are not as cut and dry as they are in an institutional setting and I watched my mom feel her way through to what was right for her. This was not always easy for her, but she inspired me in her devotion to getting it right.

During the time she was sewing and designing clothes, she decided to get a teaching degree. She got her Masters in Education and went back to teaching at the high school level. She was thrilled and it was wonderful to see my mom doing what she loved once again and giving her gift to the world. She won many “Teacher of the Year” awards and I know she felt proud of herself but also took it in stride. She was just doing what she would do whether the prize was there or not.

I approach all my interactions as a business person based on the lessons I learned from my parents. In some ways, I feel like I apprenticed in business all my life. Primarily in entrepreneurial family business, though I have dipped my toe into the corporate world a few times. I prefer the freedom of being an entrepreneur, even with the apparent risk. I feel like I am ready to take a big leap, into the next level of co-creation and manifestation with the foundation I have from my parents and also from my own adventures as a business owner.

I currently divide my attention between several businesses which are all linked by my passions and my service to the world. Not all of them are equally lucrative, but they are all pulsing through me and insist on expression. These are my Nia business, my studio business, my astrology business and our farm. My husband and I have partnered for the studio and the farm. The studio more mine, the farm more his. In rumination on the 9 P’s of Potential, I see where I must take a moment to celebrate what we have created (I am often so busy workin’ it that I do not stop to smell the roses) and where there is room for growth and expansion. As the trainer business works its way into my life I know it is time to take a deeper look, to integrate, to open myself up to more expression and more love. I love each business like a child and I want to help each one grow into its own greatness.

Pleasure

I love running my businesses, I love the preparation time, the personal growth and walking the talk that must accompany the product, I love delivering the product. I love the look on client’s faces when they dance in a Nia class, hear about their natal chart, tell me that the chard they bought from us last week was the best they have ever tasted. The creation of all of these is such a body centered experience to me. I too feel the joy of movement, I am transformed by reading for them, when I pick and package that chard and commune with my land we are caretaking.

Philosophy

My philosophy is that life on earth is a place to learn to embody our spirits in love. All my businesses help me and my clients do this. If we are here to learn about embodiment, I want to share all the tools I have discovered for enjoying life in a body. Good music, great dancing, good food, self-knowing, creating space for contemplation and integration. Your basic temple offerings.
Purpose
My purpose is to wholly embody my spirit. I am here to ground and to love the earth journey. It is not always easy and with the pleasure comes some pain, however, if I can remember that my spirit is here for a reason and that I want to feel it all, then my choices become clearer. This includes my business choices as in what do I want to give my energy and time to.
Product(s)
I fully believe in the inherent value of all the products I offer. Within my Nia business, the product is Nia and the product is me as someone who embodies the practices. My clients want their own version of what I have. They know that I walk the path and that the path can show them the way to be their best selves. My astrology business dovetails with the Nia promise; the product is self-knowing and awareness of choice and a path to fascination with authenticity and grace. At my studio, the product is the classes, each one ideally an Ultimmmate experience, and the teachers themselves, As, John Calabria, one of my most successful yoga teachers says, “Make each class a wonderful experience and people will come back for more. They will tell their friends.” We do this one class at a time and one day at a time.
Placement
Here is one place I can certainly grow. In my shyness and subjective realm of exploration, I often am not sure how to “put myself out there”. I want to be on the top shelf, right by the front door, as people walk in. But I honestly am not sure how to put myself there. In part, I like my privacy. However, this feels like something I must overcome as I take on the Nia Training Business. The placement of my studio is great on one hand, in a super community with good parking. However, it is in a back courtyard. This is conducive to privacy, but the temple is hard to find. With my astrology business, I sometimes hold back. Still somewhat afraid of judgment and it has taken me years to put myself out, even when I feel it is one of my greatest gifts, I often do not create space for it.
Price
I feel that everything that I do is worth its weight in gold. Those who feel the value of my work in their lives are happy to support all my businesses. I feel I am fair and generous and this comes back to me twentyfold. So much of what people can spend money on is empty and elusive. All my businesses give people something solid that they can use to empower and enjoy their lives right now. Today. I have always felt that Nia is a bargain. I realize that part of the reason I feel this way is because I really value myself and give so much to Nia that she comes back to me also twentyfold. Give a little, get a lot. How much would you pay for real transformation?
Promotion
Promotion has always been a mysterious bird to me. In watching my parents and their businesses grow, I feel that their most powerful promotion tool was word of mouth. This came about as a result of their excellence and their work ethic. Reliability goes a long way and reputation is precious. I know that for me, promotion begins with stepping out from behind my shy self and truly connecting with people in a way that is authentic to me. This does not always look like the traditional put an ad in the paper/give out fliers to everyone I see. This method has not been very fruitful for me. I once read something about a business that was so good that they did not need to advertise. I like the pathos of this, the power behind it. However, is my business that good? How do I get there? How do the businesses I create inspire support from the universe? I am still working this one out.
Production
Making it happen. On one level, I am great at this. However, I realize it is time to ask for more help. There are just so many things I can do and I need help with some of the steps. I realize that one of the reasons I have not asked for help in the past is that I do not want to take someone out of their path just to help me with mine. However, I feel there is something warped about this belief and am willing to entertain the possibility that somebody else life path may be to help me get mine to the next level.
Profit
I love money. I love counting money, I love spending it, and I love saving it. I do. In the first Spongebob Squarepants movie, Mr Krabs is being interviewed. He is asked, “Why did you open up another Krusty Krabs restaurant right next to the original Krusty Krabs?” And his reply, “I like money”. From the first time I heard it, I kid you not, a healing has been taking place in me around my love for money. I LOVE MONEY. I do not, however, love doing “whatever it takes” to get it. I love getting money for doing the work that I love to do. And if someone wants to give me money because they just love giving it away money or they no longer need it and want to share it with me, I will take it. And I will do extraordinary things with it, including, put some in the bank for my retirement. (If and when that will come I do not know, since I plan to be sharing Nia until my last breath.)

Cosmic Salary and money. Is the time and energy I am spending on this planet, in this life supporting my embodiment? What are the tools & skills I have to exchange for services, what are the services I really need to live out my purpose? How can I thrive in pleasure and joy sharing love with those around me?

Honestly, Nia has helped me to want less material stuff. My life is so rich! However, my kids will be going to college in about 7 years, so I am opening up the floodgates. I am calling on my partners and my helpers in divine and lucrative co-creation in like never before. And I am also calling  on a yet more grounded and embodied part of me to step into the space too. I feel it is mostly about stepping out of my own way.

I remember the exact moment in a Nia class that I was teaching when I noticed he sensation of strength coming from inside of me and felt like I was watching myself mold my shape from the inside out. This was a sensation primairly linked to my core and specifically originating in my psoas muscle. It was a real WOW sensation. That was the day when my body truly began to consciously take shape. It was the day when I realized that ,not only was I dancing through life with Nia, I was also sculpting my body from the inside out. Life As Art took on a deeper meaning.

Since then, I have experienced again and again the truth of Debbie’s words. When I execute the Moves in The Body’s Way, my body changes. I become more balanced and shapely. It is this precision, the gift of the Martial Arts, that when I bring to the relationship with all of the 52 Moves creates the sensation of body as sculpture.

Diving in to anatomy has also helped to enhance my relationship to body as living sculpture. Anatomy made no sense to me when I was just looking at the books so I created and Experiential Anatomy class at my studio. Each week I focused on on muslce, had the class look at pictures, palpate the muscle (if possible), and then move the muscle. We sometimes worked in partners, one person touching the origin and insertion point of the muscle (when possible) while the other person moved, using touch to stimulate awareness. I taught a Nia class right after this class and brought the muscle we were focusing on in the Experiential Anatomy class into the focus for the Nia class. I took one year to go through this process and by the end of the year, I felt like I could sense my body as a three dimensional sculpture and had more definition than ever before. I also felt more emotionally connected to my body from the inside out. Familiar, had traversed it’s inner landscape. The power of sensation ~  imagination ~ expression.

Enter Brown Belt and Principle #10, Symbology. Fill my body with energy. If I had accomplished the sensation of filling my form with physical energy with my anatomy class, Brown Belt initiated me into the world of shaping and reshaping my light body. I actually love working the relationship between all the #10′s, X-Ray Anatomy, Floorplay and Symbology. They all remind me to view myself as a multi-dimensional being. Using X-ray anatomy, I can consciously explore loosening and tightening to change my form, to find more balance, ease, grace and strength. Using Floorplay, I can consciosly explore my relationship to gravity and use the floor, the earth as a place to grow in and out of. Using Symbology, I can explore my body moving as one whole living organism and allow the shapes that I take on to be full and passionate and fulfilling.

When people ask me what is is that I do when I move that make my movement feel so full, I tell that that what I do is fill my whole movement with me. Systemic for sure. And emotionally connected. And spiritually authentic. I fill it with me. I become the sculpture and I become the artist and I become tha audience in the for of the Witness taking it all in.  One thrilling shape seamlessly becoming another, each breath, each movement another chance to be fully alive in my body, my home.

My sense of smell reminds me, more than my other senses,  that I am an animal.  Unlike my eyes, which tend to take me to  words or my ears, which take me images, my nose takes me to a primal gut place. The sounds I make in relation to smell bypass my mental realm.  Sounds like “Mmmmmmm” or “Ahhhhhhhh” or “Eeeewwwwww”.  I can even venture to say that these sounds are beyond my conscious control. They are made by my larynx, but they come directly from my gut brain.

The way something smells is always more important to me than what it looks like. I once had a crush on a guy who smelled so good, I would get light headed around him. Turns out it was not his manly scent but his laundry detergent that got me excited. However, I still can’t smell that detergent without thinking of him.  There was another guy that I really liked until I got up to close to smell him. He smelled like bologna and I had to hold my breath around him. That was that.

Like the phrase “smell the moment”, scents can be used to encourage deeper breathing, more prana, more life. Things that smell good make me feel more alive. If I am really loving the smell, really wanting to smell the moment, I will fill my body with breath again and again and again. Even imagining things that smell good will do this. In Nia classes I sometimes invite the class to imagine they’re smelling roses, cookies baking, wet grass or city streets. These olfactory images can be more powerful that visual ones to bring the movements I am doing to life since they invite my whole body to fill.

Conversely, I find that when I do not like the way something smells, I hold my breath or take more shallow breaths. This creates contraction in my body, less life.  So I go about my life adjusting the pillows and the scents in my environment. Flowers and essential oils and fresh air are my tools.  What I choose to bask in may not be what my dogs love  (dead snake, for instance) but then, we are different animals.

So here I am, teaching a movement form that encompasses many practices that are meant to be embodied one by one and then integrated to create the Music~Movement~Magic that is Nia. Each practice is part of a foundation and the wholeness of a teacher who embodies these practices can be felt. I know this, no magic tricks but only true magic is allowed into my world.

I have found that even within each practice, I have had to break it down again and again to get to the essence. To embody the essence and then build upon it, I am constantly breaking it down. Letting go of what I know to discover something new.

I have been doing this lately with each of the 52 Moves of the Nia Technique. I have written before about bringing just one move, finger extensions or  foot directions, for instance  into class and making that Move the focus the sole focus. Using other Moves, of course, but always in relation to the ONE. This practice has helped me integrate the essence of each Move like nothing else. For those of you who practice Nia, I highly recommend it.

If at first read, the potential for boredom enters your mind, I assure you, doing this has only made my relationship with each Move far more exciting. Like monogamy, there have been moments of wanting to break out, but overall, the more I stay and ask myself and the Move for MORE, the more I get and the more I want to stay with it.

Last week I had a rash of one Move only foci:

Wednesday: Stepping Back Onto the Ball of the Foot

Thursday: Cross Behind

Sunday: Bow Stance

All three are actually a variation on the theme of exploring the relationship to the space behind the body. We do this by stepping into the back space, by finding support from behind and by allowing the back space to propel us forward.

Aligning the body from behind and underneath also calls in the relationship to the smile line in Nia. The smile line relates to the journey of the hara as we shift weight to locomote.  By going deeper, we can go higher and by playing with range of motion we can create exciting dance experiences. We also have the opportunity to condition the legs and the core of the body using gravity and strength as our body weights travel that deeper smile line.

Settling into the back space before the shift happens also brought to body and mind the energy of receiving. As I step back onto the ball of my foot, cross behind or step back into a bow stance, I find my back foot and receive the support from the ground and underneath. I settle into myself, maybe for a long time or maybe just for a moment as I prepare to push down to shift or kick or jump. However, that moment when I am purely receiving, aligning into the back space, filling my body with breath, is delicious.

I found myself being so relaxed after these classes. In their wake, I noticed how much more anxious I feel when I align myself with a forward and up orientation. The stallion at the gate sensation is familiar to me. Life as a race. However these three moves gave me an opportunity to realign and ask, what’s the rush?  Why not be here now? Now is where the power is.

THE NUTRIENT DENSE STORY

Hundreds of years of agriculture have depleted the soil’s trace minerals.  Each year plants take up the minerals that they need to build and maintain their cellular structure.  We harvest the food for consumption, and the trace elements are removed from the land.  Farm lands that are depleted of the nutrients to support crop production are not a new thing.  The answer that was developed by the US Agricultural department during the great depression era, and into WW2 was to pump the soil full of Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potassium.  It’s the NPK ratio that you will see on the side of any fertilizer bag.  What this has lead to is food that has less nutritional value, and crops that are grown in a weakened state requiring more water and pesticides.  This agricultural practice has left fields so devoid of the microbial, and fungal elements that play a major role in plant development that when turned under, corn stubble does not decompose.  The soil is drained of the building blocks of life.

Interestingly, at about the same time that the US Agricultural department was turning to NPK and pesticide, an agronomist by the name of Albrecht was developing another theory and method.  By measuring the amount of the different elements in the soil, and seeing the effects of each element on plant life Albrecht began to realize that the very same minerals that were important for human cellular development were also need by the plants.  Look on the back of any multi vitamin bottle you will find the following trace elements listed: Zinc, Copper, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Molybdenum, Potassium, Boron, Selenium, Manganese, Nickel, Silicon.  These are the very same trace elements that soil is measured for in the nutrient dense practice.  What Albrecht realized was that by balancing out the soil with the trace elements required, and boosting the biological components the plants were much stronger.

Today what has been developed based on Albrecht’s model is called nutrient dense farming, or re-mineralization.  It’s a combination of Albrechts work, the Organic/sustainable movement, and bio-dynamic farming.  The nutritional value of the plants grown in a nutrient dense environment are measured with a unit called Brix.  You may have heard of this recently. Some upscale restaurants in Manhattan are on the nutrient dense band wagon.  Essentially, brix are measured using a refractometer to determine the density of the sap within the plant.  The denser the sap the more the nutrients.  The refractometer is also used to determine what is needed by the plant on a real time basis.  Rather than scratching your head and wondering why your plants are not growing quite right the refractometer can help to determine what is out of balance.  Large scale operations are doing the very same by sending certain parts of the plants into be tested, and amending accordingly using drip irrigation.  In addition to balancing the soil, Nutrient Dense farming also includes adding the right biological elements to the soil, and to the plants.  These are the micro organisms that help facilitate the uptake of nutrients to the plants, and aid in over all soil health.

Not only do these plants and veggies look better, they are better for you. Enjoy and may these plants add to your thriving good health.

On her opening page are the words: We are created to create…words have power…make a mindful choice.

Ideally, we use our power to create consciously. Ideally. I am not sure how many times I am truly conscious as I make choices. In the blur that sometimes feels like my life, there are many things that appear as if from nowhere. In moments of deeper introspection, I can see when I initiated the thought that created the word that created the thing that seems so implausible.

Carrie and I were talking about this one day, about words…and about Dr. Emoto’s  words on water. About how the energy of the words written on the bottle can affect the vibrations in the water that we drink which in turn affects our inner water. Since we are made up of quite a lot of H2O, the idea of wearing something with high vibration words on it became very appealing.

When Carrie began creating these shirts, I was really eager to get them on my body.  I have three shirts now.

One has the words I am an infinite possibility”. This one reminds me to always be aware of my attitude, choices and decisions.

Then there is the chakra shirt. one word for each of the the 7 main chakras to activate and tone me: root, flow, power, love, voice, see, source. They are at once inspiration, reminders and instructions to these seven parts of me.

The third says: Ease, Grace, Fluidity. These three words have helped me through some jagged moments in my life recently.

Simplicity.  Lovely earth-loving colors. Water based inks. Next best thing to having the words tattooed on my body. And I love it because I can switch them out depending on what my day holds for me.

Check out these shirts. Contemplate simplicity. Invite consciousness.

What heals me the most about music is the journey that it takes me on, the way that I am led by the sounds into places in my soul that only music can touch. I have enjoyed music as a listener and as a dancer all my life. Recently, I have taken on learning how to play a musical instrument as well.  Two years ago, I picked up a guitar and decided it was time. I have an amazing teacher, Chris McDermott,  who talks to me a about the time and space relationship. The metaphor between making music and life is not lost on me. He reminds me of another great teacher, Carlos Rosas, who also talked a lot about time.

I once had a conversation with Carlos in a faraway Blue Belt about how I had realized that he & Nia had taught me to use my body as a musical instrument. I could feel myself playing the music with my body. Nia had taught me, via the practices of  doing 8BCs, the Art of Listening and the FreeDance process how to inhabit the music form the inside out. If I had to name the practices that I am the most grateful for receiving in my life, those would be the ones.

What I am learning now, as I endeavor to play an instrument that is outside of my body is that the same things apply in terms of practice and deepening and learning how to use my body to make the sounds that I want to hear.  Dare I say it’s “hard” to learn how to play guitar? I am not only learning a new language (music notation), but also how to use my hands, each in a different way and then putting it all together in time and space to make music. Sometimes it is a struggle at best. Why do I keep at it?  It  makes me feel alive is the closest I can come to for a reason.

What heals me about playing the guitar and what heals me when I listen to music in general is that I must be mindful and present to be with it. There are many skills that go into understanding music having to do with it’s many parts and styles music as well as the physical skills. However, the most important skill that music has helped me develop within myself is the ability to let go of one sound so that the next can delight me. In this way, music is my tao. It is a practice of time and timelessness, of receving in the moment something that can only happen in time.

Delight is at the root for me.

Delight: To take great pleasure or joy.

Delight comes from the Latin delcetare: to allure, delight, charm, please.

This is what music does for me. It seduces me into staying in the present moment, into staying with my body and this deepens my breath and my desire to feel. Music is both the metaphor for how to live life and reason why I want to be alive.The more I give myself to music the more I want to live. The notes and the rests. The silence and sound. The pulse and the vibration. The cycling of my breath. These are the simple components of healing in my life.

As I was delivering the focus, I noticed that when I was reaching out with my thumb I felt a connection to the big toes and when I was reaching out with my pinkies,I felt and instant connection to my littlest toe. I expressed that discovery to the class as well and they felt it too. So I co-opted the big toes and littlest toes to bring the creating a relationship to space below into the intention as well.

What I love about Nia is pretty much summed up in the above two paragraphs! My body, my movement and my sensations become the last frontier, the wild, wild west and the greatest adventure. And it all comes from my paying attention to my body sensations and my willingness to explore something new in a new way.

Finger extensions, one of the finger moves, invites us to sense the relationship of each finger to the body. I focused on just two of these fingers, the thumb on the radial side of the hand and the pinky on the ulnar side of the hand.

The thumb is the nurturing finger. When I am dancing with my thumb leading the dance it absolutely connects me to  my deep core, my belly button, my sternum, my medial alignment, the front of my body. When I reach as far out as I can with my thumbs I can feel the reach all the way form the joints of my pubic symphisis.  The pinky is all about the edges.  Like the outline of a picture, it is about reaching as far out as my body can go, to the lines of the preriphery. I experience the reach of my pinkies in the back of my body. They reach up and out from my lower back, create space between my shoulder blades and activate my wings.

Moving them together connects me to deep inside and far, far out. When I dance with both of these fingers activated, I feel the dancing that happens within and without. Very exciting. Isolating each finger allowed for minute attention to each energy channel, that along the frontal body for the thumb and the back body for the pinky.

From a practical physical perspective, using the finger extensions works out various muscle groups associated with the areas of the body activated.  So thumb activates the pectoralis group, the biceps and the abdominal group.  The pinky activates the lattisumus dorsi, the triceps,  and the quadratus lumborum. By focusing on the extension of my fingers, I give myself a workout from the inside out.

From an emotional/mental perspective, using finger extensions connects me to the expression unique to each finger. The thumb is the opposable finger that give me the power to hold on. It is the hitchhiker, the sucking thumb of the baby, the bug squasher. The pinky is the delicate flower petals, the part of me that embraces the sky and opens my wings.

When it felt like we needed a break from the hands, I brought the classes attention to the big toe and the littlest toe of the feet to reinforce that relationship between the medial space – the big toe and the edges – the littlest toe. Imagining we were stamping them both on the floor as we lead from the heel or step onto the ball of the foot or onto the whole foot, each requiring a certain relationship to the toes. The reaching with each of these two toes.

In working with the music, I felt for the sounds that called each of these four fingers and toes. Several other of the 52 moves made a significant contribution: creepy crawlers, balance finger, finger flicks, webbed spaces, chop hands and fists.

As we cooled down I felt I had been on a marvelous journey, I felt wide, expansive and grounded and thrilled to have this new relationship to my body, within my body, with the music. This is how we danced today in class.

My teacher, Carlos Rosas, gave me that term, “the unruly mind”. And the “unruly realms”, since my physical body, my emotions and my daydreaming spirit can also do some good distracting.  I love that term, unruly. It makes me realize that I can tame them. That once again I have a choice about whether to let them rule the use of my energy and my life force or to guide these to help me thrive.

The practice of Creating Space is the practice of  Stillness.  Creating stillness is each of those realms: the body in stillness. In the mind: No inner dialogue. Emotional body: neutral. Spirit: Present. Stillness. Creating Space. It’s a beautiful thing and just one of the practices of Nia that makes Nia my shamanic path.

I have been sick since Thanksgiving. A cold that came in while my dear friend and fellow Nia Trainer in Training was staying with us and c0-teaching the holiday classes with me. There was definitely a cold going around, I’ll give you that. However, I feel that susceptability has to be there as well, and seeing Allison back at the studio with me brought up some of the unfelt grief around a best friend no longer within hugs reach. We taught some great classes. She left, back to Portland , OR. I started feeling better.

Yet, this Monday I had a phone call that brought to me a deeper layer of grief and right after I got off the phone, I felt my sinuses filling up again! Relapse. Now, I know myself and I know why and when I get sick and this was not from being run down. What I have been keenly aware of is this: This week is the week of the last Nia training that Carlos Rosas will be teaching. Ever. Carlos is retiring as of today, I believe. After his last Friday evening class, he is gone. The Belt that is happening this week is Black Belt, which is about going into the unknown and going back to the basics. I feel both of these pulsing in me and this moment feels like a death and a birth and this is the reason I have been brought to my knees.

Here’s how this cold has been helping me to create space. (Did I not realize I would need to create space for this?) I have been up at night many days in a row with my head stuffed like a cabbage. And this has given my mind lots of time to ruminate and cajole my emotional body into feeling the deep grief at losing one of the most important teachers of my life. Rationally, my mind says, “You are not losing him. What he has given you will always be with you.” ” Carlos is moving on and that is a great thing.” I can feel this so clearly and in my heart, I am thrilled that he is able to jump into his own unknown. Although I know all this to be true, it is also my mind distracting me from the place in me that feels abandoned and bereft and maybe even angry.

So in the past few nights, I have been honing the art of creating space. Stillness. Still Body. Still Mind. Spirit Present. All these to create space for my emotions to rage.

When I first heard that Carlos was leaving I had two typical of me optimistic reactions. One was “WOW, Carlos is moving on, how amazing for him!” The second was, “Oh, Boy, I’d better really get on these practices cause if I am not going to have him to show me the way, I had better know the way really well.”  Then came the sadness of no longer being able to spend time in the presence of my beloved teacher.

The feeling of beloved teacher is an ancient one for me. I have had many wonderful teachers in this lifetime and in the millennia that I have existed. I have also been a teacher and am now. The bond and the transmission of the work, the soul altering  transformation that comes from this kind of relationship is one that I have experienced many times. The most powerful teaching comes from one being sharing the truth of their path with another and thereby modeling how to find one’s true path. I want to show and be shown the way. The tao. The teaching is the way.

In Nia, this has always been the case. At the last Brown Belt I was at with Carlos he said that all these practices that came to him came for him to be a better Nia teacher and did not necessarily make him a better person. Now, I do not know Carlos personally, so I can’t say for sure what he meant by that. For me seeing how he developed these practices for Nia  and then went ahead and did them to achieve mastery has not only made me a good Nia teacher, it has also opened up the way to creating the practices that I need to grow in this lifetime. Nia has and continues to make me a better person. I feel Debbie Rosas Stewart, who created Nia with Carlos has a handle on how Nia makes one’s life better and she models this beautifully. Thank goddess she is still with us to share her path.

I am left wondering what I need to learn to create space without creating a situation that is going to force me into stillness.  So many times I have had to still my mind, body and spirit so that I can feel my emotional body rock! Guided by my body to find this. Once there is stillness, it’s easier to distinguish the voices of the universe talking to me. Last night, as I lay in my stuffy head, Nia said to me, ” Feel the joy of this too. It is here for you.” I almost laughed out loud! And then I took the directions and felt what was there for me: the most deep gratitude that I got to spend time receiving from Carlos what he had to share, gratitude that I actually received it and that it is up to me to continue the work for myself and share it with others. Fear of the unknown, of what comes next for me, for Nia and for the Nia community. Sacred knowing that although I am in the unknown, I have the basics down. Joy of movement if present and in the house.  So is that original optimism that I felt. There are so many beings that have also received Carlos’ transmission and many of them are dear to my heart.  The community is strong. And Carlos, I am sure he will continue to thrill the world wherever he goes.

I have many dreams like this, me in flight or landing from an incredible height or rollerblading down the highway , enjoying my body in a way that I rarely let myself do in awake life. Maybe I should take up X-treme sports for this is what my dreams feel like. But awake, I feel way too fragile to risk life and limb for the thrill.

I move a a lot, in fact, even at rest my energy is getting ready to speed away. Not only do I teach the Nia Technique for a living, I take every opportunity I can to dance and play outdoors. When Debbie Rosas coined the term “movement lifestyle” to describe Nia, I was right there on the same page. I live to move and I move to live. Whether dancing or meandering through the world of my day, I am happiest in transit.

Recently, I’ve been exploring more stillness, especially when I am not feeling well. I have been using stillness as a practice. Being still and sensing my body in stillness. In doing this, I am also cultivating an inner stillness, stillness of my mind. Movement comes to me easily, stillness does not.

Today I am not feeling very well. I have a cold and although I should rest, my inclination is to keep going. Right now, I am writing when I probably should be resting. What happens when I rest is this: At first I feel resistance, a desire to get up and drink something, or send another e-mail, or blow my nose. When I sit with this, I begin to feel the resistance as my friend, showing me how under all that energetic activity there really is a desire to rest. When I surrender to the rest, everything falls into place. I can almost feel the self healing happening in my body. I begin to participate in not just recovery from my day, but truly resting into the moment, into the space and into my sensate body.

Maybe then I will fall asleep and dream of scaling the heights and let my body heal while I continue my movement lifestyle in my sleep.