Wednesday Morning Moving Meditations
Join Samara Hawthorn for nourishing movement & meditation through Essence. Each week, she will be sharing 25 years of her practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Daoist meditation, Qi Gong & Tai Chi in a simple weekly workout way.
Sessions will be every Wednesday, 9-10am UK time (starting April 8th).
A typical practice session will be around an hour in length, and begin with Yin centred sitting forms, where we explore our relationship with ourselves and the earth, dropping our awareness into our sacral bodies, the bowl of the pelvis and cauldron of creation contained within. We imagine, feel and visualise our roots deepening into the source waters below the earth, drawing them upwards to nourish the wisdom waters of our wombs, and balance the fire of our hearts.
We pause, integrate and digest the flow and form of this experience, and after a short break, continue on to practice standing forms, coming into contact with our boundaries, and into relationship with extremities of our whole body, from roots to crown, from top of our heads to the ends of our fingers and toes.
We close by forming an energetic sphere, or pearl of luminosity and presence, to purposefully carry us through our day and beyond.
What is Qi Gong?
Qi Gong is an Ancient Healing Art of Breath and Movement that is over 5000 yrs old.
Qi Gong and Tai Chi were practiced as Martial forms by the warriors of ancient China, and developed into healing arts by the monks and nuns to nurture and nourish themselves and the people they served.
Qi Gong means cultivating vital energy with rhythmic breathing to improve physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. The practice enhances energy flow and promotes relaxation.
Qi (Vital Life Essence)
Gong (Practice or Skill)
consists of three main components:
- Body movements,
- Breath work or deep breathing, and
- meditation or focussed awareness.
Within Essence, we focus on the Extraordinary Vessels, deep vessels or reservoirs of energy in our primal bodies that are the Oceans of Qi from which our meridian channels flow.
Emerging as the divisions between the first 8 cells formed after conception, the extraordinary vessels are the energetic blueprint or form from which the physical body develops, and continue to channel the manifestation of our physical form throughout our lives. Holding and protecting the midline of the body, and our pelvic bowl, our core form and energy. These channels contain and protect the kidneys, womb, ovaries, our procreative containers of original essence, the cauldron or caves of water, yin, gestation, desire, and draw us back to the energies of our conception.
Through the practice of Yin Qi Gong, we deepen from our domestic bodies into our instinctual or primal body. We come home to our inner body, and inner awareness. Surrendering to the flow of breath received and released by the body, with eyes half closed, or with at soft gaze, we enter a liminal state and move from an outward focussed sympathetic state to the parasympathetic. We move towards elemental awareness in the body, the mind quiets and agendas are released.
Meet Your Facilitator
Samara has practiced Qi Gong and Taoist Arts for 30 years, as a relational, seasonal, cyclic and ongoing journey.
She began the journey with the Zen school based in the East-West Centre of Oriental Medicine in London, through the study of Shiatsu and Traditional Chinese medicine. She continued her studies and practice with the school of Healing Tao in London for over 15 years.
During this time her Shiatsu journey led her to specialise in Shiatsu for Maternal Health and Birth with Suzanne Yates, and she became one of the few European “WellMother” Shiatsu teachers.
In more recent years, she has learned from Lee Holden (Holden QiGong) and deepened her practice of the Yin and Martial forms with Jay Marolla, as well as the Martial Thai stick fighting form, and the meditative Plum Village Healing Staff form in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn.
What previous participants said about practicing with Samara:
"Thank you, Samara, it's so beautiful to revisit this! I don't do it nearly enough, especially not as a personal practice. I feel that whenever I do these things, I'm really tapping back into my own body, and especially the heart space, womb space. I just felt thoroughly exhausted and for a number of years (my youngest child is 4), I've just been overriding any signals in my body that it's tired... So it's really lovely to do this and I will remember to keep doing it more!"
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"It feels a very long time since I've connected with the flow from my heart to my womb... I've got a 6-month-old and a 2-year-old, and when we went into the cervix, I got this rush of emotion, because I've not really had the space to go in so much. Now I feel an ease in my body, which I've not had for a while, my body feels really beautiful… Thank you very much!"
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"There's a kind of raw, feminine energy that you bring, and the connection with the earth... It always feels really nourishing and feminine in a primal, powerful way! I'm really grateful to have done that, and it's a good reminder to do things like that - simple movements that connect me to my body, the feminine, Nature... Thank you so much! 🙏🏾"