“It’s not happiness that makes us grateful but gratefulness that makes us happy.” – Br. David Steindl Rast
A note from Erin: Hello, friends! We’ve just returned from a lovely trip including 5 days in D.C. visiting family and 5 days in northern California for our Grief Ritual Training. Our family’s been passing around a nasty virus where each of us has been sick twice in a row. I call it the magic-relighting-birthday-candle-cold. I got my round…
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A note from Carl: Greetings from a beautiful morning in San Francisco. Erin and I arrived here yesterday, and begin our grief ritual facilitation training with Francis Weller this afternoon. We keep joking that this is our “grief date” as it is only the second weekend we have been away from our almost 9-year-old son. Really,…
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A note from Erin: these beautiful little seasonal invitations to mindfulness are created by my dear friend at https://wrennarose.com/ Long ago I fell in love with a beautiful little book called I Will Not Die an Unlived Life by Dawna Markova, (who, serendipitously I got to meet and spend time with during our Embodied Life training years later.) I…
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A note from Carl: On Monday morning, Erin and I were sitting together on bench in front of our house, deeply enjoying a cup of coffee. It was the first sunny morning after days of rain, and as the light was beaming in over the top of the Wasatch mountains, a tiny yellow finch feather…
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A note from Erin: Salutations! I’m writing to you on a lively, rainy spring morning here in Salt Lake City. We’re alive! We get another spring! Yippee! A few notes before today’s writing: Local friends – this weekend in Salt Lake City we’re offering a wonderful workshop and Feldenkrais immersion: Improve The Way You Move. It will…
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A note from Carl: Friends, Before I begin today’s writing, I want to let you know that we still have space for you in next weekend’s immersion in Salt Lake City: Improve The Way You Move. It will be an awesome weekend of embodied learning and we can’t wait!! Details are below. Join us for one or…
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A note from Erin: First, I want to send an ocean of thanks to everyone who donated to our grief ritual training. It’s miraculous to feel so supported and held by a community of generous hearts as we go deeper into this work. We’re deeply grateful. If you didn’t read last week’s newsletter and wonder…
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A note from Erin: Hi Friends, I’m excited to land in your inbox today!! We’ve missed two weeks of newsletters due to my being away on a meditation retreat, then Carl and our boy traveling to visit friends. We’re back, and I’m so excited to connect! I’ve done something new today – I recorded a…
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A note from Erin: Hi Friends, I’m sitting at my cozy warm desk, watching shiny little droplets fall off the numerous icicles hanging from our roof. We had such an epic snow day yesterday! Schools were closed for the first time in years, and we gratefully tucked in with all the hot beverages, lots of…
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A note from Carl: Yesterday, a client was describing her experience in the natural movement and functional fitness class that I began last week. She said “The word that kept coming up for me throughout the whole class was ‘unlearning.‘” I reflected on how essential this observation was to how and what Erin and I teach and what we…
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A note from Erin: Hello, friends! I hope this note finds you having your heart slayed with delight about something, in spite of everything else. Birdsong? Cloudscapes? Someone’s laugh? A stranger’s kindness? A hot shower? A reliable old tree? The tiny pink tongue of a cat? The attentive ears and soulful gaze of a deer? This weekend…
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A note from Carl: I had just finished writing today’s email about Mary Oliver, and was about to hit send when I saw the news that she died today at 83. My heart is raw with appreciation and loss. What a gift her life brought to the world… I love the story of an interviewer asking Mary Oliver how she…
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A note from Erin: Hello, friends! I hope this note finds you having your heart slayed with delight about something, in spite of everything else. Birdsong? Cloudscapes? Someone’s laugh? A stranger’s kindness? A hot shower? A reliable old tree? The tiny pink tongue of a cat? The attentive ears and soulful gaze of a deer? This weekend…
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A note from Erin: Hello friends! I’m sitting here at my desk, reveling in the extra-jubilant bird song that’s happening just outside my window this morning. I think the sparrows, finches, chickadees, and starlings are celebrating the return of the light, as am I, even though it’s a muted gray-sky day. The return of the…
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A note from Carl: A very Happy New Year to you! To begin with today, we’d like to offer you a guided Awareness Through Movement Lesson, Free Your Breathing, taught by Erin, from our 15 Favorite Feldy Lessons Series. After the holidays who couldn’t use a quiet half hour on the floor cultivating inner spaciousness and free breathing? We have…
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A note from Erin: I’m sitting on my red couch, sipping English Breakfast tea as snow falls outside the window. It’s quiet. We’ve just driven home from a family gathering which has been wonderful and wonderfully not quiet. Our boy is thrilled to be romping around with 3 younger cousins; we’ve enjoyed our traditional holiday meal of…
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A note from Carl: A very Happy Solstice to you! Before I begin this week’s writing, we want to wish you the happiest of holidays. We are grateful for your presence in our lives. We are both so excited for 2019 and have many offerings coming, including Erin’s New Year retreat day, Embodied Listening Course (and she’s…
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A note from Erin: I’ve been deeply moved by this perspective since I heard Michael Meade say it in a recent podcast. It’s so true to my experience, though I so often forget and think I need more time. Choosing to pause and lean into the timeless takes courage in this speedy modern culture, yet…
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A note from Carl: I always love it when a particular theme pops up in several aspects of life. It feels like the muses are knocking, trying to make their way in. This last week, the theme has been about service. A couple of weeks ago, we were speaking with Charles Eisenstein for our podcast. At one point in the…
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A note from Erin: Hello, lovely humans. First things first: Are you comfortable? Is your belly soft enough that breath can make its way down? What might like to unclench – your jaw, your neck, your back, your hips, your hands, your toes, your eyes? Can you sense the support of the ground beneath you?…
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A note from Carl: Greetings Friends! After a two-month hiatus, I am back to the newsletter. (Thank you to Erin for covering my weeks.) I just completed an 8-week training in the Structural Integration work of Dr. Ida Rolf. I’ve been practicing Structural Integration for 16 years, and with each round of training, I fall more…
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A note from Erin: The beautiful bowl we created at a recent Grief Tending Ritual. Hi friends, Guess what! In this post we are selling nothing. There is nothing you need to respond to or stress about. Take a few deep breaths and read at your leisure, if you’re so inspired. I’m inspired to share…
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A note from Erin A few years back, we traveled to Tucson, AZ, to attend a retreat with clinical psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach, whom we adore. We were invited to do a particularly touching practice on the final afternoon of the retreat. We each partnered with a stranger and spent 5 minutes each in the following inquiry: The…
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A note from Erin: Hi friends, I missed writing to you last week. My beloved Carl has been attending a professional training from 9-5:30 weekdays and it’s impacted us in a big way! One aspect is that you’ll just be reading my voice here for the next month or so as Carl completes his current…
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Hello, friends, Many years ago my heart was pierced when reading Francis Weller’s statement, “The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other, and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give.” Funny how one sentence can…
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A note from Erin: Hello, friends, I think Dr. Estes said it well when she named the miles and miles of aching scar tissue in the world this week. I’ve been watching part of the hearings with Dr. Blasey Ford this morning andhooooo, it’s intense. I have a chill I can’t seem to shake, despite…
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A note from Erin: Hello, friends! A few updates before I share today’s writing: I still have a few spaces left in my Empelvised Embellied Empowered class for women which starts on October 1st. It’s a life-changer! Details are below and here. I’ve been engaged in a beautiful and powerful conversation on Facebook, of all places, on this topic of inhabiting your belly…
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A note from Erin: Hello, friends! A few things before I share today’s writing: I have a few spaces left in my Empelvised Embellied Empowered class for women starting on October 1st. It’s a life-changer! Details are below and here. As you read, I’m on my way to New Mexico to spend a few days with loved ones in Santa…
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A note from Carl: I’m sitting on our porch on a cool, early September morning. The goldenrod and the tall, feathery grasses catch the light. I just love this time of year! With our son back in school, I drive him to drop-off most mornings. His school is in a local canyon, so there are…
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Hi friends! We had such a wonderful time at our weekend workshop on walking & posture through a Feldenkrais-lens. I’m inspired to share some basics with you because this work, while in some ways deceptively simple, is, in fact, radical, transformative, and deeply profound. One question we ask students (and ourselves) during movement lessons (and…
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