Dear Qoya Community,
I miss you. I miss planning events where I am able to see you and dance together in the same room, where we can warm our hands by the same fire and look up at the same stars. And, I am so grateful for those of you I see through the Zoom screen. I'm grateful for the shared awareness with each of you who are reading these words as I feel all of us warmed by the same sun, reimagining possibilities for a new world and being held and supported by the same Mother Earth.
I had a vision for 2020 that every month I would move through each pillar in Qoya. That makes May the month for heart opening and this blog just in time to stay with this original vision.
Before doing the heart opening movement in a Qoya class, we ask the question:
Whatever is going on in your inner or outer world, are you willing to open your heart?
Everything inside of us, our heart, lungs, bones, and cells work in an interconnected system. Everything perceived as outside of us, the oceans, trees, animals, plants, and other people, dance in an interwoven experience of life. When we physically open our hearts, we open everything else. Our minds. Our spirits. Our relationships to others, nature, the divine.
The present moment is always the most potent one, and we always have the choice to meet a moment or retract from it. So as I type these words and as you read them, ask yourself what's true for you today:
Whatever is going on in your inner or outer world, are you willing to open your heart?
Whatever is happening in your life right now is the next dance with your relationship to opening your heart. How do you know that to be true? Because that is what's happening.
For some, grief is the invitation to open our hearts as we mourn the loss of people's lives, opportunities, past securities, and for some, the loss of hope. For others, the invitation before us is to open our hearts to joyous synchronicities, dreams coming true, and feeling more in alignment with ourselves than ever before. For all of us, we take turns exploring the range of human experiences, and in the midst of polarity and duality, the heart beats a steady pulse.
Opening your heart is a moment to moment choice, and it is always your choice.
When you offer offer your movement as embodied metaphor, you also offer your movement to the spirit of metamorphosis. A metamorphosis of remembering the transformational cycle that is always at play. Even though the caterpillar may fear that the world it knows is ending, its imaginal cells hold all of the information for its next evolution into a butterfly. Do our human bodies and psyche also contain these imaginal cells to guide us through life's blessings and challenges?
By trusting your capacity to stretch your heart in every direction to be present with the authentic truth of experiences, you begin to open your heart to life itself.
"One must begin in one's own life the private solutions that can only in turn become public solutions."
—Wendell Berry
As we yearn for a world that is more loving, let us use our power to choose our perspective in opening our hearts to what is, to each other, and to life. Individual consciousness influences personal relationships, which create group dynamics in families, friends, and communities. Our community's awareness directs the choices of our society. Our societies then go on to shape our world. There is no way that we can isolate anything anymore. Our realities are intertwined. Our destinies interwoven.
Words are wonderful to exchange intellectual ideas, and there is a different understanding of opening your heart when you embodied it and integrate it through lived experience. Here are some invitations:
1) Turn on a song you love that has a strong beat. Dance your heartbeat with it.
2) Be lead through heart opening in this video here.
3) Sign up for the very first Qoya Sweat class with me this weekend.
Sunday, May 31st from 3:00pm-4:30pm EST
Once upon a time Qoya and Conscious Aerobics decided to throw a party together. Good news. You're invited. In a time with so much energy outside and inside of us, we may feel the need to move that energy with movement. For those who love Qoya and are also feeling the desire to Sweat, this class is for you. Wear something that makes you smile.Pay what feels right in your heart.Get ready to sweat.
Click here to register.
4) Every Qoya Class has Heart Opening! Check out other Qoya classes happening online.
5) Anchor this idea of opening your heart to whatever is present in some way. Draw a heart on your hand. Put a rose quartz in your pocket. Light a candle that mirrors your own heart's flame. Keep asking and answering the question, "Whatever is going on in your inner or outer world, are you willing to open your heart?"
Love requires a fierce grace. The strength to endure. The resilience to forgive. The courage to open again. The good news is, in our willingness is our capacity. May the willingness to open your heart lead your way.
Thank you for being part of this Qoya community. I am so honored to be dancing together.
With love,
Rochelle
All Online Courses Pay What You Can
We're currently offering all of our self-paced online classes at pay what you can prices.
Intro to Qoya
A Call to Create
Embodied Astrology
Dance with the Divine
Click here to learn more about each and register.
A reminder that we're currently offering two weekly calls to work through the Call to Create material together! Jump on in if you haven't already. Our next call is Thursday, May 28th at 3:00pm EST.
Click here to register for A Call to Create at the pay what you can price.
Teachers from our Qoya community all over the world are offering classes online.
Click here to browse the current offerings.
August 1- 7, 2020
Complete the third and final step of Qoya teacher training, the Intensive, in the Sequoia National Forest with Rochelle Schieck. In this training, you'll teach a Qoya class to the group and go through a personal initiation into each pillar of Qoya.
Click here to register.
October 17 - 24, 2020
Complete the third and final step of Qoya teacher training, the Intensive, online with Rochelle Schieck. In this training, you'll teach a Qoya class to the group and go through a personal initiation into each pillar of Qoya.
Click here to register.