Welcome to Living Life As Art newsletter. Here we are in February, the month of love in all its forms!
Consider love as a movement. Love flows and pours, gushes and fills. Love mends. Loving is the action of love. To choose loving, especially in the face of challenge, takes strength and self-discipline. Making and keeping a commitment to loving is not for the faint of heart.
May this month be an opportunity to open more fully into love and courage. May we have the courage to know that we are worthy of love just as we are. May we have the courage to listen to the heart and take up its call to action. May our love shine fierce and bright-- even during the most challenging of times.
Let's allow our loving to make a difference at home, in our communities and in our world.
with loving for this precious moment and the opportunity to connect with you from deep within,
Taira
Taira Restar, arts educator
www.tairarestar.com
Resources for an Artful Life
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One Billion Rising: A Global Dance For Women
One Billion Rising is a global dance protest against violence towards women and girls. It will take place on February 14, 2013 with events throughout the month. Join the rising! Dance as a prayer for safety and well-being for girls and women. Rising events are taking place in every country across the globe!
For more information and to join a rising near you: onebillionrising.org
Rising And Re-Rising, a dance of protest and prayer based on actual stories of women and girls, will open a day-long event on February 14th at Dominican University in San Rafael, California. Scored and directed by Taira Restar, it will be performed by an international ensemble of Tamalpa Institute graduates.
Taira will lead a community dance ritual at West Marin Rising, a bilingual evening with discussion, films, dance, food, and live music by Maria Muldaur in Point Reyes Station on the evening of February 15th. Free. |
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WIND ROCK WAVE with David Abram, Ken Otter & Taira Restar
WIND ROCK WAVE: Place Dancing
a depth ecology movement & arts workshop
Point Reyes, California
April 22 - 25, 2013
"The human body is not a closed or static object, but an open, unfinished entity utterly entwined with the soils, waters, and winds that move through it-- a wild creature whose life is contingent upon the multiple other lives that surround it, and the shifting flows that surge through it" ~David Abram
How does the human animal sense and move within the more-than-human terrain? In this era of transformation, when so many are struggling to meet the earthly changes now upon us, join cultural ecologist David Abram, educator Ken Otter, and movement artist Taira Restar for an adventure into the felt space between the body and the breathing land.
Read workshop flier
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Mess Ups and Mistakes: Unpacking the Inner Critic All of us have an inner voice that judges in varying degrees of harshness. Professional artists experience blocks. Beginners are paralyzed by fears and cannot begin. What if you were able to view and appreciate the Inner Critic as a piece of art? What if you were able to befriend your Inner Critic? Sound impossible? Facilitator Taira Restar has created an opportunity to do just that!
Held in an art studio with an abundance of materials, this workshop will include movement warm-ups, art making, and reflection. With respect, care, humor and a light touch, we will explore the Inner Critic and invite it into a new relationship. Along the way, we'll make mistakes ...just for fun! April 14. Mill Valley, CA. Read more.
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Everyplace Dances, place-based arts & dance in California
Inspired by a chance meeting with author David Abram (Spell of the Sensuous,1997; Becoming Animal, 2010), a community apple pressing, and a growing intimacy with her own home place, Taira created Everyplace Dances,
a series of place-based workshops. Through sensory awareness, movement and dance, participants immerse into the improvisational ensemble consciousness of the wild and awaken further into their own human being-ness and artistry.
➤➤March 23 Everyplace Dances: Point Reyes, California will be offered in celebration of spring equinox.
➤➤June 23 Everyplace Dances: Point Reyes, California will be offered in celebration of summer solstice.
Keep posted for Everyplace Dances: Everywhere, Our World Wide Web, an online course! Information and dates to be announced later this year.
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Everyplace Dances expands to the Southwest U.S.
➤➤ June 1&2 Body Wisdom: Women Dancing In And As Nature
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The first Everyplace Dances workshop for women. Join Taira for this immersion into the breathing land. We will listen to the inherent intelligence and mystery of the body, deepen our relationship to place, and cultivate creativity. Read more.
➤➤ June 7&8 Everyplace Dances: South Platte River Valley
Denver, Colorado
An opening of the senses and an immersion into embodying place through movement, dance and artistic play. We will begin in beautifulStudio Soma on Friday night and immerse ourselves in and as nature on Saturday.
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Everyplace Dances summer workshops in Europe
The Everyplace Dances series continues with:
➤➤28 July - 1 August Everyplace Dances: Magelsen in northern Germany near Bremen. This 5-day workshop will include dance in and as nature, bicycling to nearby places of wild beauty, and a special session with local guest teacher and therapist Nora R�mer. We will immerse into a flowing river, the quiet of a small lake, wide open skies and fresh air. We will dance with ancient trees and forest creatures. The workshop's homebase will be a historic privately-owned farmhouse, which is now a center of healing.
➤➤6 - 10 August Everyplace Dances: Pulkau Valley, Austria will take place in and around the Seymann Winery. Located on the Austrian-Czech border, the Seymann family have been winemaking for five generations. The Seymanns describe their wine as LIQUID LANDSCAPE™. They host this workshop in honor of the land itself and at the request of local nature spirits. Join the Seymanns and Taira for five days of embodying place through dance, artistic play, and local wines and food. Food for the soul!
Keep posted for Everyplace Dances: Everywhere, Our World Wide Web, an online course! Information and dates to be announced later this year.
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Tamalpa Life/Art Process� Workshop in Ticino, Switzerland
➤➤July 8-12 Interplay: Linking Life, Art and Nature, a residential Tamalpa Life/Art Process� workshop; Ticino, Switzerland; facilitated by Ken Otter & Taira Restar. SAVE THE DATES! Details soon. Workshop venue pictured here.
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Little Steps Towards Big Love
Most people long for self-love and acceptance. Just like any other skill, loving takes practice.
Experiment with this score or create your own variation:
To begin, close your eyes and imagine LOVE. This could be love, in general, Divine Love, love that you imagine for the future-- whatever comes to you. Allow yourself to be spontaneous and to flow with what feels nourishing.
When you are complete, create a drawing about LOVE.
After, ask your drawing-- or a part of your drawing-- for its wisdom. If your drawing had a voice, how would it answer this question: What are 2-3 action steps that I can take to expand my loving?
Write these as clear, simple, do-able actions.
Now, include a time frame.
Examples: This week, I will demonstrate self-love by going to bed earlier some nights. Today, if my Inner Critic judges, I will pause, acknowledge this voice, and then shift my focus by singing, dancing or reflecting on gratitude.
Create an Affirmation Card that you can keep as a reminder. (Examples of affirmations and how to make affirmation cards in the right column of this newsletter.)
At the end of your time frame, check in with yourself-- in a loving way!-- and see if you would benefit from repeating your score. Make adjustments if need be.
Little Steps Towards Big Love Score by Taira Restar, February 2013
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Dance into Spring with Sunday Morning Ecstatic Dance in West Marin
This spring Lena Estes and Taira Restar will offer Ecstatic Dance twice a month on Sundays from 10:30AM to 12:00noon at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station. Lena brings her love of dance, Dancing Freedom practice as well as experience facilitating Ecstatic Dance in Southeast US. Taira brings Tamalpa Life/Art Process�, her years of expressive arts facilitation experience and her love of community.
Join Lena and Taira for these free-style, come-as-you-are, barefoot, community dances. Begins March 3 and runs through June.
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Creative Transition: Women in Midlife Converse through Dance
How does it feel to be between young and old? How would you define middle age? Creative Transition workshops are designed for women in midlife and include movement, dance, visual art, ritual, and reflection. Participants describe these workshops as loving, inclusive, playful, powerful, and filled with wisdom.
On May 18 & 19, Creative Transition will be offered as a weekend retreat-- for the first time! It will be held in beautiful Pacific Grove/Monterey Bay, CA, and facilitated by Taira Restar, MA, RSME, and Marybeth Weinstock, PhD, BC-DMT. Details will be posted soon on Taira's website.
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Workshop for Tamalpa Graduates
Taira Restar will once again offer this professional development workshop designed for Tamalpa Institute graduates:
Tamalpa Life/Art Process� With Children: Experiential Learning and Resources
Saturday March 9, 2013
For information on this workshop or on the Tamalpa Life/Art Process�, visit Taira's website.
For information on Tamalpa Institute, a movement-based expressive arts training center founded by Anna Halprin and Daria Halprin, visit www.tamalpa.org
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RESOURCES
for an Artful Life for you
Art Project:
Affirmation Cards
Create your own unique deck of affirmation cards using your favorite affirmations, quotes or sayings! Affirmation cards can be quick reminders to boost awareness, realign focus and to practice positive self-talk. Affirmation cards are visual reminders that you can carry along with you or post where you can see them often. Making your own cards is a creative way to love yourself! What you will need to make your cards:
1. Thick paper. For example, card stock, blank index cards or watercolor paper. Greeting cards can be recycled and cut into a new size.
2. Glue or glue stick. If you plan to make many cards or if you collage frequently, consider investing in Yes Glue, Taira's favorite paper glue.
3. Various collage materials, such as
photos, pieces of packaging, gift wrap, old sheet music, foil candy wrappers, and magazine pictures.
4. Scissors.
5. Quick drying paint, such as acrylic, colored pencils, or markers.
There are 3 parts of the card to be creative with:
1.Coloring or decorating the background.
2. Adding decorative collage materials that support the affirmation. Choose symbols, images, and colors that are meaningful for you.
3. The words can be hand written, cut out of a magazine or printed on a computer and glued.
Enjoy the process!
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Affirmations For Greater Loving:
I am claiming myself worthy of love.
I am stepping into greater self-loving with passion.
Today I choose love. Love clears my path today.
I care for myself with love and respect.
Feel free to improvise!
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Today's Quote:
"Courage is hearing the cri du cœur (cry of the heart) and taking action-- even in the midst of fear."
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Feedback:
Carole from the U.K. shares, "Taira, your newsletter has really shown me where my heart sings. :)"
Carole,
Your feedback made my heart sing! Thanks for your kind words, which were warmly received.
Readers,
Feel free to email me with questions, favorite quotes, comments, suggestions or just to say hello! ~Taira
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Score for Living Life As Art:
Little Steps Towards Big Love, to the left, is an expressive arts score based on the Tamalpa/Life Art Process. It invites us into multiple art modalities and ultimately into living life more fully. It is meant to be a springboard for you. Feel free to improvise!
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Seasonal Poem:
TO LOVE YOURSELF
To Love yourself, start here:
take your own hand-
put it to your lips
then
lay the soft of your cheek to the round of your shoulder
where
the faint musk
of the enduring dreams and the labors of your life
perfume you.
It's a start.
It's a beginning.
Now the ache of your heart
has
a
surface
.
~Em Claire
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 Newsletter photos by Taira Restar |
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