And if you’re anywhere near Berlin, not to be missed.

The when.

Thursday, July 22, 2010.

8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

The who and the what and the where.

If you haven’t had a chance to do a Dance of Shiva class with Jackie yet, highly recommended.

She’s a great teacher, warm, friendly, a good explainer and totally non-judgmental.

Open to all levels.

Costs 15 euro (twelve reduced).

In German. Explanations in Spanish/English available if necessary.

Location: Theaterhaus Mitte, Raum 108, Wallstraße 32 (Haus C)

How to sign up

You can reach Jackie by phone at +49 (0)176 25584034
Or by email: jackietauil /AT/ googlemail /DOT/ com

Registration through the 19th.

Hope some of you can make it. Can’t wait to hear about it!

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• And more Shiva Nata classes in Berlin!
• Hey, Shivanauts in Berlin!
• Shivanautical updates!

Lars and Andreas (two of my most favorite students who are both wonderful teachers) are starting a brand-new ongoing Dance of Shiva course in Berlin.

Yay!

If you don’t speak German, I’m sure they can give translations and make it work. Highly recommended. Beginners welcome.

Starting this Friday, May 7, 2010 (and then every Friday after that).

The class.

Shiva Nata – Dance of Shiva
mit Dipl. Psych. Lars Bödeker und Georg Andreas Suhr

Ab 7. Mai 2010 immer Freitags, 18.00 bis 19.30 Uhr

The Location.

Shakti Yogaloft
Urbanstr.67
10967 Berlin
www.shakti-yogaloft.de

Costs.

• A month of classes: 48 EUR
• 8 classes: 85 EUR
• Ten classes: 105 EUR
• –> Try one class: 12 EUR

Get in touch with Lars …

To register in advance or if you have questions, speak with Lars:
030-324 69 82 or lars -AT – shiva-nata.de

Awesome.

This is very exciting.

I miss teaching in Berlin! Will find a way back again soon.

xox
Havi

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Hey, Shivanauts in Berlin!
• The colors of Dance of Shiva. With blobs and splotches.
• An amazing Shiva Nata story.

One day. All day.

A very small group. Lots of personal attention. And — but of course — hot buttered epiphanies all over the place.

What you need to know.

It’s Monday, June 14th.

It’s the first official thing Selma and I will be teaching at The Playground. Yes, we’re opening a studio! In Portland!

The fun. It is big.

Also the fun-brewing.

Details?

You can read all about the training for reassurances that yes, you are ready for this, even if you’re just starting out … and then you leave your questions, worries, rejoicings here in the comments.

Though there are (and yes, this is crazy) actually only two spots left since I hinted about it the other day.

Anyway, expect lots of shivanautical epiphanies, warmth, laughter, tingly inspiration and to leave feeling like you’re ready. And the dance is inside of you.

That’s it. More to come!
havi

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Punk Rock Shivanauttery: answering a bunch of questions!
• Dance of Shiva on the brain
• A Dance of Shiva mini-epiphany.

Or should I say … the Portland of triple-decker bicycles ridden by bearded bacon-eating guys in tophats.

Anyway.

Guess who’s coming to town?! Okay, I’ll tell you.

It’s Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band.

Yay!

THIS THURSDAY, March 11th, 2010 from 7:00 pm.

Here’s what it is.

Awesome, awesome kirtan from New Orleans.

Big, beautiful, surprisingly great stuff.

I’ve been a fan for several years now. And Selma and I have been to two of their amazing live shows (once in San Francisco and once in Sacramento). We have only the most wonderful things to say about Sean and his band and their work.

And if you’ve ever been to one of my Shiva Nata workshops, you’ve probably heard some of their songs from Calling The Spirits. I haven’t heard their new album yet but I’m assuming good things.

Here’s why I’m mentioning it here.

Dude.

There is nothing better for Shiva-ing it up than some good kirtan.

Plus, singing kirtan does for the heart what Dance of Shiva does for the brain.

It’s big.

It opens things. It changes things.

Introducing new patterns into your brain.

Plus I’ll be there and Selma will be there and this music will make you want to dance it up with Shiva Nata all night long.

Or sit and meditate. Or whatever.

The point is, you should come by if you can make it. And say hi to me and Selma.

Where is it?

Some hippie-ass place (we are in Portland, yes?) in southeast that I’ve never been to. I’m sure it’s great.

Thursday, March 11th, 7pm
An Evening Of Mystic Mantra Music
The Bhaktishop
2500 SE 26th Ave
Portland, OR 97202

And $15 gets you in the door.

Whee!

Maybe I’ll see you there.

Sing ho for kirtan!

Some good things to read:

• North Carolina workshop – DIY travel arrangements
• Help me out? Title for the Shivanaut Manual?
• Dance of Shiva + Roller Derby! Whoo!

Twice a year I teach a class (by phone) where we talk about Shiva Nata wackiness and I answer questions. This has been going on for a few years now and it’s usually pretty fun.

We talk about ways to get back into a practice when it’s stuckified, ways for it to support you, and anything else you’d like to know/understand/untangle in relation to the madness that is Dance of Shiva.

This class is free to everyone who owns the Starter Kit and you can totally take it as many times as you like.

What kinds of questions?

Oh, let’s see. Theory, practice, random stuff you wonder about. It’s all good.

Surprise me. :)

Boring questions are welcome. Wacky and bizarre questions are welcome. It really doesn’t matter. My duck and I will do our best to help you out.

Details?

Here is the important part. We have CHANGED THE DATE of our upcoming class. So put this in your calendar!

It’s going to be:

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 16 , 2010 at 12:00 PM Pacific

And *not* next week as previously announced.

You can use the time zone converter to figure out what time noon Pacific is for you.

Expect to take notes, because scribbling happens.

And, as always, you don’t have to participate if you don’t want to. If you’re more comfortable listening in than talking, that’s fine.

You can also make sure your Dance of Shiva questions get answered by leaving them here.

Leave your questions here in the comments and I can see to it that we cover them in class.

Shivanautical communal learning! It makes me the happy.

And if you aren’t already signed up, you can sign up here. If you can’t make the class, we’ll still send you the recording as long as you’ve signed up.

Awesome. Maybe we’ll get to talk to you then.

*blowing kisses*
Havi & Selma

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask A Shivanaut! Questions from the teleclass.
• Truth elixir, nude dreams, realizations, just being.
• Not practicing: not the end of the world.

In case you were wondering what’s up with that, I thought I’d let you in on the secret Dance of Shiva Roller Derby connection …

Oh boy!

The Dance of Shiva Roller Derby connection.

Okay.

Dance of Shiva:

• is the fastest way I know of to become insanely coordinated.
• gives you just ridiculous physical agility, stability, speed of reaction.
• makes you graceful as hell.
• teaches you to completely own your own mental, emotional and physical space.
• helps you find that invisible crown of sovereignty.
• turns you into the one who cannot be shaken.
• launches you into a state of intense focus and concentration.
• lets you restructure the matrix and use the force.
• makes you the one who can dance between the rain drops, spot the openings, be untouchable.
• teaches you to see the connections, know the weaknesses and use the strengths.
• is like a wacky forcefield of awesome.
• is occasionally done while listening to The Clash.
• is really probably the only obscure yoga-based training about which you could easily say “that’s so punk rock”.

“That’s so punk rock!”

So it’s basically love at first sight.

Roller Derby is all about being agile.

Agile thinking, agile movement, agile reaction, agile being.

Sure, it’s also about being fast, hot, powerful and fabulous.

But it’s really about this core quality of agility in all of its possible forms.

Which means?

Having a mental map of where everything and everyone is, even when it’s happening behind you.

Being able to find the hidden openings at will. Always knowing what your options are. Knowing what to use and when to use it.

Your mind’s ability to be constantly tracking everything that’s important: moving people, moving targets and that steady flow of highly complex, constantly-changing information.

Focus. Serious, serious focus.

All that is pretty much what Dance of Shiva does best.

Because Dance of Shiva is the thing that trains your brain to see and understand the connections between things.

It’s liquid math, done with your body.

It’s the thing that lets you build and strengthen new neural connections so that you can think structurally and systematically, creatively and surprisingly, all at the same time.

It’s brain training that gives you the ability to react faster to whatever comes your way. Also scary triceps.

And it quiets your thoughts. Gets you where you need to go. Sets you on fire because anything is possible and possibility is the biggest high there is.

You can see possibility. You can breathe possibility. You can act on possibility.

Obviously, I’m pretty excited about us hooking up. Can you tell?

Why now?

Oh, I don’t know.

I’ve been teaching this stuff to yoga people and movement professionals for the past six years.

And then in the past two years I’ve been teaching it to entrepreneurs and creative thinkers and artists. And seeing crazy-wonderful things happen.

Derby needs Shiva Nata.

And the Shivanauts are ready to bring some of their power and love and silliness to Derby.

We also kind of have a lot in common. Like campiness, fabulousness and stripey socks. And drag names. Sometimes.

And we make up words! Like shivanautical or destuckification if you’re me. And brutalitarian dominatoration and butt rocking-est if you’re Guns N Rollers. See?!

So we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime?

Ass-kicking coolness on skates! Best. Sport. Ever.

My duck and l will see you at the bout! Or, you know, on the internets.

p.s. GUNS N ROLLERS! Rawr!

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Forget coordination.
• What if you don’t like it?
• Rice Krispie Treats and the Dance of Shiva

Some stuff from the ether. I mean, from the fabulously flailing Shivanauts.

It’s like kung fu, but without the killing.

My thoughts exactly!

Loved this post from Bill about doing Shiva Nata at the North Carolina retreat.

Patterns get built and systematically taken apart before they’re rebuilt. It messes with your head and the rest of you too.

The rest is here.

Flailing without failing.

This one is from Amy about how the not-failing kind of flailing is helping her feel less like an uninspired poo-poo head.

Which is a wonderful thing to read.

Conscious awareness and your job hunt

Love how Miriam brings wacky awareness stuff into the very traditional thing of job-finding.

She’s been playing with Shiva Nata and figuring out how to work the concepts into her work.

Which is a totally Shiva Nata thing to happen, because that’s what happens when you start seeing the connections between everything. Awesome.

Even Havi calls it “wacky,” and it is nothing if not a bit unconventional – teaching your brain to act differently by focusing on patterns, deconstructing them and building new ones!

Shiva Nata for perfectionism.

Thorin wrote a terrific piece about dancing away perfectionism with the Dance of Shiva stuff.

It’s extraordinary.

When I’m doing Shiva Nata, and I get totally lost and just start flailing around, I feel so…free. I feel completely elated. I laugh. Hell, I giggle. Because I’m silly, and it feels good. Just like when I was a kid.

So thanks for helping me give myself permission to be silly again.

Isn’t that the loveliest thing? I think so too.

Okay. I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch. So if I’ve missed yours, let me know in the comments so I can not make that mistake again.

xox
h

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Shivanautical updates!
• Too Terror-Struck to Fail (or flail)
• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.

And I keep forgetting to update.

So. Here’s what’s happening.*

* Yay! Stuff happening!

More Dance of Shiva classes in Berlin.

My friend Jackie is teaching a Shiva Nata series in Berlin for the month of October.

The first class already happened (sorry!) but there are three more. And they’re awesome. Jackie is a terrific teacher. Highly recommended.

Happening every Wednesday from 8 – 9:30 pm (20.00 – 21.30) through October 28th.

The course is open to all levels. It takes place at the lovely Theaterhaus Mitte:

Wallstraße 32, Berlin Mitte – Haus C, Raum 203

Nearest train station is: Heinrich Heine-Str. Or the U 2 to Märkisches Museum.

The cost is 12 € per class and slightly less if you sign up for the month.

Talk to Jackie (phone: 0176 – 25584034 or email: jackietauil AT yahoo PUNKT de) to see if there’s still room.

Shivanauts in the Boston area?

One of the guys who took one of my Berlin workshops wrote to ask if there are Shivanauts in the Boston area because he’s going to be there for several months and wanted some people to practice with.

And I know there are, but I totally can’t remember who.

Help me out?

Also, Heidi? Chas? Kat? Are you guys still Shiva-ing it up in those parts?

A neat opportunity … possibly. Yay!

So some of you know that I had to cancel my big interview with a huge German women’s magazine.

And even though I’m pretty sure we’ll able to reschedule it for some time next year, there was definitely a lot of sad around that. Sadface!

Right. So now in that fabulous “one door opens as another one closes” sort of way, we just got invited to do another interview for someone else. Will update when I know more!

Patterns. Patterns. Patterns.

All Shivanauts (and people who may eventually get around to trying this crazy stuff) need to read this one.

It’s an article from the New York Times called How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect.

It’s about how absurdity reveals patterns.

Absurdity reveals patterns.

Which we already know. Because we do it.

Disorientation is good for you. Flailing? Also good for you. Doing it wrong and shaking things up? Good for you.

And implicit learning is enhanced by the introduction of some goofy chaos.

Luckily, that’s how we do things around here. Total Shivanaut moment. Yay!

Thanks to Andi who is @annaline_39 on Twitter!

Twitter. It makes me the happy.

There are so many Shivanauts hanging out there that it’s kind of ridiculous. Usually under the hashtag #shivanauts but not always.

A great reminder of that this week when @jyotsnam wrote:

“y’know you can have shivanautical epiphanies even if you haven’t practised in 2 weeks-awesome.”

Which was so perfect because I had also just had a huge epiphany about a week after my last practice.

And it was as if all these tiny little zappy moments of whoah, ohmygosh had all been percolating under the surface. Bubble bubble bubble whoooosh!

Anyway, these tiny little conversations online have been a really inspiring reminder for me that none of us is in this alone. So thank you.

Shivanauts in derby!?!?

Well, there will be some soon.

That’s because if there’s one thing Roller Derby needs to be even more outrageously great than it already is … it’s mad hot coordination.

And guess what? Guess what? Guess what?

Selma and I (along with ShivaNata.com) are sponsoring a roller derby team here in Portland.

We’re supporting the Guns N Rollers. They’re hot. They’re tough. They’re proud. They call themselves “the gayest team in derby”. What’s not to love?

And they don’t know it yet but they’re also on their way to becoming the most badass Shivanauts ever.

I’ll be teaching a class or two. Though I hope not on skates. And they will be rocking. Because that’s what they do.

It’s one of those things that makes me shake my head at the crazy fabulousness in my life. Rejoice with me!

And … I’m pretty sure that’s all the news for now.

I’m off to flail around. To music. In my office. Shiva-ing it up over here.

Anything I missed?

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• Shiva Nata: odd and unexpected side effects
• Dance of Shiva in Berlin July 22 with Jackie

Okay, not really.

But I am in Berlin (yay!) and teaching (yay!), so there are some bitlets of news and thoughts and such.

Would you like some bitlets? Because I have some. That sounds terrible, actually, but I’m not going to delete it because … jetlag makes me weird.

The rainbow.

Today I saw one of the most impressive rainbows I’ve ever seen.

And it was in the Kantstrasse which is really cool because that’s my second least favorite street in Berlin.

And seeing it all rainbow-ified and full of light-through-the-rain really helped dispel some of the old gunk.

The fireworks.

You might know already that I’m … oh, not crazy about exploding things.

Which is funny. Because guess what’s happening in Berlin right now?

The Pyronale. Yep, the world fireworks championship.

There’s an official one and a non-sanctioned one, each of which takes four days. But not the same four days.

I have one thing to say about that and that’s hahahahaha. And then the sound of me hiding under the bed working on my patterns. Which is why I’m here.

Speaking of craziness.

Today was the first Shiva Nata class and everyone was late.

I know, it was in a yoga studio and yoga people have been known to be flakeroonies. But these are German yoga people, so those two things should totally cancel each other out and everyone should be exactly on time.

Turned out there was an enormous (50,000 people is enormous, yes?) demonstration today against nuclear power. It took over most of the city and lasted most of the day (and involved hundreds if not thousands of tractors).

Anyway, it was impossible to get anywhere and a number of people didn’t make it to class at all. Selma took it all in stride.

But wait, not done with the crazy.

There was some sort of weird double booking where I was apparently supposed to be teaching two different classes today … at almost exactly the same time?

And I can’t even get annoyed at my programs coordinator because it totally wasn’t his fault. Nor can I get annoyed at myself because it wasn’t my fault either.

So I’m just not being annoyed. How’s that for a surprising Shiva-Nata-esque moment of accidentally challenging your patterns?

There’s also the good kind of crazy.

Well, it’s an amazing story.

I’m going to tell it next time, because it’s kind of long.

But it knocked me out. Dance of Shiva! It does the darndest things …

Off to do some Level 3 & 4 to prep for tomorrow’s class and then to do a little writing.

*waving from under the bed Berlin*
Havi (and Selma)

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Dance of Shiva: report from Taos.
• Dance of Shiva in Berlin July 22 with Jackie
• Ask a Shivanaut: setting intentions

Selma and I will teaching a three hour workshop in San Francisco.

Three hours of “work through your stucknesses with Dance of Shiva and Havi-inspired wackiness” magic. And epiphanies. Bring it.

It’s really, really, really soon. Like, practically now.

Sunday, July 12 from 2:30 – 5:30 p.m.

What you need to know:

• There is only room for ten people. We might even have to close it at eight.
• My workshops sell out very quickly.
• It’s in the Castro. Details, directions and possible ride-share info when you sign up.
• It’s going to be outrageously great. Admittedly, it’s not an entire weekend in North Carolina, but still, we can do a hell of a lot of destuckifying in three hours.

What you need to bring:

• A stuckified pattern that you want some insights/shifting with (you won’t need to tell anyone what it is so no worries there).
• Something comfortable to wear (we’ll be Shiva-ing it up).
• Pen and paper.
• Bottle of water.

That’s it.

Details and sign-up stuff. And the SECRET CODE.

EDIT: ALREADY SOLD OUT. Sorry sorry sorry. That was just under 30 hours, so yeah, pretty quick. Sorry about that — we’ll set up some more events soon …

My assistant made a lovely page.

It’s on my other website.

–> This is the link!

Take a look because it would be so completely amazing to hang out with you in person and be wacky together and have breakthroughs.

Also I set up a coupon for my readers and students. So if you use it (please use it!) you save $25. The coupon code is SECRET (see, it’s a secret) and you have to press the button that says “Apply” or it won’t work.

That’s it.

Other than that, general rejoicing. Rejoicing!

And a question …

For those of you who can’t make it to the San Francisco workshop, do you want to be updated when stuff gets added to my schedule?

Should we start a very specific mailing list thingy that’s just for events? I can’t imagine I’ll update it more than a few times a year, but would that be something that interests you? Let me know in the comments and I can set something up.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Punk Rock Shivanauttery: answering a bunch of questions!
• Dance of Shiva on the brain
• Make. It. Hard.