Elevate Your Self-care Game

Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Love. Heal. Thrive.

1028 El Camino Real

San Carlos, CA 94070

Just in time for the emerging New You in the New Year, come learn how to crack the code of your fountain of youth with 3 simple steps!

YOU are your best asset to manifest your New Year's visions and goals. However, a healthy diet and a sound exercise program are no longer enough to embody your best YOU, to achieve lasting results, and propel you towards your dreams.

Join Susan Jensen and Claudia Castillo Holley in this fun yet profound workshop. You will learn easy and practical tools to help you clear the way for the Highest YOU to flow and radiate from the inside, glow on the outside, and reach the level of well-being you know is your birthright!

As part of this highly experiential workshop, Claudia Castillo Holley will lead a "Leche de Gaia" Ceremony to experience profound communion with your nourishment. Think "Cacao Ceremony" using a savory heart-opening drink. Leche de Gaia, Mother Gaia's milk, is a vegan, mineral-rich healing elixir for the modern Gods and Goddesses. It is carefully prepared with organic, mostly seasonal and local plant-based power ingredients. Infused with the highest respect and appreciation for everything and everyone participating in this process, especially YOU.

Susan Jensen will bring safer personal care products from Beautycounter, teaching you to heal your body from the outside as you clean up all the layers that get absorbed into your bloodstream. Beautycounter provides safer, high performing products, sourced from botanicals. These products are good for you and for the planet too!

If you are craving a different health experience, you HAVE to do something different. Come learn, play with us, and WIN at the Self-Care elevating game!

Cost: $35

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/elevate-your-self-care-game-tickets-41321092500

Yintegrate Creativity

Saturday, January 6, 2018 at 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

The Center SF

548 Fillmore Street

San Francisco, CA 94117

Join Leigh Stewart and Alex Blefari for a morning workshop to rejuvenate the body's systems in a half flow, half yin class with hot stones, therapeutic-grade aromatherapy, hand-harvested teas and guided meditation.

Each Saturday, we will explore a different system of the body (reproductive, immune, excretory, nervous, & endocrine) with accompanying essential oils, hot stones and yin postures to promote health, balance and harmony throughout the body.

Yintegrate Creativity Class Description:

• Body system focus - reproductive system
• Asana (body work) - fluid yin flow with a focus on the hips to tap into the sacral chakra that provides an outlet to birth new ideas and life. Our practice will culminate with yin-versions to expand the creative energy out of the body and into the universe.
• Meditation - expansion meditation using shanmukti and ganesha mudras to cultivate trust and activate the power of shifting inward. This class will begin with intention setting and visualization for the new year.
• Pranayama (breathing) - alternate nostril to balance the two hemispheres of the brain and body (yin/yang, masculine/ feminine, creative/analytical, subtle/expressive). This breath works on flowing energy from one side of the body to the other, and if done properly and practiced regularly, can successfully release 70-80% of toxins in the body.
• Oil essence - therapeutic grade essential oils for balancing hormones and increasing the vitality of the glands.
• Tea- sensual blend of Ayurvedic herbs for reproductive vitality and elevated consciousness.

Cost: $30

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/yintegrate-creativity-tickets-41301884047

Practice Peace: Transformative Practices for Challenging Times

Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Breathe Together Yoga

14107 Winchester Blvd, Ste H,

Los Gatos, California

Discover tools and practices that connect you to an inner sense of peace and steadiness. In this 3-hours workshop, we’ll explore meditation, mantra, and breathwork (pranayama) practices that cultivate peace, equanimity, and groundedness. Find your center, and leave inspired, with specific practices to weave into your everyday life.

Facilitator: Emily Perry

Cost: $75

http://breathetogetheryoga.com/events/practice-peace-transformative-practices-for-challenging-times/

Meditation 101: Tools for a daily practice to come home to yourself

Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM PST

Pacific Cultural Center

1307 Seabright Avenue

Santa Cruz, CA 95062

A New Year is upon us, and it begs the question: how will my life be different this year? What if you started with a daily ritual of awareness, of coming home to yourself, of regular visits to the wellspring of loving presence that abides within you?

Join us for a nourishing afternoon exploring the philosophy, benefits and PRACTICE of meditation. Meditation 101 is a workshop open to anyone interested in establishing, or continuing a daily practice of meditation.

If you've never had a regular practice, this workshop will offer up all the basics you need to begin a fruitful practice to call your own.

If you already have an established practice, then come for inspiration and renewal, with new practices and tools you can integrate on the cushion.

Inspired by over a decade of personal meditation practice, Hannah has experience teaching meditation in a variety of different settings: as a foundational component in teacher trainings to yogis and healers worldwide, regularly in her yoga classes, via workshops, festivals and conferences internationally. Her studies in meditation have been rooted in the traditions of classical Yoga, Tantra, Buddhism, Vipassana and more, and she offers immense gratitude for her teacher Baba Hari Dass for giving her the gift of meditation practice as a way of living. She has continued to practice and study with master teachers, most recently has re-inspired by a 2-year Mindfulness Teacher Training with her teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.

Facilitator: Hannah Muse

Cost: $35 - $45

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meditation-101-tools-for-a-daily-practice-to-come-home-to-yourself-tickets-41620128926

Empowerment through Posture

Saturday, January 6, 2018 at 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PST

All Saints' Church Hall

555 Waverley Street

Palo Alto, CA 94301

Join Esther Gokhale (posture expert and creator of the Gokhale Method) and Christiane Northrup, M.D. (ob/gyn physician; leading authority in the field of women’s health and wellness) for a Fireside Chat. The pair will discuss freeing up your energy and attention by getting rid of aches and pains; avoiding gynecological challenges related to poor posture (prolapsed organs, pelvic floor dysfunction, etc.); and coming into your own power.

How it works?

You will learn to sit, sleep, stand, walk, and bend in ways that protect and strengthen you instead of wear and tear you.

·         Sitting will be comfortable, either with a backrest when you place your back in therapeutic traction (stretchsitting) or without a backrest, when you stack your spine on a well-positioned, anteverted pelvis (stacksitting).

·         Sleeping will be comfortable and provide hours of restorative traction, whether lying on your back or side (stretchlying).

·         Standing will be a resting position for most of the muscles of the body with the weight-bearing bones vertically stacked over the heels (tallstanding).

·         Bending will involve hinging at the hip rather than the waist, exercising the long back muscles and sparing the spinal discs and ligaments (hip-hinging).

·         Actions that challenge spinal structures, such as carrying or twisting, will involve deep layers of muscles in the abdomen and back (inner corset) to protect the spine.

·         Walking will be a series of smooth forward propulsions, challenging the muscles of the lower body and sparing the weight-bearing joints throughout the body (glidewalking).

·         In relearning these everyday actions, you will reposition and reshape your shoulders, arms, neck, torso, pelvis, hips, legs, and feet the way they were designed to be. You will develop a high level of confidence in and sense of control over your well-being.

·         Once you have learned the basic principles, you integrate them into all positions and movements. Your everyday activities will once again become therapeutic.

Light refreshments will be provided, and childcare will be available (provided by Blossom Birth).

Cost: Free

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/empowerment-through-posture-registration-41058058759

Women's Sexual Mystery School Introductory Class

Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PST

The Center SF

548 Fillmore

San Francisco, CA 94117

Your feminine soul is your real soul mate. She is the magnetizing force for all other soul mates. This inner Goddess is your creative source for everything from love to success and abundance.

How might your life be different if you had been initiated into your feminine sexuality not by a boy, who probably knew less than you, but through a ceremony of women? Women who knew the creational mysteries, who could teach you how to activate your feminine power, who not only gave you permission but instruction on how to bring yourself to pleasure. How might your life as a woman be different if you had cultivated your own relationship with Shakti, your sexual energy, first before sharing her with others? If you had learned the language of your body and how to listen to your yoni’s voice and how to feel her yeses and nos. How might your life be different if you grew up valuing and trusting your feminine sexual being and body, rather than feeling ashamed or afraid of her? If you lived from and in the flow of your deep feminine wisdom-recognizing your feminine organs as your inner elder council that you could turn to for support and guidance. How might your life as a woman be different?

Join us for a two-hour introductory intensive in which we will explore sacral embodiment practices, meditations and ritual to cultivate divine feminine presence, power and sensual intelligence.

Facilitator: Lisa Citore

Cost: $20

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womens-sexual-mystery-school-intro-class-tickets-40714463055

Roaring 20's Friday Night Bar Takeover, and It's Free

Friday, January 5, 2018 at 6 PM - 2 AM

DoubleTree by Hilton San Jose

2050 Gateway Pl,

San Jose, CA

Hey you crazy people!

It's the Friday Night West Kingdom 12th Night Bar Takeover!

This year we will be decking out in our 1920's finest! This tradition started as a way to wear our formal clothes the evening before 12th Night and has become an annual event to look around our closets for some spiffy clothing. If you don't have anything that screams the 1920's, perhaps that one pair of shoes, the way you wear a headband or hat, the bright red lipstick, or way you slick your hair will be enough of a nod to the era.

Like each year, we will be meeting in the public bar area of the hotel for a social evening all glamed up!

Please note - this is not an official SCA event nor West Kingdom sponsored event. This is a tradition that has become popular over the years which started when a few of us wanted to dress up in the bar on Friday night. When our friends saw us, they wanted to join us. Thus, the Friday-Night-Taking-Over-The-Bar in some sort of fun fancy dress was created! Please enjoy! Please share with your friends! We love to see what people wear and the energy it creates to start our Coronation weekend!

Cost: Free

https://www.facebook.com/events/883214285165218/

Victorian 12th Night Ball (The Dickens Reunion Ball)

Saturday, January 6, 2018 at 6:30 PM - 11:55 PM

Alameda Elks Lodge #1015

2255 Santa Clara Ave,

Alameda, California

On Saturday, January 6, 2018, enjoy another jolly evening of dancing in Dickens' London at the elegant Alameda Elks Lodge at 2255 Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda, California. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig and their beautiful daughters invite you to A Victorian 12th Night Ball – with special guest Charles Dickens. After a Victorian dance lesson at 7pm, Bangers & Mash plays an evening of popular Victorian ballroom dance music and lively English Country Dances and mixers (which will be briefly taught and called). No partners required!

Intermission performances by the Peerless Music Hall and Mr. Dickens himself. Victorian costume (circa 1837-1870, any class), Steampunk attire, or modern evening dress is admired, but not required.

You may spend the evening dancing in the grand ballroom – or visit Mr. Fezziwig’s spacious wine cellar complete with musical entertainment– where some of the less respectable citizens of London, including the celebrated Mad Sal and the talented cast of “Oliver Twist,” invite you to join them and enjoy an excellent no-host bar (That means you pays for yer own drinks, my dears!), and sing along to the sparkling music of pianist 9-Fingered Fanny.

Cost: $25

http://www.peersdance.org/12th2018.html

Celebrate a "New Year & New You"

Saturday, January 6, 2018 at 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Community of Infinite Spirit

1540 Hicks Ave

San Jose, CA

Ready to launch into a whole new year of YOU? Come enjoy a unique event designed to help you shine in 2018! Our time together will include:

*Wisdom, guidance, and experiential exercises based on the Akashic Records

*Sacred rituals to release all that is no longer serving you...and welcome in the life of your dreams

*Opportunity to create a vision board or other creative project showing your vision for 2018

*Connection with other resonant and supportive souls

NOTE: An abundance of art & writing supplies will be available. However, you don't have to consider yourself an artist or a writer to join us--just be prepared to have fun and play!

Facilitator: Cynthia Starborn

Cost: $35/person in advance (by 1/5/18) or $40/person at the door (cash only).

https://www.meetup.com/bay-area-metaphysics/events/246289583

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2018

January 5 – 7, 2018 (Friday – Sunday)

Victoria Theater

2961 16th Street

San Francisco, CA

America's only festival devoted to the performance of audio works projected in three-dimensional space, The San Francisco Tape Music Festival features four distinct concerts of classic audio art and new fixed media compositions by 30 local and international composers. Hear members of the SF Tape Music Collective, along with guest composers, shape the sound live over a pristine surround system (24 high-end loudspeakers) with the audience seated in complete darkness. It's a unique opportunity to experience music forming - literally - around you.

The 2018 Festival's first two concerts showcase the entire range of the fixed media artform; the Saturday late-night show presents longer, "cinema for the ear", and ambient tape pieces; and the Sunday concert features an entire concert of audio postcards and sound walk compositions. Throughout the festival, composers from the "empreintes DIGITALes" (https://www.empreintesdigitales.com/en/accueil) label will be highlighted.

Remembering the pioneering work of one of the fathers of musique concrète, PIERRE HENRY (1927-2017), the festival presents a performance of his seminal work, "Variations for a Door and a Sigh" (1963). Other tape music classics include KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN'S quadraphonic "Gesang der Jünglinge" (1956) and JAMES TENNEY'S proto-plunderphonic composition, "Collage No.1 (Blue Suede)" (1961).

Recent works by international artists HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP, JONTY HARRISON, FRANCIS DHOMONT, NATASHA BARRETT, and others will be performed alongside bay area composers THOM BLUM, CLIFF CARUTHERS, NATHAN CORDER, MATT INGALLS, FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO, MAGGI PAYNE, ADAM SOHN, SOPHIA SHEN / GABBY WEN, TIM WALTERS, and CHAMBERLAIN ZHANG.

Cost: $60

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3201722