Autumn Inside- AMSTERDAM: Grief, Letting Go and Returning Home

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AUTUMN INSIDE- AMSTERDAM: GRIEF, LETTING GO AND RETURNING HOME

October 7

AMSTERDAM

IN PERSON

@ De Nieuwe Yoga School

10:00 – 14:00 (10-2) 

$100

Through archetypal qigong and  the nature-based teachings of Chinese 5 Element Cosmology, we will be exploring and tending specifically to the season and cycle of Autumn and the Metal Element in our bodies and lives and preparing the ground for our passage into Winter and the Water Element,  a time for profound replenishment, incubation and rest. 

The expression and exploration of Archetypal Qigong is a somatic participation in medicinal gestures that offer us maps, mirrors and potent energetic medicine. Through the forms we literally move our way into a conversation with the wisdom, resources, and deep memory of the archetypal world of patterns and stories that hold keys to our potential, integration, and creative power. Each form holds a different medicine. What is it to inhabit and cultivate patterns of discernment, letting go, surrender, protection, courage, consolidation, trust?  Archetypal Qigong helps us meet the ever-evolving world by shifting us from mere ideals into a felt-sense inhabitance of life’s vital energies.

MORE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS SEASONAL TRANSITION 

I have come to learn that many people harbor a secret dread of Winter, and that dread can begin now…as Fall lands upon us. Though often a welcomed turn, Autumn can also bring an impending fear of darkness, of seasonal depression, of the fallow field-an inability to turn inward in a nourishing way, in a culture that demands constant productivity at all costs.
 
One of the reasons Winter can be daunting for us is because we end up incubating suffocation rather than incubating the quiet, peace and stillness that is available to us and is central to our health and nourishment, both on a physical and soul level.
 
Autumn is a time for letting go. For drawing energy from the external to the internal. It is a powerful and long passage. Most of us do some version of a face-plant into Winter, straight from the overextension, busyness and exhaustion of Summer and of our western culture, skipping over the exquisite beauty and necessity of Fall inside of ourselves-which is a willingness to let go, to honor and grieve all that has come and gone, to begin our turn inward. It is difficult to turn inward if we are terrified of what we might find there, or if we have no map or support to truly let go, to let the leaves of our lives fall to the earth, to admit that all we have been given will be given back and that this part of the cycle is necessary, and constantly asking for its due. We can spend a whole life resisting this, using most of our daily energy trying to keep nature’s cycles from cycling in us.
 
Many people spend Winter trying to skip it altogether-simultaneously clinging to the Summer that has passed, while jumping ahead to a Spring that is not yet here, nor even possible without a true Winter. This creates anxiety, depression, a pervasive fear of stillness, an inability to rest or to pause and an exhaustion that can never seem to get its feet under itself. Winter is nature’s long and incubating pause. We all need a Winter. And before Winter, we need a Fall.
 
In Chinese Medicine, this passage takes place in the organ system of the Lungs and Large Intestine- the Metal Element. When we do not tend the lungs and the Metal element before we go into Winter, the low wet clouds of fullness and grief set in and stagnate, thus creating a physical and psychological situation in which we literally incubate repression, suffocation and stagnation in our bodies and minds.
 
We are a part of a great wheel of cycles. When we return to harmony with these rhythms, our whole lives begin to true to the tune of a greater intelligence and coherence.
 
This is workshop dedicated to the deep nourishment of what is expressing right now in the northern hemisphere- which is the expression of turning inward, returning to earth, letting go, tucking the harvest of the year into our fat cheeks for a long and delicious Winter ahead.
 

About Sarah Byrden

Sarah Byrden is a somatic educator, archetypal qigong teacher, a poet and writer, storyteller, orator and wilderness guide. A two time TEDx presenter, Sarah has dedicated over twenty years to the deep study and apprenticeship of nature-based movement modalities, archetypal patterns, words and wilderness. She brings skill, nuanced perception and capacity for language to her teaching in a way that opens new doors and pathways. Teaching from her own direct-study and life-long journey, she is the founder of The Elemental Self, a creative space for remembering our truest self, the web in which we belong, and our innate capacity to move and be moved by a source beyond our conditioning.

 

Please note : Though Sarah Byrden still carries many of the qigong forms and teachings as they were given to her in her years of study and certification, she no longer endorses the MogaDao Institute or study with Zhenzan/Zhenevere Dao in any capacity, no longer teaches or studies in association with the MogaDao or Zhen Dao, operates under the designation of “MogaDao Teacher”, nor represents or endorses MogaDao as an entity in any way.