by Banafsheh | Nov 24, 2019 |
5-day Workshop
With Tony Khalife and guest musicians
November 24-29
Esalen Institute
Big Sur, CA
“The whole universe is love’s endless dance.”
– Kabir
Please read slowly, and as you read come in touch with something you are grateful for. Allow the feeling of gratitude to expand inside of you, into every cell, until you feel your wings.
The energy of gratitude is both enlivening and soothing. Let this energy open you to the grace that can live in you and through you for the benefit of all. Gratitude and grace both stem from the Latin root of gratus. Gratitude is about appreciation and extending grace. Whatever you give, you actually fill yourself with. When you extend gratitude, you are filled with grace.
Whirling is the practice of ecstatic gratitude – when you feel genuine thankfulness with such resplendent intensity that you generate a surge of endorphins in your body and slip into a full-scale outbreak of euphoria. In the state of ecstatic gratitude, you are able to navigate harshness and negativity with grace.
Guided by the poetry of Sufi mystics Rumi, Rabia and Kabir, ground your soul and come home to your body with luscious awareness, and rediscover your heart as the seat of the infinite.
Open to all. Banafsheh and Tony will lead a nurturing weave of dance, whirling, chanting, live music, meditation and wisdom teachings.
To Register:
Click here to register!
Questions? Email
26 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
Preparing for a Dance of Oneness® Retreat
More Resources
Dance of Oneness®: Curriculum
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by Banafsheh | Nov 7, 2019 |
5-day Workshop
November 7-12
Menla Mountain Retreat Center For Happiness
Phoenicia, NY
More information about the retreat coming soon!
To Register:
Click here to register!
More information: 845-688-6897 x101 | Email
Preparing for a Dance of Oneness® Workshop
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Dance of Oneness®: Curriculum
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by Banafsheh | Aug 12, 2019 |
Week-long Intensive presented by Ubiquity Chartres Academy
August 12-19, 2019
Chartres, France
Join us at Chartres’ holiest time during the Feast of the Assumption of Mary and the adoration of the Black Madonna in procession out in the open for a time for a full immersion in the divine feminine and her union with the divine masculine through deep reflection, joyous celebration, ritual, walking the labyrinth, dance and singing.
This pilgrimage will center us deeply in the heart of Chartres. We will be there on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (August 15) which honors the Church doctrine, enunciated by the Pope in 1950, that Mary was assumed directly into heaven upon her death and now presides as the Mother of God. Carl Jung believed that this doctrine elevating the feminine into the Godhead marked the most important development in Christian theology in the last 2000 years. This year’s Feast coincides with the full moon. A city that has reverenced the feminine for several thousand years honors the feminine in the deepest of ways. On the Day of the Assumption, the Black Madonna is carried through the streets before being placed in front of the statue of the Assumption of Mary. She is kept in the Choir for one week and then hidden away till the following year.
Parading the Black Madonna recalls the way the Druids in ancient times brought her out of the grotto underneath the granite promontory upon which the cathedral today stands. They honored Mother Earth and the cycles of the seasons through the Black Madonna. Being in Chartres at this one time of the year will both deepen our Memory of ancient rites and activate our souls to a greater reverence for the Mother of God.
It is within this sacred space that we will honor the divine feminine and contemplate how she can most powerfully be present with us today. She has many guises and appears as She wills. The aspect we will explore is new visions of the relationship between the divine feminine and divine masculine, so powerfully depicted in the north (Mary) and south (Christ) rose windows of the cathedral.
There is no issue challenging human society more than how we understand the relationship between the feminine and the masculine in the aftermath of 5,000 years of patriarchy. This mandates in turn a fundamental revisioning of the feminine and the masculine aspects of ourselves. Rising women with Rising men erotically, passionately, dynamically, synergistically and compassionately can powerfully shape the world to come.
There is nowhere this exploration is more appropriate than Chartres, the locus of sacred power of the feminine since time immemorial, and the cathedral that represents the union of the divine feminine and the divine masculine in full splendor.
Daily Program
Each day will include Sacred Practice, an opening Session, presentations on the Divine Feminine and Masculine, a sound bath, sacred dance, immersion in the Cathedral, and personal time for meditation and exploration. Women and men will meet separately and together during the course of our time together. We plan to have one private evening in the cathedral devoted to walking the labyrinth, accompanied by Gregorian chant, and another private evening in the crypt. We will spend time in the cathedral reflecting on the many aspects of Mary and communing with the Black Madonna.
Faculty: Anne Baring (virtually), Apela Colorado, Ruth Cunningham, Jim Garrison, Andrew Harvey, Banafsheh Sayyad.
Ubiquity Chartres Community Webinars – Join the faculty and participants in our monthly webinar on the second Sunday of every month for discussions on the topics included in the intensive. Register for the Webinars here. Watch past Webinars here.
TO REGISTER:
Click here to register!
More info: Email | 702-358-0551
36 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
Preparing for a Dance of Oneness® Retreat
More Resources
Dance of Oneness®: Curriculum
Recommended Reading List
by Banafsheh | Jul 14, 2019 |
4-day Workshop
July 14-18
Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia
Stella Maris is the sun in the sea, a reference to Mother Mary, and originally, the Goddess Isis. It was the Persian Mehrab that was later used in mosques to indicate the direction of prayer. Mehrab points us to the secret that at the heart of darkness is a blinding light—our journey toward light is through darkness, and our guide is love. Mehr in Persian means both sun and love. Mehrab then is the sea of love, the sea of light.
Dance to submerge yourself in the sea of love, melt and give yourself fully to the divine love energy that moves through all of existence. You’ll be surprised to find that surrendering in this way is the key to transforming all your relationships…with your body, yourself, the people in your life, and life herself.
Explore the mysteries of Stella Maris through dance, poetry, and meditation. Dive into the sea of love as we dance at the edge of the sea and in the sea.
TO REGISTER:
Click here to register!
26 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
Preparing for a Dance of Oneness® Retreat
More Resources
Dance of Oneness®: Curriculum
Recommended Reading List
by Banafsheh | Jul 7, 2019 |
Week-long Intensive presented by Ubiquity Chartres Academy
July 7-13, 2019
Chartres, France
Join an extraordinary confluence of thinkers, artists, movers and shakers to explore the influence of the heavenly bodies on our psyches and destinies in the context of the 7th liberal art of Astronomica. Step into a field of empowering grace through reflective time in the cathedral, shared dreams, ritual, walking the labyrinth, singing and dancing the patterns & rhythms of the cosmos.
In studying the seventh and highest of the liberal arts of Astronomica, begin to contemplate the entire cosmos as a divine work, designed to express beauty. Through astronomy, ascertain the laws which govern the heavenly bodies, and by which their motions are directed. Through astrology, investigate their archetypal characteristics and seek to discern their influence upon our psyche and destinies.
Dancing the Planets
In Astronomica, celebrate the spiritual relationship of the human being to the Cosmos and to the Earth through dance, awakening the soul to a conscious experience of the harmony of the spheres – an experience through which the divine origin of the human being becomes tangible. The dances create dynamic living mandalas as a flowering of the life forces, giving human form to the harmony of the planets and stars.
For the Chartrian Masters, the liberal arts were ultimately an artistic impulse, through which the highest appreciation of the sacred is expressed. Dancing the patterns and rhythms of the cosmos opened sacred communion with the world of the stars. The labyrinth no doubt emerged out of their cosmic contemplations. Led by Banafsheh Sayyad, whirl like the planets and stars, echoing that which from heaven streams down to human beings and animates us to becoming luminous reflections of love.
Daily Program
Each day will include Sacred Practice, Dreamwork, an opening symposium, a presentation on astrology, immersion in the Cathedral, and personal time for meditation and exploration. Dance the movements of the planets, and sing. We will have one private evening in the cathedral devoted to walking the labyrinth, accompanied by Gregorian chant, and another private evening in the crypt.
Faculty: Richard Tarnas, Apela Colorado, Ruth Cunningham, Jim Garrison, Andrew Harvey, Caroline Myss, Calen Rayne, Banafsheh Sayyad and Linda Tucker.
Ubiquity Chartres Community Webinars – Join the faculty and participants in our monthly webinar on the second Sunday of every month for discussions on the topics included in the intensive. Register for the Webinars here. Watch past Webinars here.
TO REGISTER:
Click here to register!
More info: Email | 702-358-0551
36 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
Preparing for a Dance of Oneness® Retreat
More Resources
Dance of Oneness®: Curriculum
Recommended Reading List
