BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Conversations At The Edge
Monday, February 13, 7:45pm
A continuing education seminar for therapists, presented by the Institute For Meditation & Psychotherapy, this monthly lecture series will focus on current themes and issues within the dialogue between Buddhism and psychotherapy. Two continuing education credits (2 CEs) will be offered each evening to psychologists, social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and nurses. $25/door, $175/series
Tonight: Trauma, Compassion and Loving Kindness: Exploring Our Affective Potential for Healing Deep Suffering and Coping Well with Deborah Rozelle, PsyD
In the face of the deep suffering that trauma engenders, what does Buddhism have to offer the therapist? Using clinical vignettes, the presenter will explore some of the challenges therapists inevitably face with trauma survivors. She will present an approach that develops one’s capacity for compassion and loving kindness – the skills of the “bodhisattva warrior” – as an essential skill set for healing deep suffering and coping well. Grounded in Western psychological theory, this talk will also offer key Buddhist practices based on traditional Lojong Mind Training, a largely unknown but invaluable resource for therapists

Special Events! PFILATES: Pelvic Floor Pilates
Master Class & Teacher Training with
Pfilates creator Bruce Crawford, MD & Carrie Tyler
Saturday, February 18
Noon-1:30pm ~ Master Class
2:30-7:30pm ~ Teacher Training*
Pfilates goes beyond Kegel exercises by using movements that condition the pelvic floor and also tone the thighs and gluteals. Clinically tested to obtain positive results and ideal for post natal use, Pfilates is the most effective pelvic floor training ever designed. Pfilates creator Dr. Bruce Crawford believes surgery is painful and unnecessary and that ‘neuromuscular’ disorders deserve neuromuscular solutions. Experience Pfilates through a master movement class for the public or through a teacher training geared towards movement and medical professionals as well as physical and occupational therapists. The training course offers accurate information on the origin for various pelvic floor disorders including urinary incontinence, organ prolapse, pelvic pain syndrome and sexual dysfunction. For more information on Pfilates please visit pfilates.com. Master class $40 ~ Teacher Training $300, includes Pfilates Kit. Registration for Teacher Training required by February 10th through Rasamaya - register here.
* Teacher Training is open to movement teachers, occupational therapists, nurses, physical therapists and students with a strong desire to learn. 5 CEUs are available for Occupational & Physical Therapists through American Board of Physical Therapy. Pilates Method Alliance Approved
Dr. Bruce Crawford is a Board Certified Gynecologist and pelvic floor specialist currently in practice in Nevada. He also serves as medical advisor to the International Association for Women and Development, making several trips to West Africa to train local surgeons.
Carrie Tyler is the Founder and creator of the Rasamaya Method and certified Pfilates Teacher Trainer. She is the proud owner of several studios and runs teacher trainings, retreats and workshops within the US and abroad. In her private structural therapy practice she specializes in women’s health, postural issues and sexuality

KIRTAN with Shubalananda & Ashley plus special guests
Saturday, February 18, 7pm
The singing of kirtan goes back thousands of years in India. Created by ancient rishis from the seed mantras of the Vedas, the sounds are designed to resonate with your chakras to help move the energy up your spine. The rishis set phrases like Om Namah Shivaya or Sita Ram to simple melodies and sang them. As powerful as it is, kirtan is effortless and incredibly enjoyable! We’ll sing the kirtan, call and response style, over and over, with more and more bhava (spiritual emotion or soul - think Ray Charles) until the singers enter higher planes of consciousness. The wonderful thing about kirtan is that it is fun. Other forms of spiritual practice, or sadhana, can be strenuous, but kirtan just flows from everyone’s connection to music. Even those who feel they do not have a good voice discover themselves singing on pitch, in time. Singing these Sanskrit seed mantras is an excellent way to discover your true voice. Shubalananda (Larry Kopp) has been leading kirtan for many years, having studied with Neem Karoli Baba, Sathya Sai Baba, Karunamayi and currently Shree Maa. His guitar & harmonium playing and voice of experience gives his kirtan a power and a bhava that is shared with all who join him. Come and experience this easy, happy, and deep form of Sadhana, and find out more at www.shubalananda.com. Please make a donation!

THE YOGA OF ENERGY FLOW 200Hr Yoga Teacher Training
with Daniel Orlansky, Liz Owen, Chip Hartranft, & Carrie Tyler
Friday-Sunday, February 24-26 ~ view details

CELEBRATION OF THE SOUL: African Dance with Wyoma
Partial proceeds to benefit Sini Sanuman to end FGM
Saturday, February 25, 7:30-9:30pm
Until the lion has his own historian, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter—Ghanian proverb
Join Wyoma for this monthly community dance party! Barefoot beat-bonding at its best - lightly facilitated African and your own freestyle movement.  Truth-telling in dance, song, and writing. We'll cultivate awareness of the mind-body-spirit connection and explore the human and divine forces of nature with an open heart. Come together with others to savor and celebrate the gift of your being.
Ashe! (Yoruba: Amen, Blessed be!). $15 or class card at door
Wyoma is a performer and facilitator of African and healing dance, as well as yoga instructor and body/mind consultant. Her bestselling DVD, African Healing Dance, is used as a teaching tool by schools and libraries in the U.S. and internationally. The Zimbabwean proverb If you can walk you can dance - if you can talk you can sing! exemplifies her unique teaching style and dedication to the development of the whole person. More at wyomadance.com, FB, Twitter

SOUND HEALING CIRCLE with Brad Brockmann & Comma Williams
Sunday, February 26, 7-9pm ~ doors open 6:45, close 7:20
Join us on the last Sunday of the month to explore the transformative healing powers of sound. You will both co-create and receive sound healing, and learn how to improvise music with a healing intention. Bring your favorite instruments or just yourself, your voice and your love. Prior musical or healing experience is welcome but not required. We look forward to seeing you! Suggested donation $5-15

THE YOGA OF ENERGY FLOW 500Hr Yoga Teacher Training
with Daniel Orlansky, Liz Owen, Chip Hartranft, & Carrie Tyler
Friday-Sunday, March 2-4 ~ view details

YOGAWRITE with Kim Childs & Deborah Sosin
Saturday, March 3, 2-4:30pm
Have you ever been so moved by your yoga practice that you wanted to write about it? Could you use some help moving words out of your head and onto the page? If so, join Kripalu yoga teacher and creativity coach Kim Childs and Write It Like It Is facilitator Deborah Sosin for an afternoon workshop designed to let your body's wisdom inspire your self-expression. Kim will guide you through some easy warm-ups before leading a few classic yoga postures. Following each posture, Deborah will lead writing exercises to help you tap into and express the essence of the pose as you experienced it. Participants will be invited to share their writing, if desired. Dress for a gentle yoga practice and bring a favorite journal or notebook if you have one. $35 or class card x 2 + $5
Kim Childs is a writer, musician, and award-winning public radio journalist who left the news media in 1999 to live and train at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Today she is a certified Kripalu yoga teacher, and she leads workshops based on The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Kim’s writing is featured in Chicken Soup for the Mother and Daughter Soul, Natural Awakenings magazine, and her blog, A Pilgrim on the Path, among other places. Visit her at KimChilds.com
Deborah Sosin, LICSW, has nearly 30 years’ experience as a writer, editor, and clinical social worker. Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, the Journal News, Zone 3, and on Salon.com. She offers Write It Like It Is groups and workshops at the Arlington Center, the Arlington Center for the Arts, and in Newton. She has a private clinical practice and offers consultations to writers and writing groups. For more information, visit DeborahSosin.com

Dharma Film Series presents CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
Saturday, March 3, 7pm
32,000 years ago, early humans entered a cavern in the south of France and created hundreds of elaborate paintings over thousands of years.  The paintings in the Chauvet Cave, including animals, humans and abstract forms are the oldest known to exist. Rediscovered in 1994, the cave was immediately sealed off to the public, until Werner Herzog's documentary film crew was given unprecedented access to film this documentary. Exploring the cave's artwork and history in this documentary, Herzog explores deeper questions about humanity and our universal creative and spiritual drives is his own eccentric and inimitable style. Presented with the Institute For Meditation & Psychotherapy. $10 at the door, with free refreshments and post-film discussion, $35/3 CEUs for mental health professionals

ENTERING THE FLOW: A Yoga Workshop For Beginners
with Liz Owen
Saturday, March 10, 12-2pm
Start your new year off with the best gift you can give yourself or others! In this beginning level yoga workshop we will explore asana practice through postures which gently stretch, strengthen and soothe the body. Restorative poses are woven into this experience of body/mind meditation to nurture the body's energy into balance, and deep relaxation will release layers of stress and bring the body and mind to rest at their center. This workshop is appropriate for anyone interested in a slower, softer paced yoga experience and it is particularly helpful for those who are interested in yoga and have not yet taken the leap. This is a wonderful practice for re-energizing the body, de-stressing the mind, and taking one step at a time towards bringing the mind to a state of stillness. $28 or class card x 2

BREATHWORK with Samvedam Bettina Randles
Saturday, March 10, 2-4pm
Use the transformative power of the breath to still the mind, clear the emotions, and deeply relax your body. This will  help you create a more conscious connection to your spirit! Join us for an introductory class. $35 or class card x 2 + $5
Samvedam Randles, Dipl Psych, LMHC is a psychologist and nationally certified body worker with 25 years of experience teaching breath work. To learn more go to www.innerartsinstitute.com

SPIRAL POWER: The Mechanical Advantage with Josh Schreiber
Sunday, March 11, 10:30-1
Long ago, humanity discovered the effectiveness of the inclined plane for making a difficult task easier. Some time after that, we developed the screw, which is essentially a spiraling inclined plane. As is so often the case, nature was there first—all around us and in our own bodies. Not a single bone in our body is straight; even those that seem straight (such as the bones of the arms and legs) are actually twisted in an elegant spiral (or, more accurately, a helix). In this workshop you will learn to tap into the spiralic structure of your body, discovering how to rise effortlessly from the floor to standing, and to move in any direction with increased ease, power, and grace. $28 or class card x 2 at door

SHAMANIC JOURNEY CIRCLE with Comma Williams
Sunday, March 11, 6:30-8:30pm
Shamanic journeying is a tool that has been traditionally used by indigenous shamans for the healing of individuals and communities. Most commonly, shamans use drums and rattles to shift their consciousness into non-ordinary reality, a trance-like state, to communicate with their helping guides and spirits. We know now that anyone can learn to journey, to connect with their own helping guides and spirits in non-ordinary reality in order to get answers to personal questions, solve problems, open creativity, see new ways of being in the world and obtain healing information for themselves and their community. Join Comma Williams for this journey circle where we will travel into non-ordinary reality and ask for information to help us get clarity about our path for this coming year. At the end of the journey you will have an opportunity to create a visual representation of your journey, to help ground it in ordinary reality, to make it visible in this world. $15 or class card

FLOWER YOGA: Becoming A Teacher of Yoga For Children
A 2-Weekend Training with Tara Rachel Jones
Friday-Sunday, March 16-18 & May 4-6
Join master teacher Tara Rachel Jones to learn the art of teaching yoga to children ages 2-17! The key to learning how to share yoga with children is to embrace the practice WITH them. Children are naturally drawn to engage in any activity that is embodied by the adult who is presenting it. This course is offered to anyone - teachers, parents, caregivers, therapists - who wishes to introduce and practice yoga with the children in their lives. Concrete tools and practical application are presented in a simple to follow sequence. Yoga can be part of any lifestyle - as traditionally presented, it comprises 5 basic principles: Proper Exercise, Proper Breathing, Proper Relaxation, Proper Diet, Positive Thinking and Meditation. The content of the course reflects these simple but profound principles and teaches how to offer this wellness practice in an age-appropriate and appealing style for children and Youth. The course is 30 hours, divided into 6 modules. Trainees will be presented with a Flower Yoga Certificate upon completion. For more information please visit Tara Rachel at www.thewisdomgarden.com. $699, payable in three installments - to register, please download registration form and mail or bring it with $195 first installment to The Center by Thursday, March 15 at noon
Tara Rachel Jones, MEd, E-RYT500, RCYT has studied yoga since the early 90's. She has completed four teacher training courses, most recently with Tias Little, and is well known to the Boston yoga community. Tara Rachel was both a student and teacher under Boston master teachers Barbara Benagh and Arthur Kilmurray, and has also studied Iyengar yoga with Zoe Stewart. Her profound interest in the mind-body connection led her to the School for Body Mind Centering in order to study infant developmental movement, somatic anatomy, and its relationship to yoga. Over the past ten years, Tara Rachel has enriched her studies with private courses and workshops in anatomy and physiology with Yaron Gal Carmel, Tom Myers, Andrea Olson, and others. She is also a certified Zen Shiatsu Therapist. Her classes for adults are unique, flowing and relaxed, yet grounded in attention to proper postural alignment. In addition, Tara Rachel has worked professionally with children since 1989 and has been a pioneer of children's yoga in the Boston area. She has developed her own approach, simple yet unique: a synthesis of education, developmental movement, and yogic teachings. Tara Rachel will lead the annual weeklong Flower Yoga Summer Camp for children ages 6-11 starting this July 9th

KIRTAN with Shubalananda & Ashley plus special guests
Saturday, March 17, 7pm
The singing of kirtan goes back thousands of years in India. Created by ancient rishis from the seed mantras of the Vedas, the sounds are designed to resonate with your chakras to help move the energy up your spine. The rishis set phrases like Om Namah Shivaya or Sita Ram to simple melodies and sang them. As powerful as it is, kirtan is effortless and incredibly enjoyable! We’ll sing the kirtan, call and response style, over and over, with more and more bhava (spiritual emotion or soul - think Ray Charles) until the singers enter higher planes of consciousness. The wonderful thing about kirtan is that it is fun. Other forms of spiritual practice, or sadhana, can be strenuous, but kirtan just flows from everyone’s connection to music. Even those who feel they do not have a good voice discover themselves singing on pitch, in time. Singing these Sanskrit seed mantras is an excellent way to discover your true voice. Shubalananda (Larry Kopp) has been leading kirtan for many years, having studied with Neem Karoli Baba, Sathya Sai Baba, Karunamayi and currently Shree Maa. His guitar & harmonium playing and voice of experience gives his kirtan a power and a bhava that is shared with all who join him. Come and experience this easy, happy, and deep form of Sadhana, and find out more at www.shubalananda.com. Please make a donation!

BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Conversations At The Edge
Monday, March 19, 7:45pm
A continuing education seminar for therapists, presented by the Institute For Meditation & Psychotherapy, this monthly lecture series will focus on current themes and issues within the dialogue between Buddhism and psychotherapy. Two continuing education credits (2 CEs) will be offered each evening to psychologists, social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and nurses. $25/door, $175/series
Tonight: Mindfulness-Based Therapy for Social Phobia
with Mark Sorensen, PhD
Patients who suffer from social phobia experience heightened anxiety and painful self-consciousness when faced with real or imagined evaluation by others. This talk will outline a mindfulness-based treatment approach that allows patients to develop capacities for self-assurance, self-compassion and effective interpersonal connection

THE YOGA OF ENERGY FLOW 200Hr Yoga Teacher Training
with Daniel Orlansky, Liz Owen, Chip Hartranft, & Carrie Tyler
Friday-Sunday, March 23-25 ~ view details

DANCING KIRTAN with DJ Mantra Ji
Saturday, March 24, 8-10pm
Come experience the cutting edge of yoga where the ecstasy of dancing & kirtan come together. A kirtan is call-and-response singing of Sanskrit chants - a dancing kirtan lets you go within or join a guided but freeform path to moving and connecting with others. It’s dancing your bliss! The music is incredible - specially selected from Sanskrit chant to world bliss grooves, and woven into a seamless dance by DJ Mantra Ji. Donations gratefully accepted. Find out more at www.djmantraji.com

SOUND HEALING CIRCLE with Brad Brockmann & Comma Williams
Sunday, March 25, 7-9pm ~ doors open 6:45, close 7:20
Join us on the last Sunday of the month to explore the transformative healing powers of sound. You will both co-create and receive sound healing, and learn how to improvise music with a healing intention. Bring your favorite instruments or just yourself, your voice and your love. Prior musical or healing experience is welcome but not required. We look forward to seeing you! Suggested donation $5-15

FOCUSING AND MEDITATION: Complementary Practices?
with Grady McGonagill
Saturday, March 31, 2-5pm, N/S
Focusing and meditation have much in common. Both are ways of directing attention inwards to increase awareness and insight. Both have the potential to foster personal growth. And both are paths to spiritual awakening in the eyes of some practitioners. Yet they differ. Focusing works best for most people when guided by a partner. By contrast, meditation is typically an individual experience, though it can be practiced in groups. Focusing aims to bring about immediate shifts in consciousness, accompanied by clarity about appropriate actions. By contrast, meditation aims for shifts in the quality of consciousness more evident in the long term; changes in behavior are assumed to accompany such shifts but are less immediate and specific. This workshop is designed to explore questions about the relationship between the two practices. How can they best complement one another? Is there a danger that parallel practice of both risks diluting the impact of either? The workshop assumes at least some familiarity and experience with both practices. Learn more about Focusing and our local Focusing events at FocusingNewEngland.com. $45 or class card x 3 at the door

CELEBRATION OF THE SOUL: African Dance with Wyoma
Partial proceeds to benefit Sini Sanuman to end FGM
Saturday, March 31, 7:30-9:30pm
Until the lion has his own historian, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter—Ghanian proverb
Join Wyoma for this monthly community dance party! Barefoot beat-bonding at its best - lightly facilitated African and your own freestyle movement.  Truth-telling in dance, song, and writing. We'll cultivate awareness of the mind-body-spirit connection and explore the human and divine forces of nature with an open heart. Come together with others to savor and celebrate the gift of your being.
Ashe! (Yoruba: Amen, Blessed be!). $15 or class card at door
Wyoma is a performer and facilitator of African and healing dance, as well as yoga instructor and body/mind consultant. Her bestselling DVD, African Healing Dance, is used as a teaching tool by schools and libraries in the U.S. and internationally. The Zimbabwean proverb If you can walk you can dance - if you can talk you can sing! exemplifies her unique teaching style and dedication to the development of the whole person. More at wyomadance.com, FB, Twitter