Sacred and Naked Yoga, Why Naked You Ask?

For years I have been offering Sacred and Naked Yoga.  And yes, many of you have noticed that my performances often share the same transparency, honoring of my parents' sacred costuming if you will.  My mom recently asked me on my way to the Clear Creek Festival if I would be performing with clothes on this time.  She said to be honest she'd be more inclined to invite our relatives if I had clothes on.  "Mom, I'll be more naked than I've ever been but with clothes on!"  We laughed.  She knew I was speaking of the vulnerability, the rawness of the content of my one woman show, Trust, Earth, Ancestors...

Photo by Monique Torok
Unphotoshopped :)

Last week I taught at a conference for socially conscious entrepreneurs.  We were focusing on the third chakra and I invited folks if they felt comfortable to lift their shirt and work directly with their bellies.  I heard a sound next to me.  "Ok, ok, we're courageous enough to change the world, but lifting our shirts might be too much.  Well we're taking baby steps, let's start with where we are."

Naked.  So for some folks this seems like a big ordeal, noted.  I want to share something.  I know that I'm petite.  I know that my body is proportionate and that society endorses a beauty that I am lucky enough to fit into.  I am not oblivious to this privilege.  And I'd like to share this...

Being naked sensitizes the body and makes it easier for us to really feel.  It creates a dynamic of trust in the room.  It is only because most of our daily social interactions create a norm of clothing the body that coming together in the nude becomes an opportunity to live beyond social norms.  This is particularly true when we honor our body and our sexuality as sacred.  The context for how we come together to celebrate our wholeness is what gives our nakedness power.  Deep breathing, remembering how similar we are.  These are the smells of our human forms.  These are the scars, this is how our inhales move our ribs.  This is how tension has sculped our necks and feet.  This is the exquisite living design.  For these 90 minutes we join the baby animals and freshly born humans in comfort inside our bodies.  There's an innocence under all those layers.

The Return of Innocence: Performing at the American Dance Guild

On Sept 6, 2012, I had the honor dancing Swing Us Sky Rain(bow) at the American Dance Guild Performance Festival.  The piece was choreographed by Shani Collins-Achille and focused on breaking the generational cycle of domestic abuse.

Shani facilitates women's circles for empowerment and this was the perfect intersection of the healing and performing we are here to create.  When the lights come up I am the only one laying on the ground, representing those women who have fallen.  My 5 sisters are walking softly around me dropping rose petals with compassion and starting the first moves of a dance that will ignite all of us into our fierceness.

During tech week I had the honor of facilitating our cast to get more connected to the work and to each other.  The piece centered on Ursula Rucker's poem, The Return of Innocence Lost (see below.)  The dancers were so strong, so embodied, so passionate during this sound scape.

As we sat in circle preparing to share this work at the Alvin Ailey Theatre I shared this dedication:

For the women who have only known this

For the women who used to know this

For those of us healing our ancestries through the revolution of self love,

the sacred ending of relationships too small for our souls to fit in,

whether from addiction

from fear

from the medicine of sex turned toxic.

Our strength is part of you.

Our sweaty muscles, quickened breaths,

clear visioned eyes are yours too.

Our orgasms, our joy our peaceful nights of sleep

are sweetening the air for you to inhale,

to breathe deep within your lungs,

soft bellies, blessed wombs.

Be here with us now.

Remember the members of your being,

your life giving breasts,

your steady feet,

your truth speaking lips.

Be here full bodied with us now.

And let yourselves, perhaps for the first time,

receive.