December 19th is Winter Solstice Dance Night

Come join us to dance a celebration of the winter solstice on Saturday night, December 19, at Spokane Yoga Shala. Doors open at 6:30 for warmup, and we will call the circle at 7:00.

In Roman times, the time of the solstice was marked by the feast days of Saturnalia. This was also known throughout pagan Europe as the Feast of Fools. Eventually, this became the Christian 12 days of Christmas, which began on December 25th and ended with Epiphany on January 6th. The traditions called for a time of revelry and role reversal. This theme emerged from an older, earth-based spirituality that drew upon a deep understanding of the rhythms and cycles of the planet in the northern hemisphere, as it revolved around the sun through the millenia.

More later...just mark your calendars now!

All the Hemispheres - Hafiz

I am reminded at this time of year that the solstice isn't the same at the equator, where days and nights dance in an equal balance. This poem gives me a feeling of the Great Circle we dance in our lives on this beautiful planet.

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
in your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of you.

-- Hafiz
(The Subject Tonight is Love, versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Gratitude Dance This Saturday Night at Yoga Shala

This month marks the 2nd anniversary of Ecstatic Dance in Spokane!! This month's Ecstatic Dance intention provides us an opportunity to celebrate our gratitude for the miraculous gift of our lives on this planet in this time of growth and transformation. So, come dance your Thank You! in a collective embrace of soul and body. Bring your Friend!

How can we express gratitude in our dance? We can let go of our cynicism, our attitudes of self-judgment and criticism. We can offer our dances of joy as a prayer for our tribe and the planet. We can dance with a recognition that we are all beautiful embodied beings, showing up in the fullness of our power, embracing grace as Movers of Light the to beat of our drums. We can express our hearts.

Ecstatic Dance is all about it!

Hope to see you on the dance floor!

Gratitude Dance

"Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion, when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing until there is only. . .the dance."

-Michael Jackson, 1992