Blessings for a fruitful and soul-warming fall! In gratitude and joy I am thrilled to say DOWH continues to grow and change. In October's newsletter you will hear about:
Hope to see you at the Dovercourt House this fall for a DOWH session, an ecstatic dance or at one of the 'Sundays with the Muse' pay-what-u-want workshops.
Blessings,
Erica and the DOWH tribe
I am thrilled to say that we have a new community page on the DOWH website called "About Us", replacing "About Erica". This new page acknowledges the many wonderful people who grace DOWH, past, present and future. Amongst them is a new DOWH facilitator, Caro Cloutier, and 2 new apprentices, Mari Rossi and Twyla Kowalenko. Allow me to introduce them to you:
Caro is a practicing expressive arts therapist and energy medicine practitioner. She invokes sacredness and healing experiences by engaging participants to rekindle their sense of play, creativity and self-expression. Caro's expressive arts therapy is inspired by drama, visual art, movement, toning or sounding, storytelling, text, symbolism, mythic mapping and ceremony. Caro looks forward to offering a 6-Week Series in January/February 2010 around the theme of 'Dreaming'. Details will be posted soon!
Three years ago serendipity brought Mari to DOWH, and in this practice she found a way to deepen her healing journey. She had been dancing different modalities, including ballet, jazz, modern and expressive, since she was a child in Brazil. Mari completed her training as a yoga teacher at The Yoga Sanctuary in Toronto and recently studied at Baby and Me Fitness to become a certified Pre and Post-natal fitness and yoga instructor. She is now taking a break from her studies in psychology at the University of Toronto and from ISIS’s Expressive Art Therapy program, to raise her beautiful newborn daughter. Mari is excited to help Erica in the creation of the DOWH Teacher Training Programme as well as offer Dance Our Way Home to pregnant women and new moms in the near future.
Twyla is a dancer, an activist, a yogini, a social worker, a healer, a writer, a fundraiser, a cat lover and counsellor whose journey has taken her many places. She is very excited to become part of DOWH, continuing to follow the spiral both outwards and inwards. She looks forward to sharing her experience and compassion and joining Erica in continuing to cultivate space to allow women to venture into new territory. She is eager to continue her own self-exploration and understanding through dance, movement and creativity, adding both physical and spiritual components to the therapy and healing she offers others. By bringing in a great amount of acceptance and openness as well as a willingness to explore, create and innovate, Twyla looks forward to accompanying her sisters as they explore their own truth.
Saturday, October 31, '09 2-4pm (Halloween/Samhain)
Wednesday, November 4, '09 6:15-7:45
Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Rd. $13 per dance
Come join us in these 2 ecstatic dances to celebrate Halloween (Samhain)!
With a less instructional venue than a DOWH workshop or series; there will be an opening circle followed by a long, delicious musical set (soul, global funk, sacred chants, ambient, electronica, women's voices and more) designed to liberate your inner dancer. We'll end in a simple prayerful closing circle.No experience needed, only a willingness to move, and be moved.
Drop-in whenever. No registration needed.
Sundays with the Muse, November 15, 2:30-5:30pm, Pay-What-U-Want!
Celebrate your sacred self in a healing circle of women, inspired by sounding, chanting, movement and journalling.
Come experience this unique opportunity to feel the power and gentleness of a women's healing circle. Through sounding, breathwork, chanting, movement and journalling, you will be both receiver and giver of sacred healing, connection and expression. Nan Keyser, and her beautiful and soothing voice, will inspire and support you in your own healing journey, tapping into the richness and potency of Divine Feminine sound medicine. Bring a journal and pen, and blanket to lie or sit on.
For the full 'Sundays with the Muse' lineup, and to register for this and other workshops, click HERE.
Saturday Series, November 7- December 12 2-4pm $135 series
Wednesday Series, November 11 - December 16 6:15-7:45pm $105 series/$19 sessionThis Series, either on Saturdays or Wednesday nights, offers you the DOWH journey and practice of relaxing and softening your being, as well as letting go of what no longer serves you. You will be nourished from head to toe, heart to soul, and mind to heart, with beautiful experiences of honouring and caring for your sacred self.
The 6 weekly invitations will be: Honouring Your Feelings, Nourishment, Sacred Sensuality, You are the One You’ve Been Waiting for, Letting Go: Dropping into Water and Dancing with Everything.
Wednesday night series sessions are open for drop-ins! Please e-mail ahead to say you are coming.
To register for the Saturday afternoon Series, click HERE.
To register for the Wednesday night Series, click HERE.
As promised, here is book #2 in the "Recommended Reading" Series. This book is from my personal collection of Divine Feminine mythology entitled, "The Storyteller’s Goddess, Tales of the Goddess and her Wisdom from Around the World", by Carolyn McVickar Edwards, printed by Harper Collins, Copyright 1991.
The Storyteller’s Goddess is a collection of thirty enchanting, richly imaginative stories of Goddesses from twenty cultures including India, Ireland, Greece, Scandinavia and the Middle East. These stories, both invented and found by the author, are accompanied by introductions that place them in cultural and historical context, giving Carolyn’s imaginative stories roots, depth and significance.
In this soft-covered book you will find inspirational, relevant and healing stories based on Carolyn’s seven ‘Goddess Principles: Truths Inside of Truths’. Themes such as surrender, creativity, sexuality, archetypes and cycles are fleshed out through the mythic journeys of global Goddesses such as Hawaii’s Pele, Ancient Turkey’s Hecate, Ireland’s Brigit, North Africa’s Lamia and China’s Kuan Yin.
To read the rest of this review, click HERE.
Look for book review #3, "Coming Home to Myself" by Marion Woodman and Jill Mellick in November's newsletter.