The Circle at Shed 23

This week...
All classes are up and running except Thursday lunch. Dan is teaching, so come and share the love. Payments stay the same crew, and I'm available on your usual message systems.

Tarot readings - it's been great to offer audio recordings where you don't have to arrive in person. These are proving to be powerful. If you need some insights while I'm away, order a session. $30 for 20-30 minutes. You can ask a question or just see what the cards say. I'll pop you through the audio link.

Dan is available for massages, too, so get in touch with him to book. $40 for half an hour, $80 for the hour.

I'm getting the recording gear set up, so watch the email later in the month for some sneak peaks at Inhabit, an online course to help with presence and tending your body.

Blessings into your week crew, from a sunny, beautiful Napier.

Over the tea cups...

It's over the tea cups time again. There's a ramble from me, a reading, some writing and all important dates for April🙏

Over the tea cups...

This week, there are full moon tarot readings available Tuesday/ Wednesday. Shining a spotlight on the moment, they have a different vibe to the new moon. These are audio recorded and sent out, cost $30, and are 20-30 minutes long. You can pop through a question or just see what the cards say.

I only have a couple of spots left for in person sessions this week - on Thursday.

From next week, Dan is in charge until April, taking all my classes (except Thursday lunch, which takes a break). Payments as usual as we do swaps.

You can still book tea/tarot sessions with me as I can do them online or book an in-person for the first week of April.

There's a tea cups email out tomorrow with the next event dates on it, so check your inbox for some inspiration. There's been some big emotions about, so I'm talking about yoga and emotional regulation, as well as sharing a little of my writing project.

Beautiful crew,
If you have not already heard the news, Chloe is off for new adventures. Some of you had already asked what she was doing with the plants so here it is....

“….But what will you do with all of your plants?”

It's a new moon tonight...
If you'd like a reading, drop me a message. I'll be doing these tonight/tomorrow morning and sending them out tomorrow. They are a 20-30 minute audio recording, and you can ask for a specific focus or let the cards do their thing.
New Moon is about setting our focus and checking our intentions, so tonight is a beautiful time to sit a while with where you are going.

Some event changes...
Tonight's tarot is canceled.
The Come to Rest cacao night on March 10 and the cacao and yoga on March 11 are also canceled. Those booked in for 10 and 11, there's room this Friday and Saturday. Those events are going ahead.

Get your soak on crew: Come to Rest this Friday night is a delicious invitation to explore cacao, rest, recovery, and gentleness. 6.30-8pm $20
Saturday is cacao and then a deep yoga soak, including a nidra like relaxation. 9-11.30am.$30

It can be hard to fit yoga into your budget or to get to evening sessions, so when I was asked if I'd teach at Kelvin Grove CityFitness, I found a solution

I still wasn't sure what it would feel like. It's been a long time since I've taught somewhere other than my own studio. Turns out it was fun.

So check out CityFitness for more. It takes a premium membership to get in the door to their studio, but there's pilates as well as other teachers.

It's going to be the year of 'lasts', with lots of firsts too, but the lasts are hard.

Our fortnightly Friday and Saturdays are going with the final three starting tomorrow. I thought we might stretch them out a while longer, but the numbers aren't there (regular crew, I love you). So get along to these last ones if you can (booking essential for cacao making)
Friday cacao and coming to rest:
Feb 10
Feb 24
March 10
6.30-8pm $20

Saturday yoga, cacao, deliciousness:
Feb 11
Feb 25
March 11
9-11.30am $30

Across the rest of the year, there will be random weekend events like workshops or cacao, tarot, or rest, just less frequent.

One of the realities has been pricing these events. I've kept the cost down because it's regular crew coming who already pay throughout the week. I want them to be affordable, but it means they need to be full. It's a crappy business reality and one of the reasons I'm looking forward to not having a lease anymore.

I'm blessed by all the crew who make regular classes their thing. Our regular casual crew and my tea session team who come for nourishment and butt kicking. The door is still open by prayer and each of you. Monty and I have full bellies, and the bills get paid, so know I appreciate each of you so much. Soak it all up as this transition happens, one last at a time.

Rest...
Come and take your shoes off
Wriggle your toes in the sand
Wash your feet in the waves
Look up and out across
the expanse of the sea
The sky
You are a part, not apart from
Stop
Rest a while
No thing
Just breath
Elements
Breath
Softening
Resting
Body letting go slowly
Shoulders
Jaw
Belly
Soft
Softer
Rest
Then you can dance...

Over the tea cups - https://mailchi.mp/917df8866f38/over-the-tea-cups
Time for a cup of tea. There's a reflection on love and three different recordings to tickle your ears with.

What did you mean about activism yesterday?
For me, there are filters to pretty much everything I do, from posting here to what I do with my body - is it generative, transformative, and based in love?

To create change, for sure, structures need to disintegrate, but we can only dismantle something if we know what we're creating from it. Being generative is focusing on this.

Transformative is being the change, embodying it. Theory isn't enough. It has to be from the inside out. You then become the change because people see what transformation looks like and feels like to be around.

And that is why love is so important. What is the energy that will create change, and be generative and transformative - love. Anything else is the same energy we often seek to change, just dressed differently.

When I see the anger, fear, division, reactivity, and paranoia; none of that is based in love. It's the very energy people often seek to change, simply perpetuating itself in a different form.

The image, street art, is a powerful message made beautiful, emanating love, reminding us, speaking to our hearts. That's where the change starts, not in the chattering mind. To the artist, thank you.

Slow stitching, the sound of vehicles on a wet road, a puppy exhausted from yesterday's heat, and contemplations on negativity within activism.

It's been hard to watch healers, teachers, and beautiful people fall into reactionary, fear based modes of activism. The stress and strain on all their systems is evident as is the ineffectual nature of their activism. Cultivating communities based on violent rhetoric, unable to talk without volume and defense, I've watched people descend, online and off. With the election incoming, it will get worse, and we somehow need to knit our people back into a wider world before they destroy themselves.

An example is the therapeutic products bill which needs all our input to protect Indigenous medicines and ways, while also finding a way to make sure we have access to safe products. It's not a modern witch hunt or other fear, toxic based versions of trying to tie it to agendas - its policy in development and and we need to have our say. And we can. But go in screaming conspiracy, and your activism has the opposite of the desired impact. Go in supporting Indigenous communities and businesses who will be negatively impacted, go in with reasoned and reasonable arguments and we might just pause, change, even transform the legislation.

Check out .health for ways to have your say and more background on the bill. Submissions need to be in this month.

A wee bit warm in the studio tonight. Time for bowls, slow and deep stretching, and letting the heat soak into our bones. Those heaters will be back on soon enough.
And just to prove our wonderful differences, we had one under her blanket last night.

The building maintenance guy is a bit spray happy, but the wild is the wild. Today, I'm sewing and tree felting. Monty is barking at interesting air pockets, so it's a little busy.

Take care crew, as the full moon approaches and nature's wildness gives us some timely reminders to get our collective together, we can feel everything from vulnerable to frustrated. Rest, especially if you're not sleeping well. Take a moment outside or in a quiet corner, close your eyes, let the thoughts run like a radio in the back ground. Take ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour. No scrolling. No scrolling. Just you, your body, rest. Reset for the rest of the day.

Monty and I will nap later, an essential for post-concussion brains, and all brains and bodies. For now...stitching and wild flower contemplations.

A few bits and pieces including keeping cool on these hot yoga nights…
There had been talk of putting the tripod up on the hot nights, but we’re managing to keep the studio about the same temperature as outside so, for now, classes as usual and if you need a link to the classes loaded up on YouTube let me know and I’ll drop you them. We can use the warmth to soften into our practice, but please come prepared so hydrate well during the day and after class particularly to avoid the yoga head ache.

I’m heading home to Napier for three weeks in March. Dan will be up the front of all the regular evening yoga classes so give him lots of love – payments stay the same as we do swaps along the way. The Friday and Saturday sessions won’t resume until after Easter so make the most of the one’s listed above.

I’ll be filming the Inhabit course while I’m in Napier so keep an eye out for some sneak peaks of this. It’s going to be a luscious journey into connection with your body and something you can do over and over again once you have all the links for the material – the same as the Everyday Woo Course.

There’s a full moon incoming, so anyone wanting to get a one off, audio recorded tarot reading, drop me an email this week to go on the list. These are about half an hour long and if the feedback from the New Moon ones are anything to go by, they are packing some good stuff in. It’s been a lovely tuning in process for me as each one is done individually and I talk you through the reading as I do it. Where New Moon tends to be quite visionary, Full Moon can be more like the spotlight. They cost $30 and I can fit another 5 or 6 onto the list at the moment.

Cacao and sound Friday nights...

These fortnightly Fridays are going to be about rest/healing/journeying - whatever the intention is that you bring. Starting with a cup of cacao, we bring our roots together with the ancient roots of cacao and the land underneath us to weave ourselves into place. We set an intention for ourselves - what do we need from the night? Then, I guide you into a state of relaxation. I use the bowls, and maybe the drum, simple sounds to hold you in that rest. When we come back, it is slowly to a cup of peppermint or chamomile tea. There's no need to share. Your journey is yours. I might read to you or tell a story, but you're encouraged to just be in that energy. In days gone by, the conversations would race off, but that meant we were out of the journey. Now I'll encourage quietness, a moment to contemplate before home.
These begin at 630pm and finish at 8. The cost is $20.
February 10 and 24 are the next ones.
There will be a new Moon tarot gathering on Sunday, the 19th of February.

Cacao and sound Friday nights...

These fortnightly Fridays are going to be about rest/healing/journeying - whatever the intention is that you bring. Starting with a cup of cacao, we bring our roots together with the ancient roots of cacao and the land underneath us to weave ourselves into place. We set an intention for ourselves - what do we need from the night? Then, I guide you into a state of relaxation. I use the bowls, and maybe the drum, simple sounds to hold you in that rest. When we come back, it is slowly to a cup of peppermint or chamomile tea. There's no need to share. Your journey is yours. I might read to you or tell a story, but you're encouraged to just be in that energy. In days gone by, the conversations would race off, but that meant we were out of the journey. Now I'll encourage quietness, a moment to contemplate before home.
These begin at 630pm and finish at 8. The cost is $20.
February 10 and 24 are the next ones.
There will be a new Moon tarot gathering on Sunday, the 19th of February.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn2UqcfBSIJ/?igshid=NjcyZGVjMzk=

Cacao and sound Friday nights... These fortnightly Fridays are going to be about rest/healing/journeying - whatever the intention is that you bring. Starting with a cup of cacao, we bring our roots together with the ancient roots of cacao and the land underneath us to weave ourselves into place. We set an intention for ourselves - what do we need from the night? Then, I guide you into a state of relaxation. I use the bowls, and maybe the drum, simple sounds to hold you in that rest. When we come back, it is slowly to a cup of peppermint or chamomile tea. There's no need to share. Your journey is yours. I might read to you or tell a story, but you're encouraged to just be in that energy. In days gone by, the conversations would race off, but that meant we were out of the journey. Now I'll encourage quietness, a moment to contemplate before home. These begin at 630pm and finish at 8. The cost is $20. February 10 and 24 are the next ones. There will be a new Moon tarot gathering on Sunday, the 19th of February.

A little ramble and an invite to Saturday class this week...

Noticing is a frequent theme in my writing - noticing the play of colour in a planting, noticing tiredness. When we notice, we notice more, but we also need to do something with the noticing. Stop and enjoy the flowers, rest, and care for our body and mind.

When we develop a practice of noticing, we slow down. Meandering happens. If we rush, we miss it, but noticing is a practice we have to work at it because it goes against the usual flow, the rush, push, exceed, more, more, more...

If we override our noticing, if we fall for the rush, the noticing goes away. It's a practice we need to keep at, to honour, to become. It's also an antidote to the madness we've created as normal life, a way of life stealing our simple joys like the play of colour in a planting.

Saturday morning begins with cacao and deep rest before we awaken to a Restorative yoga session to stretch out the week. The morning finishes with a wash of sound and more relaxing. Float off into the weekend.
9-11.30am
$30 book and prepay essential.

New Moon, Cacao, and tarot - one of my ideas of a fun night out.
Sunday evening, we gather to share cacao, blended with maca, always from .health. The brew is about connecting, to the earth and elements, to our body and our knowing.This gathering, I'm starting talking about the trust in our inner wisdom, which is spiritual safety 101. Building discernment makes us less vulnerable to power plays and bs.

Then we're going to take a moment to consider New Moon, to find an intention to take into the next month, to reflect on what's been. This brings us into the place of our knowing.

The tarot comes out after that, and I lay cards out for the collective month ahead to give us some ideas to work with. No cards are pulled for you personally, it's about linking into the big picture. This is a chance to see the cards in conversation as I pull apart the reading and invite interpretation. It can be fun, insightful and sometimes the cards play wonderful tricks.

For those attending, Cacao is more effective on an empty tummy if health allows, otherwise eat lightly not less than two hours before. Doors open at 615 and while we aim to finish at 8, sometimes we get carried away so a door closed finish is 830. As you arrive, think about entering a space away from the everyday. In other words, what you talk about is what you are bringing with you. Leave the blah-blah for outside the door. Bring your journal, cards if you have them, and a sense of adventure.

If you're thinking, this sounds like me drop me a message. Tomorrow night is pretty full, but there might be a last minute space if you're okay with last minute.

Image: A new
wall hanging up in my tarot space. A guardian of fire, she has certain characteristics of a self-portrait in that those are my dreadlocks extensions.

The tarot - those pieces of cardboard with pictures on them - they can be an adventure, can entirely freak some people out and, like most things, be used well and badly and everything in between. I picked them up in 1993 and they've been my companions ever since. Here's a bit of a menu of what I offer:
They can be part of a tea cups session if you wish, or you can have a full session with just the cards. This stays at $80 and is available in person and online.
You can order a half hour reading that is audio recorded and sent to you. This is great for those that can't get in, in person. These cost $30.
You can do a 3 month subscription for these audio recordings. I do one at New Moon and one at full moon. You can set an intention for the three months or simply see what the cards do. This costs $120 and each reading is 20-30 minutes long. They arrive via email.
You can learn the tarot through the Everyday Woo Course, or attend one of the cacao and tarot nights to get a taste, and last but not least, I'm pulling cards for the collective with each 'over the tea cups' email so subscribe to keep up with those.

Phew, I think that's it.