The Sacred Womb (Visioning for the CoOperAtive)

 We will invite the surrounding community in to build their own altars and we will all take the time to respectfully, lovingly pray to each other's gods.

Every woman/goddess who lives in the sacred womb will have the opportunity to showcase her ideas/talents/art/music/workshops to the public. We will help to promote eachother's shows and projects.

We will hold goddess circles every two weeks at least, for organization, housekeeping, mutual support and ritual/prayer.

We will vow to each other to do our best to support local businesses and our neighbors in order to shift the corporate control paradigm to an everyday people control paradigm.

We will give each other hugs, foot massages, chocolates, and make art and do abundance and womynifestation rituals at the time of our moon blood.

Rec Reading for the house-

Cunt- Inga Muscio
Rose- Inga Muscio
Healing Wise- Susun S Weed
The Red Book- Sera Beak 

CAlling all Fierce Artist Goddesses!

For FebruarY
I am calling on the Goddesses to make a vision a reality.

I am envisioning a warehouse or other live/work space that is 2500 square feet in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

I am inviting fellow females interested in living in a Artist-Goddess
-Entrepreneurial-friendly honest and transparent community of women 
goddesses

KeyWemoonifestations

Woman run- means women-identified folk only, a woman or women on the lease and all ladies living/working/ practicing rituals/creating/ healing in the space. Of course men are allowed to visit,
hangout or come to events (perhaps even rent a studio/workspace). For the energetic integrity of the vision it is important that women only live here and are on the lease and in charge.


Ideas for the space__

All Time Sacred Space- means it is kept clean with natural cleaning products by all, blessed, danced in and ritualized on the regular.

Sometimes Art Gallery/Performance Space

Sometimes cafe

Sometimes spot for local farm-table dinners

Sometimes Community Center/ Permaculture demonstration site, serving to benefit the direct community

The space will not be rented out to any nonresidents for events

Events/cafe/art gallery hours will be decided and agreed upon by all resident Goddesses

There will be a Yard/Roof with a large garden/farm with blueberries, cold frames for winter greens, rainwater catchment system, compost

Let's Co-create this Magical Place Now : )

LOVE.

The moon is in Aquarius

Oh i Love it when the moon is in Aquarius!
Sweet Refreshing Crisp Air of Aquarius
It is especially balancing for me as an Aquarius sun with
a Scorpio moon to have extra Humanitarian, Other-worldly,
Peaceful, expansive, experimentally creative Aquarius Energy
being beamed down from the moon.
In general- Dance as if no one is watching today b/c no one is,
they are too busy giving themselves dance therapy, moving to their
own unique rhythm, the moon is in Aquarius y'all.
Take time to see the beauty and worth in every living thing.
explore ideas, concepts and experiments fully, verbally,
and/or mentally + spiritually. It is a perfect time to channel
genius consciousness of all befores and afters. Embrace Boundlessness.

xoooo.

I am a vessel Made to deliver Light.

I had a beautiful revelation during meditation today.

The jump off point was something one of my PDC peers said last night at our graduation celebration. He said that people involved in permaculture seem to really know what’s going on, everyone seems really awake. I agreed with him with a faint hint lingering at my crown chakra of some more important, deeper understanding I could have of  that idea

That sentiment echoed in my head as I sat today, Everyone seems awake.

And it hit me.

Everyone can only seem awake because I am awake.

I am just awakening.

I have just AWAKENED.

And am still rubbing my eyes, in the process of becoming increasingly conscious of myself, the world around me, expansive dimensions, alchemizing energies…

It is new to me but it is not new.

People have been awakening throughout the ages.

When we are collectively dreaming or night-maring, the idea of being awake hardly crosses our minds, we assume, in our dreariness, that we are.

And then we are looking at our hands, realizing our own immense power and purpose, feeling motivated from within and synchronistically connecting with others who are experiencing the same empowerment of awareness.

I am awake now

And further more

Forever more

My head began to tingle and feel fuzzy and warm as if it were being massaged

And shone on by a bright bright light

The tingling continued to travel up and down my body and tears fell from my closed eyes and rolled down my cheeks and I realized that

I am a vessel and I want to be deliver light

I am a vessel MEANT to deliver light

I am a vessel made to deliver light

It also seems pertinent to mention that, as beings we don't ever truly cease to exist

love poem for the disenchanted

i never wrote that book
and i never explained to you what makes me horny
i never understood the shame
it always came right after
i grew up and learned off the grid
how to think
and i learned with you how to fuck flawlessly
and then no more shame
but i don't wanna put it all on you
you're just a man
just one flawed
beautiful
perfect
human
I just
wanna
love you
even if it just happens
to be your distinct compilation of
astrological combination and
social conditioning then later
un-conditioning and emotional
hang-ups that really turn me on
It feels like love
and godDammit
i like
Love.

Get Loud Get Political

When i grow up
i want to be on the fbi no fly list
i want to work my ass off for equal rights under a dictatorship of corporate greed

Really though I Believe in Peace and I believe in change

20 ways to affect change

1. Vote with your consumption, or lack there of.
2. Be self sufficient in creative ways
3. Protest
4. Boycott/girlcott
5. Vote in elections and only for people you truly believe in!
6. Find those who inspire you and keep them around
7. Discuss matters of utmost importance to you in loving ways
8. Grow your own organic food
9. Compost
10.Engage in random acts of kindness
11. Make thoughtful art
12. Express yourself, even when you are told you can't/shouldn't
13.Take care of your neighbors
14. Feed the hungry until they are full then give them some land, tach them to build a house and grow their own food.
15.Write letters
16. Listen to your gut and your higher self at all times
17. think of how your choices affect your family, your community, your world
18. Know your rights, stand up for them, use them!
19. Take over the media
20. Start a collective/commune/movement/revolution!

Currency emergency

get rid of the money
I've been dreaming of my Grandma
keeping the farm looking good for fans
for pics
for business
because what's good for business is good for his-nest is good to keep the conversations at lunch pleasantly rebellious
is good for the wallet and the principals held onto for the rich
what looks pretty is good for business and this business is none of your business if you can't afford it
And they sleep tight in their big warm house humming
If we could amend the system we would and in the meantime what's good for business...and in the meantime let's stay comfortable...
I don't hate the rich it's the bubble, the exclusive isolation i find appalling
Because it's far to easy to talk about peace and justice with your privileged white friends
it's not the money i hate
it's how it's used and what it's come to represent
What's good for business is business as usual
so
mind
your
business
so mind your refusal
so
mind
your
consciousness
include
create
renewal
I've been listening for plant voices, feeling they can help us to find the answers
What's good for big business is brainwashed fans and dizzy dancers

Battle cry

 Chances are

They’ll call me argumentative

Stubborn and rebellious

They’ll pucker up at all this pluck

They’ll shake their heads at my conviction

And say things are not black and white

They’ll carry on with their festivals and philosophy classes

They will study evolution and fear technology with the same intensity as their lust for it

They will think me crazy

But never complacent

Maybe it’s not the time or the place

To declare this country as much mine as anyone’s

And in this day and age of information youngsters hardly want to choose one thing

But I know wrong and right and I know relativity

And no matter how fancy your words or how studied your talk

I will never believe in the relativity of ok-ness of choosing money, gas and power over life

It’s not ok

It’s time to stand up

cubicle

i once had an office job
it
was
worse
than
death.
i
haven't
died
yet
and yet
i can say that
for sure.
i was in a coma
behind a computer
calling strangers
attempting to manipulate them
into giving
us their money.
And when i say 'us',
i really mean them.
Now i make less $
and am endlessly happier.
i have had organic earth in between
my skin and fingernails
for a month now.
i wear it with pride.

The more I do, The more I can do.

It's a windy night and the rain just started coming
The autumn crisp is here and it feels new and comfortable
 like friendship

I have love
and I know who I am, Where I'm from and going

And the lightening starts
the moon is in gemini

I went to a new town where I met an artist who channels the beyond
she was so excited to share what has been coming through her
It felt like a mirror

As meeting people often does

I am love

I killed myself on Facebook, didn't like that taste of reminiscence

I love everyone, ecstatic to be alive

Feeling like I'm in France

In the morning the sun dries each blade of grass and the birds make beats with the crickets

The clouds come back and promise rain to the thirsty earth

god and other magic spells/in the woods

What we're calling god is a multitude of forces at work
i got the answer from the forest, humbly asserting that nature is the original artist
Each tree in this woods is god
As are the fungi, the moss, lichens, the breeze, the bird and his song
And also all of it together, this micro climate of meditative wisdom is god
And not simply my observations but the ability to witness them is also the quiet creatitude deemed god
But sometimes, if for no other reason than to open up a space free of religious connotations, i'd like a new word for that
A word that doesn't fit neatly into any recognizable language, something more like a soundless sound, a feeling beyond feelings, an expansiveness absorbing all that surrounds it (everything) with fearless abandon, unconditional love
Love free of the trappings of Hallmark love, beauty mag love, or even rigid christian love, a natural, whole-hearted reciprocity, universal in it's scope, innocent and spontaneous in it's plan
The sort of thing that wakes me up in the morning, gently with a motherly embrace that tickles my inner senses with an infinite gratitude to be alive, right here, exactly wherever it is that i am
In this way god is everywhere and we can wake up anytime

Voice

my Voice is like the moonlight, the fresh breeze blowing across the field, the way that feels on hard-work's skin

my Voice is ever-present, itching to be heard and yet the fear holds it back sometimes

My head wraps around heart and chokes the soft wet caves where my Voice resides

and my truth gets stuck to the soles of the shoes of my pride

Conscious Execution

I don't know much about it yet, but next month I will be going to slaughter.

From the sound of that first sentence, I could very well be one of the chickens. I intuit that they have an idea of what we want them for, maybe no more details than that we will take their lives brutally without the kind of gratitude a natural chase in the wild would produce. I understand that many people think that chickens are stupid and I'm not disagreeing, I would actually add that most humans have the potential to be equally stupid, I am not saying they are smart, i am saying they have something we don't. All animals do. Even if we fence them in, take their eggs and put them on a tight feeding schedule, they have information that can't be put into language.

I'm no scientist but I am positing that there is information in dirt, in grass, in the DNA of weeds, there is information in trees and in decomposing matter (shit, bodies, fruit etc). This data is like nature's record keeping system and animals are fluent in that language where as we, if we once were, are currently not.
Don't get me wrong, I eat meat. I ****ing love it. I am also a woman and I stand fast to the belief that we who carry wombs around find it more difficult to take life unconsciously. I am talking about a prayer and a moderate amount of forethought and consideration...details of progressive, humane death-house to come.

Yo Maine

When you live in a city, greatly removed from nature you may
feel the need to look up the symbology of an insect if it lands on you
and
when you live in the country, in the nature (In IT), you would never be able to
find the time to look up all that symbology...of the hairless caterpiller
who crossed your path twice, the twenty separate ones with hair who found themselves on your hand, in your hair, your neck, a coat hanging in the greenhouse as you walk past...additionally, it would be extraneous since out here, in the country, in the midst of nature doing her thang, symbology has merged perfectly with literal reality and everyday becomes an infinity of pixels ever adjusting, connected and interdependent on you and one another and all the questions they ask in the city, here,  you can't utter them, not only would they sound silly but they have been answered, silently before you can urge your voice box forth.

Somehow, without meaning to, I've ended up exactly where I need to be.
A spiritualist said to look closer at Blueberries and to go to France. She also said I'd be working on a farm, with lots of time to make art.
Watching the food grow here in Eastern Maine is opening my eyes to so much magic, so many other worlds all around me.

I am deep in love with life.

On election day when some are hustling to the poles to put in their vote I guess I'll be working as hard and efficient as possible, harvesting, planting, building, maintaining, in other words, I'll vote with my acts.

Permaculture Design Consultant Training, Yoga, + Grandma Eleanor

The first weekend in June I started a PDC in Ellenville, NY with Andrew Faust (http://www.homebiome.com/courses%20and%20workshops.htm).

I didn't know very much about Permaculture when I began and after two intensive weekends, I have become more acutely aware of how much I don't know. And how much I need to know. I wanted to do the course because I have been feeling drawn, from deep in my heart to learn as much as I can about farming, gardening, and natural building in a holistic, sustainable and healing manner. I have been bothered and slightly paralyzed by the extent to which our modern dependence on toxic chemicals is allowing us to blindly destroy ourselves and our earth.

This is my wake up call.

Permaculture is empowerment.

For real.

Permaculture is about quiet, thoughtful observation and deliberate loving action.

It is a system that will allow us to keep on living healthy lives, to improve the health of the planet and all of it's natural resources and to therefor know that future generations will be handed a consciously created legacy of intelligent nourishment.

We are creating this new world right now, it is in process. We do it by building clean, using natural- non-chemically treated wood or earthen materials like mud, water and straw. We use the sun for passive solar heating. We think about natural sunny spots (south-facing) on the landscape and utilize them for growing or for getting optimal heat to buildings. We build smart water catchment systems to collect rainwater to use for plumbing, drinking, watering plants etc. New and creative technologies are available and being built as we speak to take advantage of nature's processes (for heating, cooling, fueling, holding, cleaning, conveniencing)  rather  than fracking, mining, or creating poisonous synthetic materials that exploit and disease the water, air, soil, and people in direct and indirect ways.

Every weekend, in the morning I teach Yoga on the deck of the natural wood schoolhouse at the biodynamic farm in Ellenville that Andrew, Adriana and their beautiful daughter Juniper call home. Surrounded by a green grassy field showing signs of returning to the forest it once was, with the birds chirping, the sun shining or the cool raindrops dropping on us, we breathe and stretch and move as deliberately as possible. I can't think of a lovelier place to practice.

I am filled with gratitude and excitement for this opportunity to learn hands-on from Andrew Faust and Adriana Magana.

I am missing this weekend in Ellenville to be with my Grandmother who is preparing to pass. She is on Hospice at St. Mary's, a hospital in Troy, NY. There is cancer throughout her body. I am jarred by the interconnections, acutely and painfully aware of the mainstream lifestyle; toxic diet + environment that cause and feed cancer.

My Grandmother was, and as she hangs on here in the hospital, still is a powerhouse. She is a woman who is a force of nature in her love, her convictions and her strength. She grew up on a farm outside of Utica, NY, the eldest of eleven siblings. She took care of her brothers and sisters, she was an extra mama. And she was the same to my four siblings and I. She supported us, monetarily, lovingly and physically. She came to each one of our rescue a million times in a million different ways. I always respected and valued her point of view and her intuition. Even though I sometimes felt that she didn't understand me, she was always there with love and encouragement. I realize now, watching her stillness as she holds on to a body that's shutting down, a life so filled with promise, that she understood me and so much more than I can even fathom, given the life that she led, the bravery, resourcefulness and tenacity it required.

She is still here as I write this, hanging on, breathing gargled breath through the wetness that's collected on her lungs. She seems to be in more pain every day. I can talk to her now but she doesn't respond. There is alot of morphine involved because that's how we solve problems we've created. Of course it's the only or easiest, most effective option right now and I'm grateful for it because I don't want to see her in pain. Still I want more for humans. While I accept what is in this moment, this moment also sharpens my focus on the need for a new way, a healthier, more conscious way.

Part of the healthier more conscious way is practicing Yoga and another part is permaculture. We have to act with urgency and purpose. Our planet and our world is sick and since we are a part of it, we are also sick.

Tonight, back in Brooklyn I hung up some pictures of my Grandma Eleanor and I lit an angel candle I bought for the shrine. I looked at the picture and told her I loved her. I prayed for peace for her and then what was hanging heavy on my heart and head came to the surface. I felt guilty. I apologized to her in my prayer, from my heart to hers, for not doing more to save her. When I first heard of her diagnosis, I told her about a healing center in AZ I had heard about that specializes in healing cancer homeopathically with a focus on an all raw and vegan diet.

I still wish I had dropped everything in brooklyn when she was diagnosed to drag her there. But regret is the enemy of a happy peaceful life and in reality, as in permaculture as in the tao of Grandma Eleanor, there is no could have there is just what is.

And what is is plenty of love and honoring her spirit with deliberate forward movement toward the healing of the earth and one another.

the Yoga Of Decision Making

Life is very much about the decisions we make day in and day out, as the years go by, the choices we make each day, from who to spend our time with, where to live, which dreams to follow and which to drop, shape our lives.

Sometimes when we get to a certain level of awareness it is possible we may become paralyzed by the overwhelming possibility, by all of the choices and opportunities available to us each day.

It can be much easier and much less alive to live as if there is only one or the other, as if there are a certain set number of choices. This is a safe illusion. Safe in that you will not have to face many fears, you will not have to experience the growing pains that come along with taking leaps of faith, following your intuition and making what may seem to others like irrational, unreasonable choices.

When facing that scary and exhilarating shopping mall of life full of bajillions of possible choices, I have learned to keep my eyes and heart wide open. No bad decisions arise from this place.

The best advice I have for myself and others, has been born from a steady Yoga practice and many years of stressing myself out for no good reason;

Relax, Life is miraculous.

The best that we can do in times of uncertainty,

in times of this or this or this or that or him or her or there or there or like this or how or why or exactly when and how hard...?

is to stay open.

Open to all of the feelings arising within us, open to the signs that present themselves along our path, open to learning new things and to just all of the beauty of this very moment which can be colored so dull by a mind trained to speed by it or hide behind it.

When living in full deliberateness, deliberation becomes as natural and easy as breathing. But then most of us need re-training in that too ; )

Oh Yoga, What am I Gonna do with you?/Nice is cool

In the current asana practice atmosphere, a breath centered practice that encourages you to take it easy if that’s what your body needs on a given day is a radical happening. It might not even be thought of by the general population as Yoga. Let me rephrase. Yoga, a word that can be translated to mean yoke, union or relationship, has come to be strictly associated with a practice where the teacher plays the role of a tough coach or school yard bully, encouraging you to ‘push it’, ‘hold it’, and ‘Go deeper’. The general belief is that the more specific anatomy instructions a teacher gives, the more they understand a proper practice and the better of a teacher they are. There is also this mutual positioning (in most classes I’ve been to and especially the most recent) by teacher and students to put the teacher on a pedestal. As if this person you’ve never met before could possibly know what your body needs better than you do. I whole-heartedly, passionately and lovingly, disagree.

So, you may ask, why come to class? Why partake in group practice? Why have a leader if you don’t need one? I come to a group practice to experience the shared energy that all of our combined intentions create and I appreciate the teacher as a guide and as a teacher but above all, I defer to my inner teacher. A teacher who acknowledges that listening to yourself above them is advanced practice is the kind of kind and healing teacher you want. This kind of teacher represents a deeper sort of Yoga, a loving union between your mind, spirit and physical body.

This is what I found when I came to Abhyasa. J. Brown teaches from a place of friendship, encouraging students to build strength in a measured and deliberate way. He reminds us again and again that there is no goal in Yoga, there is just the breath and the movement; the process. After my first class I knew I needed to train here, it was much like a slow and lovely class I had taken years ago in the quiet dessert town of Joshua Tree. It was what I’d been looking for; a whole practice built to allow the practitioner to connect with themselves (and hence life) in a meaningful way.

I went to a new Yoga class this week, my first one at this particular studio, with a teacher who has quite a reputation and following in Brooklyn. In Pictures he fits the role and the real reason I wanted to check out his class was his healing center/Yoga Studio Farm that I heard about in upstate NY. This completely parallels my dream and when I looked at pictures of it, I felt incredibly inspired, moved and hopeful. The world needs all of the healing and wellness centers and initiatives it can get right now so whenever I hear of one that seems in line with what I’ve been imagining I am happy, want to learn more and somehow be a part of it. As a Yoga teacher I thought maybe I could offer a class or two, as a budding entrepreneur and aspiring Healing center/ Farmer I thought I could learn a lot.

I came out of the studio feeling completely disillusioned and painfully reminded of the work-out like trend in Yoga, as well as the teacher as dictator rather than friend trend. No wonder this guy is popular, for all his alternative looks and seemingly off the grid ideas, both his teaching style and the type of Yoga he is sharing are right in line with the mainstream.

It seems that it is hip is to go to Yoga class and sweat and work and maybe breathe when you get around to it and then magically, because the all mighty wise guru says so, you get real spiritual, maybe even enlightened.

I don’t see the relationship.

I don’t get it. What does torturing your body (and therefor your mind and spirit, because they are all connected and the spirit is happy when you are gentle and loving to your body) have to do with enlightenment?

And while we are at it, what is enlightenment?

Enlightenment is when you are able to live in full embrace of the truth of interconnectedness. Because you are living this truth you act as love to all you come in contact with. And you are happy, even in your sadness, to be experiencing the present.

We are all capable of that. It’s not some far off dream or goal and it certainly will not be the effect of holding a crescent moon twist for a full minute with two reminders to breath while we push our shoulders down our back, tuck the lower shoulder, lift the weight out of the resting fingers, put the neck in line with the arm, lift the back leg, blah, blah, blah. We have enlightenment already. We are enlightened beings, some of us just have the shades drawn. And in my humble opinion, those who would ramble on and on excessively encouraging you to do 10 different strange and seemingly contradictory things with your body at once, without acknowledging that your body is yours and you have the right to listen to it over them and to connect with it deeply through deliberate breathing, all in the name of enlightenment, those may be the ones with the shades drawn most tightly.

And yet I like him. He’s not a bad guy. He’s just where he’s at. He even said a couple times in class, even though the sequence and his other directives did not agree, he said do as much work as you can while still being happy. I wish I could drag him to Abhyasa and set him on a mat in J. Brown’s class. J understands that sentiment and teaches fully from it. Rather than simply paying lip service to an idea of love, healing and tenderness, he enacts it, he guides students in his class to enact it.

In a few years, this popular Brooklyn Yogi may adapt his teaching style to truly represent the Yamas and Niyamas. Maybe he will greet students at the beginning of a class and ask them how they are feeling and if they have any injuries. Maybe he will find acting kindly and responsibly like that to be in line with living spiritually. Who knows, I don’t know. I do hope that he lets go of the habit of giving a new student an adjustment with his foot, consisting of a light kick in the fingers and an annoyed mumble, ‘Up on your fiingerss’.

In the meantime I am going to stick with Abhyasa for my regular practice. And from now on only venture out in order to get some teaching gigs of my own to spread the Yoga love.

As an end note- I do think we all have things to learn from each other, as teachers and humans. He gave me a lovely shoulder-scooping adjustment in Savasana, which I appreciated. I also feel as inspired and encouraged as ever to bring this slow +beautiful kind of Yoga practice to the world and to build a healing center/farm, it is so needed.

Description of Services

My Yoga journey has been about slowing down and listening and responding to the messages my body is constantly sending.

This translates into everyday life by granting me the awareness to listen and respond to the messages that people in my life, and the world around me are sending.

After training at Joschi Yoga in NYC, I taught a little here and there, ran away to Ithaca, got a job at a candle making factory and a Yoga teaching gig at Cornell, then came back to NYC for a job at Integrative Nutrition.

Back in NY, I did my second Teacher Training at Abhyasa with J Brown. The approach I take to practice is a therapeutically oriented one.

I hope to create a slow and beautiful experience for you that you can then bring into your life and give back to the world.

Yoga is more than asana practice, but asana practice can be a helpful and effective place to start, a place to start to align with your inner stillness and then to open the lines of communication with your inner guide, Sat Guru.

Asana practice builds strength and poise. Strength in the muscles and in the mind, with a slow- breath-centered approach we can develop the ability to control our focus, while tuning into our bodies. We make deliberate movements, take deliberate actions, matched to our inhalations and exhalations. We don't necessarily come to sweat, we come to grow, to remind ourselves of our already perfect selves, to stretch and expand our awareness while gently and lovingly stretching tight muscles.

This is a moving meditation, as is life.

When we keep coming back to our mats, to our practice we keep opening up to the delicious fullness of the present moment, this one, right here.

Currently I am teaching an Open Level Community Class ($8) Every Wednesday at 4pm at Abhyasa Yoga Center- 628 Metropolitan Ave, BK, NY

I look forward to practicing together.

Love + Growth,

Courtney Novak