Sensing Feeling Dancing SELF in a Climate of Great Change

Sensing Feeling Dancing SELF in a Climate of Great Change

This workshop is still avaiiable. It can be danced in a group or one on one, 

When I first proposed this dance journey it was fundamentally a response to the fires that we were experiencing in Australia. We were worn out. Even those of us who were not directly impacted by the devastation and loss were affected. emotionally spiritually, physically, we grieve together as we witnessed the loss of lives, loves and homes, forests, animals and plant species. Our beautiful unique island home has been directly hit by this expression of Mother Earth as she adjusts to the constantly changing climate that has brought us here to this place.

 Some days the air was thick with smoke in Melbourne even though the fires were not close. We were reminded of what was happening day in day out through much of the eastern side of the continent and afar. We have had the impact of Global Warming bought to the forefront of our psyche As the fires died down, people began to contemplate rebuilding their lives and the talk of real climate action was in the air. Then our of left field the Corona Virus, Covid 19 began to take shape. We watched it move through China then, Italy and then the rest of the world and us here.

 Who could have ever imagined that a Virus would shut down the world. Never in our wildest dreams, maybe in the movies. My 86 year old mother does not leave house. She experienced the 2nd world war, bombs dropping around her, she keeps saying this is a war. She is feeling this, in her body.

 But the war is not bombs.

 More loss, lives, jobs, freedom, quality of life Luckily in Australia we can go walking in parks and around the neighbourhood. Sometime at 5pm I feel like I am in Italy, Australians seem to have taken to doing a pasegatta. We are doing what they can’t do in Italy, there is not walking allowed there.

 So here with a booming flourishing life online. After some time sorting myself out and feeling overwhelmed by the situation in general and all the online activity and offerings, I am now ready to share the work

 Sensing Feeling Dancing what arrises in a bath of breath, movement, heart connectives, time, space, sound, colour and cellular awareness, through deep creative processes

 The purpose of this dance is to find and create resources and tools that will help you navigate this time of great Change. To develop a sense of embodiment and sustainment as we move toward an ever changing unknown future.

 How do we thrive in this strange and perplexing event with authenticity and vulnerability and keep our “SELF” in tact?

 How do we maintain faith and hope and keep our hearts open?

 Come Join Me!

    The Sacred Connection

    The Sacred Connection

    A conversation between the sacrum the heart and our innate sexuality

    This workshop has taken place in:

    Senigallia  Italy 6 July 2019

     Milano Itlay 29th & 30th July 2019

    Melbourne Aust 30 Nov & 1 Dec 2019

    FEEDBACK

    The space that Maria creates in her workshops brings me to a different dimension of peace, love and harmony.

    Working through the body somatically as we are allowed in our own time to let go of past traumas, pain.   This is done so very gently that you hardly feel it, and when finished you are left with a feeling of just being.   Just being in my own presence feeling safe, love and accepted.

    As a human being what else is there than being one with yourself and therefore with others.

    Thank you Maria for an amazing experience. 

    Love & Light. Toni. Yoga Teacher. 

    Being 60 fills with a sense of being in my perfectly non perfect existence. Every day I practice acts of attempted authenticity. Rising up stumbling and falling and getting up again. 

    I was sharing with a friend that when I began my long career as an Artist model at the age of 19 I felt a great sense of belonging and personal freedom. I discovered that being naked was so natural to me and on top of that I was paid to be naked. I am one of those people that when it is hot I take my cloths off and when it is cold I put them on. So in spite of the things that happen to me as a small child, things that should not have happened, somehow in me there was something bigger than all of that, that allowed me on some levels to be able to be comfortable in my skin. I have the same feeling with my sexuality, but due to that past experience it was complicated.  I have learnt a lot about myself in the healing process. When I took up Egyptian dance at the age of 29 the door opened to an ancient wisdom that dwelled inside me, the challenge to embrace my femaleness and to a journey of self discovery through this primordial and essential dance. This dance lead me to other movement healing modalities that took me to become a Dance Movement Therapsit that became the foundation of my work.   

    Delving into the potential naturalness and normality of our sexuality. Aligning itself to our hearts desire and the meaning of self love and unconditional acceptance.  Our beautiful, bountiful and boundless heart holding us physically, emotionally and spiritually in our sacredness.    

    We deal with distorted anomalies around our sexuality, mostly focuses around women. In a privileged country such as australia we can run or attend a workshop such as this one. As we who can reclaim the right to embrace our natural selves for ourselves including our sexual organs, we can help open the portal for all women of all cultures.  Once we can individuate ourselves and our sexual expression we can then navigate our wants, needs and right in relationship to other. To do this we must create a compassionate and self loving path to the heart. 

    Through authority in the acknowledgement that much of what we believe about the feminine has been filtered through the eyes of a patriarchal context. We have to know and care about this. We are trying. 

    In this creative, expressive, movement and dance workshop we will address these themes. Deepening our relationship to the heart connection, to our personal expression of sexuality and joy. 

    Through the expansion of the relationship we have with ourselves we can the meet the other.  

    When Food is Love and Love is Food

    When Food is Love and Love is Food


    We are multidimensional people, a “community of selves” (Glen Ochre). These selves are facets of us that at times are in harmony and other time in conflict. It does not matter, they are all valid and a deep part of us, even the ones that constantly create havoc are valid. It is possible that their behaviour is no longer needed, but, for some reason it continues to show itself. It takes a lot of time compassion and patients to allow the voice of the conflictual one to be still.  In this workshop “When food is love and love is food”, we look at the voices that want to eat in a way that creates havoc and sends all the selves into disarray. You could be the CEO of the successful company, a fabulous mother, run you own business, loved and admired by friends and community, an inspirational teacher, a brilliant and successful therapist in high demand. At the same time in your brilliance you could also be  a compulsive eater, food addict, bulimic, obese, anorexia or a binge eater or some of all.

    We are plagued by these voices that at times isolate and diminish us, that lead us down a dark hole of remoteness, deep sadness and self loathing.

    I am one of these people.

    I am well aware these are labels and labels are not always good, but for me they help me to identify a particular behaviour, not the person themselves or myself,  I have lived with the voice of a compulsive over eater, food addict, binge eater, for nearly as long as I have been alive and that is a long time. Through much therapy, face to face and online, self-help programs, lots of research, every book you can imagine, some brilliant some not so good and a lots of personal work and deep souls searching and sharing my story with others who have similare stories,  I have come to a place where I have just about leant to accept myself as I am.

    I understand, how it began and why.

    I understand that for very good reasons food became my best friend. Easy to access, full of feel good endorphins, just a hand reach away.  I can accept that I have a wardrobe full of clothes that don’t all fit me, that did fit me, that sometimes fit, that may never fit me again.  I have accepted that eating is a metaphor, for how I am feeling and what I am needing. I have learnt that I am not the food or the over eater. I have nearly accepted my body shape, particularly my belly with all the social implication that it represents. Mostly I have learnt that many like me, whether we over eat or under eat, it is about love. Food is Love and Love is Food, it’s a simple as that . . . but not so simple. For most of us we were simply not loved properly, not enough hugs and cuddles. We were neglected and abused, we were invisible, lonely and misunderstood. Or your reason could be different, but I am pretty sure that love is the key.

    Journey with me softly as we embark together on this very delicate subject, sharing our stories, through dance, movement, spoken and written word, drawing and ritual.

    So dear women, if one of both ( Feeling Sexy at any Age Shape or Size )  of these stories resonate with you please join me in these Dance Movement Therapy, Creative Arts, Ritual workshops

    welcome you to a safe space of no more than 8 women.

    Feeling Sexy at any Age Shape or Size

    Feeling Sexy at any Age Shape or Size


    As I move through my Saturn return, venturing towards 60, I personally feel it important to live an authentic life as possible. A part of this dance is honouring my sexuality and what it means to me. We humans sometimes get things a bit wrong, like the word ‘Sexy’. Who does this word belong to? When I was dreaming up the workshop I will be presenting, I shared the idea with a friend. She suggested that I not use the word ‘Sexy’ because she felt that the word was often used by men to objectify women and along with this goes a particular image that most women do not identify with.  I can totally understand this, it is essentially true. I kept pondering and reflecting. I want to present a workshop where all women feel special exactly how they are. To feel the inner fire in their belly and their sexual organs, to be able to feel and honour all body sensation, as something that is a naturally delicious expression first and fore most of and for themselves.

    I decided to keep it. I want to claim Sexy as a word that can belong to women without any strings attached. Let go of what men think, say and do around this word and the subject. Feeling Sexy at Any Age Shape or Size for ourselves. As an aside, in Japan few women feel and relate to being sexy. Instead it is all about cuteness, the aim is to be cute.   This is sold to them daily in the media,  it is still the same story … just a different package.

    I am an ambassador of the Body Image movement and I love being a part of it. There is a wonderful situation emerging, which is that, there are many more similar movements all around the world that are creating a wave of acceptance and looking at what makes us think or believe that we are not beautiful or sexy just the way we are.

    Women. being embodied, gorgeous and free to express ourselves how we wish. To see the beauty in other women without fear and non-conditioned eyes.  Free to live our sexiness any way we want, not how it may be portrayed to us as a patriarchal construct, the media or convoluted social norms devised predominately to divide us and keep us busy with superficial thing.  These constructs keep us away from being more cohesive and robust both individually and as a collective.

    So dear women, if one of both ( When Food is Love and Love is Food )  of these stories resonate with you please join me in these Dance Movement Therapy, Creative Arts, Ritual workshops

    I welcome you to a safe space of no more than 8 women.

     

    Authentic Movement & SensingFeelingDancing 

    Authentic Movement & SensingFeelingDancing 

    Date: Friday’s from October 13th to November 3rd
    Time: 7 – 9.30 pm
    Place: Inner Movement Centre, 32 Lower Heidelberg Rd, Ivanhoe
    Through Authentic Movement, in the dialogue between the Mover and the Witness, we reside in the active stillness of the body, listening to sensations, feelings, thoughts, emotions.  Here lies is the potential to bring one to a place of vulnerability and truth. 
    The Mover emboldens the Inner Witness from a mindful, aware, sensory, embodied, place. Allowing the self to move and be moved, from the deeply blessed purity of one’s existence. This act of perpetuating self-knowledge can be a catalyst towards clarity, understanding and freedom. 
     
    From the silent practice of Authentic Movement, we will move into SensingfeelingDancing, journeying, through the changing moods, rhythms, styles of music from all over the globe. 
     
    This 4 week Authentic Movement and dance practice including writing and drawing
    Cost $100 for 4 sessions.  $30 casual
     
    Embodied Bellydance® The Bones of Egyptian Dance

    Embodied Bellydance® The Bones of Egyptian Dance

    What we are looking for is the fluid relationship between the bones and the spaces in-between.

    Our living bones are wet, flexible, and strong not dry and brittle as we may perceive. the are filled with the life force of marrow.

    We are 70% – 80% water, bones in water full of water.

    The knowing that it is the bones that shape us, when we focus on the bones the Muscles respond acrodingling, not the other way around.

    Bones are our foundation. they represent earth, they are at one with Mother Earth. Remembering the bones is rememeber mother earth.

    Remembering our bones creates graceful elegant, fluid movements. We feel the support as the bones of our feet spreading downwards into the earth. The feeling give us freedom and release, a feeling of when to be supported and when to let go, as we weave the Yin Yang story of the dance through our body.