Prenatal Belly Dance Workshop

Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PST)

Desert Dream Dance Company Studio
1025 Water Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95062

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Belly dance is an ancient dance form used by women during birth. The workshop includes instruction in basic moves that are particularly helpful to relieve common discomforts of pregnancy and to aid women in labor. This workshop is supportive and celebratory! No dance experience necessary!

Cost: $30 online, $35 at the door.


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Casanova's Carnevale Ball

Saturday, February 6, 2016 @ 6:45 pm to 11:00 pm

Alameda Elks Lodge
2255 Santa Clara Ave,
Alameda, CA

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It is Carnevale in Venice - the holiday you Americans celebrate as Mardi Gras. Join the World's Greatest Lover at the best Carnival party of the season!

Bangers and Mash will play a variety of exquisite waltzes, elegant 18th century country dances, and completely anachronistic polkas (but with authentic 18th century music!). If you are not familiar with the Contredanse Anglais (English Country Dance), fear not. There will be a pre-ball workshop at 7 p.m. with Alan Winston and all country dances will be taught and called at the ball. Formal dancing follows from 8 p.m. to midnight. What you do after midnight, my friends, is YOUR affair!

18th century costume from Giacomo Casanova's lifetime (1725 - 1798), Carnival fancy dress, fantasy attire, or modern evening dress is admired but not required. Everything from period costume to simple domino robes is welcome! Masks (hand-held or worn) are also admired but not required.  (We'll even have a box of Carnival masks for our guests to choose from and take home as party favors!)

The ball will be held on two levels: we will be dancing downstairs in the Lodge's atmospheric Rathskellar, which also boasts an excellent full bar, but guests may also mingle in the fully lit parlour on the ground floor and enjoy light refreshments and desserts (Your potluck contributions are welcome). The parlour with its stunning white columns is a beautiful pseudo-Baroque backdrop for photography and for socializing and swanning about in your fancy dress costumes!

Cost: $20/advance; $25/at the door


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FREE Lecture: Manipulating the Microbes Within

Saturday, February 6, 2016 @ 9:30 am - 12:30 pm

Morgan Autism Center,
2280 Kenwood Avenue
San Jose, CA


We have trillions of microbes within our digestive tract, making up the densest ecosystem in the world.  Each microbe generates chemicals or metabolites in response to its environment and within the digestive tract, this environment is influenced through the foods we eat.  Learn how to manipulate the chemicals that are created through the foods we eat and how this influences inflammation, neurological function, and immune responses.  Rather than be manipulated, the objective of this talk is to empower everyone to take control of the chemicals that are created within us to help manage the numerous chronic illness our society faces today, autism being where my (Dr. Katherine Reid) passion started.

Sex as Meditation: Recognizing and Breaking Out of the Box

Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PST)

2269 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94114

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Daily, we are bombarded with social norms that tell us how we ought to be, act and perform and most of us are completely unaware of how they are shaping our behavior. These norms also influence how we behave sexually. Many of us hold beliefs about sex and what it "should" be like that are unhelpful, unsexy and sometimes even harmful to our relationships.

We invite you to join us for this 4 hour Sex as Meditation workshop where we will examine how these norms put us into boxes that may or may not fit us. We will bring mindful awareness to how we get trapped in these boxes and how this runs our lives in our self-expression, our gender, our relationships and our sexuality.  In this process, we will gain awareness about how to start breaking out of these boxes in ways that are truest to ourselves, and our hearts' desires.

This workshop does not include any nudity or explicit sexuality. All genders and sexual orientations welcome.

Fee: $135


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Float On: Arm Balance Workshop

Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PST)

The Center SF
548 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94117

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If you have been waiting for a chance to learn or deepen your practice (all levels welcome!) with floating, gliding, flying into arm balances, this is the workshop for you.

Sometimes, the most powerful shifts in our practice on the mat happen when you realize you can do something you did not think was doable. You tap into the power of your mind's potential over what you thought you were physically capable of, and find yourself in a completely new realm of possibility. And when you surprise yourself - you feel a sense of accomplishment, optimism and gratefulness that flows into other facets of your life!

This workshop focuses on pranayama breathing exercises and short meditation, then on to strengthening sequences and exercises to create muscle memory that will help you transition into a number of creative and challenging arm balances.

With conscious muscular engagement combined with fluid movement, a little bit of shoulder / core / hip awareness and a sense of humor you will be floating into arm balances including (but not limited to):
-Flying pigeon (eka pada galavasana)
-Sage Koundinya pose (eka pada koundinyasana b)
-Eight angle pose (astavakrasana)
-Crow pose (bakasana)

By anatomically breaking down the form and alignment, we will make these poses fun and accessible! All this and more while remembering that there is no deadline or reward for achieving any pose - embrace the journey (rather than destination) and you will be floating before you know it!

Cost: $35

Two-Become-One Partner Yoga: Free Workshop in Sausalito

Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Point Bonita YMCA
981 Fort Barry
Sausalito, CA 94965

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OMMM! Open up your heart and learn simple stretches done in pairs. Learn to expand any relationship in a fun & creative way by connection through breath, play and touch. Enjoy this FREE yoga workshop as a sample of the yoga classes Point Bonita YMCA provides. Sign up with a partner or meet someone new!

Fee: Free


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Love: Supported by the Four Divine States

Saturday, February 6, 2016 @ 9 am - 4 pm

San Francisco Zen Center City Center,
300 Page Street,
San Francisco, CA 94102

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We all want love. And, having and holding love and loving feelings may be challenging at times, perhaps especially when we’re in the midst of a relationship.

Join us in exploring how love can be when expressed in conjunction with the qualities of the Four Divine States:
* Loving kindness
* Compassion
* Inclusive Joy
* Balance of Heart/Mind

Let’s explore how these qualities can offer us ways which can promote more mindfulness and ease. Traditional meditation practices on these qualities along with other contemporary means will be shared and practiced, giving us tools and practices to learn how to access and cultivate these qualities within ourselves and with another.

Both individual and relational exercises will be used. Open to all expressions of partnered relationships, including but not limited to friendships, parents/children, siblings, intimate sensual/sexual significant others, roommates, etc.

Cost: $80; or $64 for students with limited income (lunch, tea and an afternoon snack will be provided).

Intimacy Magic Tantra Workshop in Los Gatos: Featured Event

Saturday, February 6, 2016 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PST)

Los Gatos Acupuncture and Qigong Center
761 University Ave
Los Gatos, CA

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Intimacy Magic Tantra Workshop is a safe container for you to experience deep connection with yourself and others for greater presence, pleasure and awareness. You will let go of things that prevent you from being fully presence through active release practices, increase your vitality by moving the energy so you can drop deeper into your own body, heart and spirit. And from that place of contentment and peace in yourself, you will be guided into connection with others through a serious of playful exercises in conscious embodiment, communication, breath, sound and energetic connection.

What you can expect during this workshop:
* Mingling around the room and sharing hugs and eye contact.
* Sitting down with a partner for heart-felt communication exercises.
* Waking up your sensitivity to energy through guided practices.
* Sharing conscious and respectful touch with each other.
* Working alone, in partnership with one other person and in groups.
* Learning Tantric breathing.
* Sounding mantras.

There will be no nudity, and all the exercises are only an invitation to explore. You are welcome to step aside and observe. Please know that even though I will do my best to gender balance the group, you might end up working with a person of your own gender. All the touch we are going to share is of non-sexual nature and you can always say No Thank You. But please know that you might be in a group with people of your gender or even paired up with someone of your own gender.

Couples and singles are welcome. Couples can stay together if they choose to, though it can be beneficial to connect with others at least for some portion of the workshop.

Fee: $22 - $27


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Practical Course for Sensual Bliss and Orgasmic Sex: Tantra Seminar for Beginners

February 5-7, 2016
Santa Cruz Mountains, CA

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Learn 22 Tantra Techniques that will transform your sexual love life into one of ecstatic pleasure, harmony and deep emotional connection! No prior knowledge or experience is necessary. There is no nudity in the seminar. The at-home Saturday night practice is optional.

Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving seminars provide the education we never had and always needed in order to have wonderful, real and lasting love, and to rediscover the full potential of our sexual energy. "Rather than a "touchy-feely" course about sex, Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving is a spiritual yet practical guide to being present and intimate with the most important person in your life. Sure there was a lot of discussion of sex, but only in the context of celebrating yourself, your partner, your love and of life itself...this should be required learning for all people."

Have you ever felt there must be something more to sexual loving? In just a few days, you will discover the ancient secrets of female and male sexual ecstasy. You will learn to use sexual energy for increased intimacy, spiritual connection, pleasure, harmony and freedom. Turn sex into a relationship practice of healing energy, renewal and transformation.

Are you tired of chasing weak orgasms? Women can experience longer, deeper, faster and more powerful orgasms. Men can orgasm without tiring ejaculations. You can tap into an endless, spontaneous flow of creative, love energy.

In Ancient India, Tantric sex was taught as an art form that every conscious person must master. Now you can learn these ancient and proven skills translated as a 21st century art form and experience harmonious, joyful union.

No explicit sexual activity or nudity takes place in class; optional homeplay is assigned.

Cost: $525 / single; $1,025 /couple


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Secrets of Unstoppable Confidence

Friday, February 5, 2016 @ 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM

1440 Oak Rim Dr.,
Hillsborough, CA

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Everyone wants more confidence, but most attempts to get it often drives it away. What is confidence and how do you create more of it? Why is it so fleeting and how can your harness it and own it?

Affirmations rarely if ever work and when they do what little confidence you get from them is often shattered by the slightest criticism. That is not real confidence. This workshop will help you to learn on how to cultivate real confidence that will withstand criticism. Not only that, you will actually see how to use criticism to strengthen your personal confidence.

Most people try to work at confidence directly. In this workshop, you will learn why this approach is not very efficient and why it can make you actually more self-conscious and insecure.

The only real confidence is effortless confidence.

Cost: $10