Tending the Deep Roots

Hello, beautiful human,

A teacher of mine used to say “Increasing complexity requires deeper roots,” and wow, how about the complexity these days? It seems to me we need to tend our deep roots. To have a tap root down deep, burrowed into what really matters, tapped into our sane, soulful, adult selves, even as our branches may be shaken by the winds of change. To have our roots tucked gently into the ancient vows that are buried deep in our hearts. To root into our sense of humor and a sense of workability, into a felt relationship with the living land beneath our feet, to root in reverent noticing of the beautiful entanglement with so many other lives. I’m appreciating my human neighbors as well as the hummingbirds, squirrels, roses, vultures, lemon balm, doves, bees, butterflies, mullein, maple tree, squash plants, mountain creeks, and oh, the mountains themselves. It helps so much, doesn’t it, to remember to drop into the deeper currents of being that exist way down beneath the chop at the surface? And into those relationships that remind us of our connectedness and our sanity? I hope you have many ways to root into the depths. As the quote from Francis Weller states: Never doubt that each of us is essential to the welfare of the village. Everyone is a vector. Choose what you spread.

Everything Carl and I offer is an attempt to spread mindful and embodied presence, warm hearted compassion, authentic humanity, reverence for beauty, and the reminder that we can always begin again. It’s an attempt to invite us to continue, even against the odds, to deepen our intimacy with life through direct, felt experience; through honoring gratitude and grief, and an invitation to keep holding the vision in our hearts of a more sane, safe, equitable, generous, beautiful, thriving world. Whether through meditation, movement, grief and praise practice, poetry, somatic practices, or deep ecology and The Work that Reconnects, we hope to send ripples of steady lovingkindness and blow seeds of possibility into the world.

What are you hoping to spread?

I’d love to share with you today a few offerings that may offer support during these tumultuous times. I’ll also share a few resources you might find nourishing.

May your roots be deep and may you feel well nourished by the beauty of the world in the midst of it all.

As my dear friend Brooke McNamara writes in one of her gorgeous poems,

“The Best Dream

You right now

waking up

to play the part

of love’s guts.”

May we all enact the dream.

With rooted love,
Erin

Radical Gratitude & The Practice of Praise. While I’ve been hosting regular praise practices every other month for quite some time, I see that we need more regular support to strengthen this important muscle together. I’d love for you to join me in this simple, practice-focused 5-week class starting in July. Yes, even now with the world in the shape it is in. And no, we’re not bypassing or bright-siding the many challenges in the world right now. We’re practicing to meet them with well-nourished hearts. Read more and sign up here. It just might change your life. ❤️

Join Carl for an afternoon weaving a blend of Feldenkrais lessons, guided natural movement explorations, somatic meditations, along with soulful poetry and time for questions and reflections – all to bring you home to your animal body.

You are welcome at any age, in any size, in any shape. Options will be provided if any of the movements are not available to you for whatever reason.

The workshop will be recorded, and all registrants will receive the recording whether or not you can attend live. Read more and sign up here. 

With the current assault on reproductive rights and assault on bodily autonomy happening in my country, I’m inspired to share this poem from our poet laureate, Joy Harjo, along with an invitation to feel our way into the kind of soul activism and power that is sourced in relationship with our more-than-human kin. May it be a balm.

❤ We are in love with the format of our newest offering, Weaving Glimpses! Have you read about it or signed up yet? We’ll have registration open for about another month before we close it for this first cohort. Check it out! Just $19/month. We’re getting great feedback that these micro-practices are super helpful and doable even for people who don’t like online classes. And we are loving making them! We’ll be writing again soon with an exciting invitation to join us for a taster and a live zoom call.

❤ Join us in the Embodiment Lab where we’re having so much fun with weekly movement lessons, guided practices, reflections, poetry, community conversation and more, offered in a self-paced format. Our upcoming topics are juicy:

July 4 – Free Your Pelvis 
Aug. 1 – Exploring Your Eyes
Sep. 5 – Shoulder Liberation

Oct. 3 – A Strong & Supple Spine
Nov. 7 – Biological Optimism
Dec. 5 – The Art of Walking

Just $50/month. Embodiment truly matters! Sign up here. 

❤  With a new covid surge, we’re unsure whether we’ll be following through with our aspirations to host a retreat this fall at the gorgeous Ghost Ranch retreat center. We thank you for your interest and for your understanding. We’ll keep you posted – and in the meantime, we are so grateful for the ways technology lets us weave our lives together from afar. May you and your beloveds be safe and well.

❤ More updates coming soon!

Our podcast is a freely-shared, ad-free, listener-supported offering from our hearts. New episodes coming soon.

We’re so grateful for your support of these soulful conversations. If you’ve not yet donated and would like to support us to keep sharing this podcast, please go here to donate $2/month or go here to donate other amounts. Thank you so much!! We couldn’t do this without your support. ❤️ New episodes coming very soon!

Check out this gorgeous free class, Detours of Delight,  from my dear friend Wrenna Rose!

This looks like a great class.

As a person with a business and as someone who believes in making culture, I always appreciate her writings.

This is so beautiful.

And this too.

I love this website and her amazing collection of creative recipes made from wild foods.

I found this fascinating.

I’m excited to dive into this!!

Loved this book.

I keep rereading this and this.

What’s inspiring you these days?

Thanks so very much for being a part of our lives. We’re grateful for our connection and for you for making the world a more kind and embodied place.

From our hearts ️❤️❤️

Erin and Carl

ErinGeesamanRabke@gmail.com
Erin@embodimentmatters.com

We respectfully acknowledge that we live and work on the gorgeous stolen ancestral lands of the Ute, Shoshone, Goshute, and Paiute nations.

Our preferred pronouns are she/her (Erin) and he/him (Carl.)

Life is short.

Cheers to inhabiting our embodied lives beyond the screen and not letting email guilt rule our days!

and Functional Integration® are registered service marks;

Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner  ® and

Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher ® are certification marks of the

Feldenkrais Guild ® of North America.