The Embodied Way Podcast STEFANA SERAFINA

“Will my culture thank me if I disrupt its complacency?”
Zhenevere Sophia Dao asks some of the most piercing, identity-deconstructing and soul-generating questions of our time, while she also embodies the answers with deep, poetic presence and humility.
In this episode, we speak to this rare teacher, philosopher, embodiment artist, poetess, and transgender woman,  about the mysteries and the politics of gender, and about what she calls “the transgender necessity”. Zhenevere takes us on an up-close and personal journey into her own process of reclaiming her true gender, and, with spellbinding urgency, invites us to consider the social need to not only accept but to celebrate transgender people as messengers of what is possible in a life– and in a culture.
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Zhenevere Sophia Dao is a poet, novelist, playwright, and director of the SACRA Theater Company in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A transgender woman, she is also the founder of the practice tradition of MogaDao and the MogaDao Institute. Zhenevere was a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, and has published fiction with Penguin Books.
Find more about her work:  www.mogadaoinstitute.com
 
THIS EPISODE’S WISDOM BITE
"Self-othering, or becoming trans inside of a culture or a self,  is what enables an absolute emancipation and a mythopoetic recreation of a new way of being in the world." 
"The transgender person is not just to be accepted but to be celebrated as deeply needed and necessary: The self-othering that is a necessary part of a transgender person’s emergence is actually a very important part of everyone psychological makeup. We often make great changes in our lives when we become ‘other’ to ourselves. It is a powerful tool of transparency  to one’s soul that everyone needs. And transgender people, we are masters at that, at self-othering– and of taking that self-othering into transformation and evolution."

What does it take for one to feel an utter and lasting sense of belonging––belonging to one's family, communities, and culture, belonging in one's body, belonging with a partner, and to one's own self? In this conversation with Canadian writer, teacher, and dreamworker Toko-pa Turner who authored the award-winning book Belonging, we contemplate the distinction between fitting-in and belonging, the reasons why non-belonging  is the silent pandemic of our times, the two lovers we must introduce within ourselves, and the competencies  we must learn and practice in order to experience belonging in a fragmented world. 
 

A brief and unprecedented episode, in which host Stefana Serafina discusses the coronavirus outbreak as a movement of archetypal  universal intelligence, a "raising of the voice of the the Wild Earth that is surging to make herself understood: Pressing pause now is only the start...."
"Sit down together–but a new kind of together", Corona seems to be saying,  "Pause and come still,  as a global organization that now gets a chance to meditate on its impact on the much vaster organization of life."
To share this episode from our webpage:
http://www.embodiedway.com/coronathecrone/
To share this episode in the form of a written essay:
https://www.intuitivedance.org/single-post/2020/03/17/Corona-the-Crone-We-Must-Be-Changed

Long before social injustice becomes obvious and explicit, our bodies  experience it, internalize it, and embody it as non-verbal patterns. In this conversation with Dr. Rae Johnson, a scholar working at the intersection of somatic studies and social justice, we expose the mostly unconscious behaviors that perpetuate oppression in an embodied way,  how oppression is experienced as a bodily felt sense,  and how we can learn to undo oppression through the body–– both as we experience it and as we inflict it on others.
Rae Johnson, PhD, RSMT is a queer-identified scholar working at the intersection of somatic studies and social justice. Key themes in their work include the embodied experience of oppression, somatic approaches to research, and the poetic body.  They are the chair of the Somatic Psychology Doctoral program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the author of several books, including "Embodying Social Justice". 
https://raejohnsonsomatic.com/

On the importance of creating a culture of emotionally aware and expressed people, and the significance of allowing our bodies to express in a primal and liberated way, as an example of nature and its many states, storms, colors and changes. We speak with somatic healer, dancer, and embodiment facilitator, BERNADETTE PLEASANT, the founder of FEMME!, a modality for all genders. Tune in for this vibrant conversation about  how to harness the primal power and vulnerability of our emotions through the body, in a way that makes us freer, more alive, and more connected.
 
 EPISODE'S WISDOM BITES: 
Our bodies are created in the likeness of nature. Sunsets don’t hold back. Rainstorms and the ocean get to be so many things; there is no one right way for them to be. And so we also get to be that expressive: We get to be water, we get to be gentle as a fine mist, we get to be still and inviting, we get to be ferocious, we get to be frozen, or warm. We get to be everything that is given to us by example of nature. And the invitation is that nature in no iteration   stays the same or operates in a thin or narrow margin. There is change, there is growth, there is color, there is beauty, there is barren, there is every-thing in nature! And our bodies too, our way of being, of moving, of emoting, are all of that– all the ways in which we can live our bodies as an example of nature.”
“When my body is freeas it wishes, as opposed to traditional forms of dance, and I am feeling, say, rage,I am  not focusing on a pointed toe and an angle, but I get to bring whatever needs to move through me, in such a complete way that I feel wider after I move: I have given that which I am feeling the movement and the sound that it needs to express through my body. So I  often tell people to bring me their “too-much”. If they have ever been told that they were too much, I say to them, “Bring it to me! I want your too-muchness.” Those are the kind of people I want to run tribe with, to create a community with. If we get to be fully expressed through our bodies, imagine the lives we get to live.”
More about Bernadette's work at https://livefemme.com
Bernadette Pleasant is the Creator of Femme! a mind and body wellness modality, rooted in dance, sensuality, emotional and creative expression, inclusivity and empowerment for all. A  gifted somatic healer, dancer, and entrepreneur, Bernadette creates immersive experiences that empower and celebrate people of all genders, ages, sizes, and fitness levels. She travels the world to offer transformative embodiment and regularly leads discussions on emotional healing, inclusive movement, and embodied empowerment. 
She is also a woman of color who comes from a long line of natural healers, and an experienced practitioner and teacher  of Pole Dancing, Nia, and African Dance. Her classrooms welcome participants without judgment and support them on their paths to finding comfort in their own skin. 
 

How does one know that they are standing at a threshold whose crossing is a promise that life will never be the same?  What gives us the power to move through the toughest, the biggest, or the most influential turning points of our lives? And why are the body and the heart, dance and community our best allies in both personal and collective rites of passage? Listen to Dr. Melissa Michaels weigh in on these powerful questions, and speak to the importance of finding one’s soul path vs. getting on the “success path”.  
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Melissa Michaels, is a doctor of education, a movement– and rites-of-passage guide and facilitator, a youth mentor, a community leader and activist, based in Boulder, CO. She creates movement based cross-cultural educational opportunities focusing on the potential that is available at major life thresholds. Her work uses the expressive and social arts to establish body and heart as resources for authentic expression, and for mapping the journey from trauma to dynamic well-being.
Recognizing the essential need for the body in our cultural conversations about how to serve the next generation, she has developed comprehensive programs, assisting youth and the adults who serve them in accessing their kinesthetic intelligence and their capacity to move with grace, focus, and freedom. Melissa creates safe and provocative learning environments that support individuals and communities in the embodied exploration of how creativity serves awakening and connection. 
Melissa is the Founder and Director of  a couple of international somatic education and Rites-Of-Passage programs. She also founded Golden Bridge, the nonprofit organization that serves as the umbrella for her work and the work of the hundreds of emerging leaders who have come of age in her programs.
Melissa is the author of the book, Youth On Fire: Igniting a Generation of Embodied Global Leaders. She is the mother of three daughters and a mentor for youth across the globe.
Find more about Melissa's work at 
http://www.goldenbridge.org/