FULL : Yoga of the Heart: For an Engaged Life

Expectations and objectives:
To provide Friends with an opportunity to use the path of yoga to bridge the gap between body and soul, between action and contemplation, between activism and mysticism.
To introduce participants to the power of Alignment Yoga to go to the core of hatha practice and to introduce participants to Heart Yoga, a heart opening path to the experience of the marriage of immanence and transcendence, of mysticism and action.
To wake up the core muscles that are our birthright but which have often been lost in the West because of our lifestyle. Waking up the core creates calm in the nervous system, greater awareness of our bodies, and increased ability to read the subtle signs our inner awareness provides us.
To learn and use the “three fundamentals” of Alignment Yoga to help us stay in our bodies (instead of getting lost in thoughts) and as a path to learning meditation.
To introduce participants to the overlap between yoga meditation and Rex Ambler's Experiments with Light.
To use hatha yoga practice to support health and wholeness in ourselves and to catalyze the deep compassion that arises from conscious connection with the Divine, which guides our work in the world.
To practice Heart Yoga--combining sacred texts with asana (postures) practice to invite unity of body and soul and openness to the perception of Oneness.
Areas or topics to be covered:
Learning to become more embodied through asana (postures) practice, attention to breath, and meditative skills
Understanding how 'living from our heads' leaves us anxious and dis-empowered.
Using sacred texts in combination with asana can create compassion for ourselves and all life.
Understanding how duality (seeing the world in dualities) inhibits creativity and compassion, and limits our openness to connections with the Divine.
Learning how managing our own physiological responses, such as heart rate variability and sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system balance, not only centers and grounds ourselves but others with whom we come in contact.
Approximate daily format:
Opening meditation (15 minutes)
Alignment Hatha yoga class (60-75 minutes)
Break (15 minutes)
Heart Yoga practice or Experiment with Light practice (60 minutes)
Worship (15-30 minutes)
Recommendations for advance reading:
Advance reading is not required, but if one is interested, these websites may be useful:
www.alignmentyoga.com (especially the blog)
http://yogakaruna.com/heart-yoga-the-vision/
http://www.andrewharvey.net/
These books may be of interest:
Alignment Yoga: An Intelligent Approach to Ancient Wisdom by Scott A. Anderson
Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism by Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erickson
I will write to participants about what to bring after they are registered.

About the leader :
I have been studying yoga for many years and teaching for 17 years. In the past 9 years I have been training with Scott Anderson of Alignment Yoga and hold both 200 hour and 500 hour registrations through Yoga Alliance. I own the Yoga Center of Eau Claire LLC where I teach classes and workshops and offer therapeutic yoga. I am currently assisting Scott Anderson in 200 hour teacher trainings. For 7 years I have been offering yoga classes during the Gathering and in 2011 and 2012 offered this workshop. My husband Mark and I have led workshops at previous Gatherings focusing on FolkDancer's and couple's process. I feel blessed to be able to share the profound teachings of yoga--compassion for oneself and others, learning the lessons of living in this body we inhabit to empower us to awaken our hearts, and walking with grace the path between our mind's attraction to the duality of right and wrong and our heart's knowledge of oneness.