Belly. Vulva. Spine
Somatic movement journeys into parts of us that and hold our deepest stories– and possibilities
Guided by Stefana Serafina
Prerecorded live, with participants from around the world
3 immersions, each 3 hours long, followed by 3 integration rituals...
They offer you a doorway into yourself through three of the most powerful gateways of your body: Belly. Vulva. Spine. They invite you into an embodied discovery, a search for the deeper or lost parts of your soul, and your most important stories- offering you a chance to heal, make peace, learn from the well of your body's intelligence, and restore embodied wholeness.
Step in and move in the fertile space of your senses, emotions, body memory, imagination, and connection to the ancestral, collective, and the invisible.
Belly
From the umbilical cord and ever after, the belly is the center of life in our bodies–– a place of utter intelligence, utter sensitivity and utter responsibility for the human homeostasis. Both ancient medicine and modern science have called the gut ‘the other brain’, and most of us, especially women, have a truly complex relationship to our bellies, filled with cultural and personal conflict– and with possibility.
Our culture has imprinted us with ideas of the wrongness of our bellies: Too big, too flabby, protruding vs. tucked in, not ‘toned’ enough, the eternal need to ‘cut back’, the demonizing of belly fat... To “stomach” our feelings, yet “suck in” our bellies is the accepted norm. No wonder our bellies are too often battlefields with a broken balance, signaling to us that our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes toward the most tender parts of our bodies are critical for our wellbeing!
In the Belly edgewalk we will journey into our own bellies in a deeply somatic way, and learn from the intelligence of our gut. We will connect with our bellies as storehouses of emotions and instincts, and the seat of intuition. We will explore and travel through our own “underbelly”– the less visible and understood part of what troubles us, of what we have not been able to ‘stomach’, what has accumulated and needs release, what is stagnating and cries for movement. We will, in other words, seek to restore metabolism at the deepest level, a restoration and rebalancing of the gut, emotionally, physically, spiritually. We will confront and begin dismantling the social ideas that shape our relationship to our bellies and gut, and re-allow the natural life and intelligence of Belly to flourish and nourish us.
Vulva
A portal to the inner world, a gatekeeper to our most sacred place inside, a seat of the erotic intelligence of the female body, Vulva invites us to a journey into the mysteries, pleasures, protections, and powers of the female form. Vulva is not just one thing: She is rather the fullness of the sexual organ of the female body that includes the inner and outer lips (the other mouth), our 'vestibule'–the vaginal opening, and our pleasure parlor, the clitoris. And although in modern definitions, we think of the vulva as the external sexual organ, the truth is that it extends deeply inward, it opens the doors into our bodies and guides the way into the deep– and in its ancient Latin origin, the word vulva actually meant womb. To tap the even greater significance of our vulvas, we must keep in mind also that in the Old Norse societies, Völva was a female practitioner of magic and prophecy– a prophetess, seer, sooth-sayer, and witch.
In this edge-walk, we will take a somatic journey into the wholeness of Vulva- as a sexual and spiritual activator and transformer, as a portal to our depths, a record keeper of our most ancient knowledge of the sanctity of the female body, and also as the symbolic and practical throne of the Seer and the Sexual Priestess in our own bodies.
Through a powerful mix of somatic and intuitive movement journeying, embodied voice, writing, and witness circle, we will journey into the stories that Vulva keeps about who we are, where we come from, and what each of us must heal, generate, birth and release as a carrier of Vulva’s legacy. We will tell the personal and collective histories our Vulvas remember, purge stagnant sensual and sexual imprints, and tap the unspeakable well of pleasure, joy and life force that is Vulva.
Spine
It is hard to overestimate the significance and the miracle of Spine: A scaffolding for the entire body. A carrier & distributor of the central nervous system. An ancestor inside us.
Spine has taken millennia to evolve and carries the record of how we’re related to the many spined beings that inform us- dinosaur, whale, bear, ape, serpent.
In this edge-walk, we will wake up the primordial wisdom of Spine, connect to our skeletal and ancestral intelligence, and access the intrinsic wisdom of the serpent spine- the primordial feminine movement around the masculine column of the body, also known as Ida & Pingala in the yogic tradition, both embodied in the Spine.
We will restore spaciousness in the vertebrae and therefore in our lives and, through intuitive spine movement and breath, we will explore the deeper stories of Sacrum and Tailbone- the protectors of our pelvic space and the regulators of our sexual integrity.
In many ways, this edgewalk will be a Serpentine edge-walk into our deepest sexuality, a resurrection of sexual life force that becomes accessed when Spine is free to tell her oldest stories: When Spine's vertebrae are allowed to twirl, slither, snake, stretch, and undulate in our bodies, we can excavate histories and knowledge from the wild prairies of human existence, from the shewolf soul roaming free in us, and from of temple dancers and priestesses who keep the fire of sensual dance somewhere in our psyche.
"Our bodies, like Earth, are the keepers of memory. When we wish to examine how we evolved as a culture and a species, we dig in the earth. To examine how each of us evolved as individuals or as family systems, we excavate our bodies."
Dr. Ruby Gibson
Anja Krueger,
Berlin
Thank you, Stefana, for your work. The embodiment practices have led to the most powerful shifts in my life. Through movement practice I transformed a core issue which had affected my whole life. I know more deeply that the intelligence is in my body and I am not taking any decisions without asking my body first.
Maggie Bronson,
Oakland
I was able to "see" into myself through movement. I was able to release grief, to experience deeper self love, acceptance and spaciousness. I was brought right into my wild soul. I was able to develop a heightened level of curiosity and a desire to follow what came up in the room.
Nadia Duran,
the Netherlands
I love Stefana’s ability to hold space, to lead by example. She takes you by the hand and yet gives you so much possibilities and freedom to discover.
I feel held, seen, guided, accented and inspired by her presence, by her groundedness and authenticity.
Purchase Course for Lifelong Access
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3 pre-recorded journeys, each 3 long, in both audio-only and video format, for your convenience.
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An after-journey integrative session: An audio from Stefana inviting you to a specific, well outlined personal integrative ritual in nature after each of the 3 journeys
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Guidelines to anchor some of your insights through writing, observation, drawing, and more.
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Choose your own pacing
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Lifelong access