A Warm Welcome to ‘Movement Tribe’ – Feb 2019
By Ya’Acov Darling Khan
Hello all and a very happy new year to you. I’ve had the simplest and most beautiful start to the year I’ve ever had. Thanks to Susannah having to deal with a minor medical emergency (a tooth related genuinely minor thing but serious enough that we had to cancel a trip to Costa Rica) we spent a month at home together as a family. I say ‘as a family’ because Reuben, our son, has also been at home working, creating his living space on the land we live on.
For the past decade or so, January has been a time for travel to be with our Amazonian family in Ecuador, to spend time in Brazil and in the US. To begin our year with a month together has been a deeply healing journey, provided courtesy of the simple wisdom of a tooth! Reuben has brought a few new morning rituals into our lives. We’ve been getting up in the dark every morning, to drink tea and share our dreams. And as the morning star fades and the daylight breaks, Reuben has got us doing Wim Hoff (the Ice Man) breathing techniques, a little yoga, all followed by slowly submerging ourselves in freezing cold water for two minutes. After that, we’ve warmed our bones again in the sauna.
By 9am, we’ve been ready for the day. I’ve been taking the time to do the next level of editing on my new book, Shaman – Opening the Doors Between the Worlds, which is due for release later this year, on October 8th. It’s been really good to re-read and integrate the latest discoveries my own practice has revealed in the four months since I finished the first draft. Parallel to all this, we’ve all been deeply engaged with finding our next level of response to the deepening crisis and co-arising ‘opportunities for miracles,’ that life in a body on earth in these times presents. Finally, climate change and the mass extinction that we are all part of, is being spoken about more. I saw an amazing speech by Antonio Guterres, the current Secretary general of the United Nations which blew my mind. The combined raised voices of science and our indigenous friends world-wide and the huge awakening I witness in so many places on my travels, are making headway into the centre of our concerns where they need to be. The possibility that our unsustainable way of life may already have taken us past the time when we can change has been a deep shock and motivation for many.
In my own heart I know, that life itself is a miracle. And we have no idea what we or what life is capable of. We have created the perfect storm in which to awaken to who we are and what we are part of. This is no longer in the future. We have woken up in the future we have dreamed. We are in our own sci-fi movie. And as humans, we are beginning to recognise what consummate dreamers and manifestors we are. And as any of you who have dipped your toes in the Movement Medicine ocean will know, what we dream, and therefore how we act, is a core theme in our work. Never more so than now.
The only things we know for certain are that we were born and that we, and all things, will die. Including our sun, and this earth and everything else. When I really look at the mystery of this tiny little planet floating in a vast and expanding universe, there can only be awe. And in my heart, awe leads to love, and love to gratitude, and gratitude to action. Regardless of outcomes, I am moved to act in the ways that make sense to me, before I die. To be honest, sometimes, I am so angry with the design of this whole shebang that we have to die. I just don’t get it. We go through all this, create all this, learn to face our fears enough to love, I mean really love, and then we die? WTF! But then, as my little goatee beard loses its red haze and I join the white-haired ones, acceptance and even the scent of a deeper knowledge has started to emerge from deep inside my bones.
A long time ago, I chose work that I knew would keep me on my toes, evolving with it as my own self-knowledge deepens. I am happy I made that choice. This year, we will begin our 7th and last apprenticeship circle. It is pretty much full. But it is not too late to apply. Life happens and people have to drop out from time to time. So, if it’s in your heart, don’t wait. We are very happy that this will not be the last Movement Medicine apprenticeship. Not by any means, and we are training up a body of brilliant teachers who are dreaming their ways to take this forward. Susannah and I will continue to teach the Professional Training for the next years. Alongside that, we intend to continue to offer a programme of work on the road to share our evolving learnings in the Movement Medicine field.
We plan to travel less. But not to be less available. And this is where I want to tell you all about what we’re dreaming up for launch alongside my new book come the colours of late summer and early autumn.
From August 28th to September 1st, Susannah and I will be hosting what we think will be the first global online Conscious Movement and Dance Conference. It’s called Movement Tribe. The website is currently in creation and we will let you know as soon as it is available to view. For now, here’s a few words to wet your appetite. We’re gathering together a diverse and wonderful panel of presenters, including fellow Founders from other conscious dance and movement practices. The conference will be freely available to all subscribers to participate live (yes, free) and available to buy (as recordings to support your practice) afterwards.
The conference is for the shy and for the bold, for those resistant to being in a body to those who can’t dance enough. Since you can participate from the privacy of your own home, you really can ‘dance like nobody’s watching.’ At the same time, we have been amazed and touched, in our years of experience of teaching online, at the genuine feeling of depth and community that sharing our practices online can provide.
And there’s more. It’s time we updated our online webinar series, Bringing the Dance Back Home. We originally began this seven years ago to support dancers to bring the freedom and deep enquiry of the workshop space back home. It’s been really successful and we’re now planning the next step in its evolution.
Once the conference is over, Movement Tribe will morph into our first online membership site. Membership of the site will be by subscription (price will be dependent on which economic area you live in). Each month, as well as a live online class (which will be archived so that you have access to it if you can’t make it live), there will be an online meeting to share your experiences and ask questions about your practice. We plan to take the membership on a journey through the Movement Medicine mandala and curriculum, with special classes to celebrate and mark the turning of the seasons. We will also develop the curriculum in response to questions and requests.
And all of this will, we hope and intend, enable more and more people word wide to resource their lives with the life of movement as medicine. And when they (or you!) realise that they would love to experience this work in a shared space, with a live teacher (and we know just how precious that is) we have our amazing and growing global cadre of Movement Medicine professionals who you can find through: www.movementmedicineassociation.org
As well as that, we will be posting podcasts about the practice and short videos each month to stay connected. We will be telling you more about this as the year develops but here’s a little hint. The first year of membership will be available at a 50% discount for all subscribers to the webinars. There are still six webinars left in the current format (available for £21-00 for all six) if you want to give this online style of working a go. The next one is with David Mooney on 19th February.
The whole project is being developed over the next few months and we will keep you in touch as it evolves.
So, dear Movement Medicine tribe, sending you all love and greetings from the road and wishing all of us an inspired and deep a start to the year as possible. While the heart still beats, and for the love of life, let’s dance!
Ya’Acov Darling Khan. February 2019
Ya’Acov’s upcoming workshops:
8–17 February: Professional Training Module 2 with Susannah and Ya’Acov. Rill Estate, Devon, UK.
This module of the Professional Training covers mostly the hands-on practice and learning of holding space on the dance floor and how to guide and support people through personal processes and transformation. It will offer a new perspective on all the many tools of Movement Medicine, as the focus shifts from experiencing them for oneself to utilizing them to guide others.
Contact Roland: hello@schoolofmm.com
22 Feb–3 March: Apprenticeship Module Immersion and Winter Dream Dance with Ya’Acov and Susannah, Rill Estate, Devon, UK.
This gathering combines the ‘Immersion’ Apprenticeship Module with the joining in at the end of any Apprentices, past or present, and teachers of MM for the combined Ceremony of the Winter Dream Dance.
Contact Roland: +44 1803 762255; hello@schoolofmm.com
27 Feb–2 March: Winter Dream Dance with Ya’Acov & Susannah. Rill Estate, Devon, UK.
The Winter Dream Dance is open to all Apprentices and is a gathering and a ceremony co-creation for and with any teachers or Apprentices of Movement Medicine. A time to come together to immerse in community, prayer, support and ceremony together.
Contact Roland: hello@schoolofmm.com
13–16 March: The Alchemist’s Garden with Ya’Acov. Israel, Palestine.
This powerful workshop employs the medicine wheel of the five chambers of the heart (awakening, integrity, surrender, gratitude and grace) as an alchemical process to cleanse, empower and strengthen the heart and transform the trauma of the past into the gold of the present. Bringing together the intelligence of the body, the consciousness of the mind and the powerful instinct of our heart, we have all we need to allow any emotion to run its expression through our system.
Contact Michal: michalisraelstam@gmail.com; +972 522 590 109
22–24 March: Jaguar in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart with Ya’Acov. Norway.
Based on Ya’Acov’s recent book and on his own 30-year long initiation into being a shaman, this workshop is an invitation to review your life, to further discover who you are and what is yours to give. You will skilfully be guided to meeting that ‘Jaguar’ inside you that protects fiercely what it loves, and the ‘Butterfly’, that part which is vulnerable, magically beautiful, only coming out when it really is safe to be seen. The workshop will explore the blend of these two parts and challenge our paradigm of separation.
Contact Marit Winther: +47 45 604 535; maritwinther@hotmail.com