Well, here we are. Another chapter ending and a new year beginning in linear time – all the while the earth in the northern hemisphere quiets. The tension in these rhythms is palpable to me as I practice surrendering into wintering while the world rages.
– Current Practice: With this chapter of the moon, in the daily practice, we are exploring the felt experience of emptiness (Wuji) as the moon wanes. We are also exploring the quality of sinking or yielding (Chen) and through the yielding, the ease in the effort, the being in the doing – the Wuwei. Embodying these qualities through the simple practice of qi gong supports the capacity to drop into heart coherence breathing as we cultivate regenerative emotions for ourselves and each other.
– Gift: Because we have already begun this sadhana (12/27/23 – 1/13/24), I am offering the rest of it as a gift to you. If you’d like to join us, reply to this email and I will get you the link if you don’t already have it.
– Recordings: If daily morning practice is not your jam, here is a recording of the practice for you to explore in your own timing. There is an option to join the breathwork via recordings.
– Scholarship: And lastly, don’t let finances be a barrier, I have a generous scholarship rate if things are tight.
Alicia Barmon, LCPC, C-IAYT, SEP, specializes in Breathwork for trauma. When searching for breathwork near me Practice Breathwork is the breathing community you have been looking for. Alicia also provides Somatic Practices and Psychotherapy at Ahimsa Therapy in Frederick Maryland. Although her services are offered primarily in the virtual space, Alicia also has a physical sacred space in Frederick Maryland, please inquire.
I have enjoyed breaking up the monotony of capitalist linearity with the waxing and waning of time as held by the moon’s rhythm. She offers a kinder expression of marking time that is not forward and rigid in its proclivities but rather waving into expansion and contraction like the breath.
My ritual for this moment of transition is informed by my continued practice to unlearn the “more, better, grow at all cost” paradigm and shift into the wisdom of the seasons supported by the ever-present waxing and waning of the moon.
The breathwork sangha is entering its 4th year of daily practice.
I would not be able to keep going if it weren’t for my own need to breathe in community. I have tried to do it alone but have learned that I need people to practice peace and compassion. Regenerative emotions are relational for me. I need to feel myself with others to be able to let down out of the dominant culture’s chaotic rigidity.
Committing to daily morning practice has changed my life. I have come to cherish the morning hours and the sangha that joins – the skeins of geese, the Nuthatch, the four leggeds, the silence and the other committed humans that have lingered into the morning with me. Finding a way to start my day in a practice of consciously slowing down in movement and breath is everything to me given that the ancestral pattern to numb is so strong in my lineage.
I especially look forward to our monthly RAINN practice and Quaker Shares. There is something about anchoring into a monthly ritual that turns toward suffering, held in the womb of community, that alleviates the loneliness that comes with pain in this culture, at least for me.
It amazes me how persistent the story of separation is. It’s still my default mode even though I have known otherwise for a long time. It’s something I need to consciously practice everyday and communing with my breath in community helps anchor the remembering that we are all connected and that we need each other to survive.
So much love,
Alicia
Ps. if you’ve gotten this far, please join me in a little giggle about the image with this email. My 14 year old son and I had fun creating it.
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