This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we explore Erotic and Sensuous Movement with Jim Guzel.

Everybody moves - faster, slower, gracefully or not, sooner or later, we all move. Sometimes, we move for fun – eat something, play a favorite sport, dance, whatever. But for the majority of us, the most fun is when the movement involves our sexual energy.

Perhaps the movement is as simple as taking a deep breath followed by a sharp exhalation. Wiggling toes, thrusting hips, stalking like a tiger, slithering like a snake, maybe it is a dance, following the music as the drums pound into our guts. Maybe it’s just moving to our own increasing heartbeat. And it can be a lot of fun to move in response to another human being who has the same general idea in mind or body.

Often we get hung up in some way about doing this kind of movement. Injuries, age, taboos, bad body image, all prevent us to being less than we might be. I’m a portrait photographer and I wasn’t long into following that career path before I discovered, wonder of wonders, that people look their best when they are turned on. I’ve added many tricks to my bag since then and all those tricks are designed to do one thing, turn people on so that their beauty shines. Along the way, people have lots of fun and discover that they are capable of doing a lot more with their bodies than they previously thought. I’d like to share the movement portion of that experience with you.

Please come prepared to move - dress or undress accordingly. Three piece suits or birthday suits will all work if you let it. Just ask my clients. Be careful with the flowing sorts of clothing and props. You may be rolling around on the floor a bit and the costuming could tangle you up. Actually that can be a good bit of fun, too. But just know in advance that you may be exploring some light, self-imposed bondage if you do go that route.

Jim Guzel is the owner/operator of Aphrodite Photography in Washington, DC. www.AphroditePhoto.com He is also the DC area promoter of a variety of conscious and improvisational dance events, including Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms, Toni Bergins’ JourneyDance and Amy Mattison’s Ecstatic Dance. For longer than he would care to admit, Jim has been pushing his own boundaries and those of anyone who is crazy enough to hang out with him. With surprising frequency, he is also paid to do the same for clients.

The movement begins after dinner at 8pm.  I invite you to join us, though as always what ever choice you make you will be honored in.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 6:31 PM and has received 1670 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we listen to long time Sandboxer Milliie Knox read from her book "Crafting with Nana." A book about the four summers she spent with her grandmother learning about healing, mother earth, the Sun Lord and Moon Goddess, Full Moon ritual, and coming into being loved and nurtured. I read it over the summer and it is a touching and playful read that brings back the joy, innocence and magic of childhood.

"I looked out the window of the bus and there was Nana standing on the platform with her hands on her hips. Nana was short compared to everyone else but me, about five foot two. She stood like she was ten feet tall, with her steel gray eyes flashing a warning to all who would meet her gaze.  I felt very protected when I was around her.  Nana didn’t have much use for children. She thought they were a bother. She didn’t have much use for most adults either, but she picked me to teach and for that I am truly grateful.
 
Learning things from Nana was different from anything else. She gently guided me into a world where magic was as simple and commonplace as sitting down to a meal, enjoying a gentle breeze in the afternoon, or bathing in the dancing light of an evening fire. She led me on a journey where I found that the wonders of  the “Old Ways” opened my life and granted me gifts to powers beyond my wildest imagination. 

Here is what David Hollies had to say about it

I just finished reading Millie’s book “Crafting with Nana.”  And I really enjoyed it.  I mostly bought the book as an expression of my general appreciation of Millie.  I read the book with the hope of getting to know Millie better.  She is one of the most intriguing people I have ever known, so delving into the world of her childhood memories and introduction to things wiccan seemed quite inviting to me.  At first I found the pace slow and wondered if the book would be a chore.  But the book drew me in and I found that the pace of the story was part of the story.  Before long I was recalling the timeless adventuring of childhood.   The book stopped being about Millie and became an invitation to a state of mind that I’d all but forgotten.  It took me back to a time in life where I had so much less knowledge and yet was so much more immersed in the magic of the forest.   I’ve grown in the reading, becoming aware of the ways I’ve fallen out of awareness of the wonder that is all around me.  Thanks, Mille, for giving me back some of the kid in me.

The reading begins after dinner at 8pm.  I invite you to join us, though as always what ever choice you make you will be honored in.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 6:00 PM and has received 1511 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I came across foraging at Rainbow Gathering this summer - eating a wild food salad. Interesting article from the Gaian-Mind festival folks on foraging and other eco activities.

"For 99% of human history we've been foragers. Our nomadic ancestors gathered and hunted for food. Gardening, farming, and animal raising are recent developments in human history going back only about 10,000 out of 3 million years of our evolution as hominids.

The goal of The Gaian Mind is for our eco-arts and education collective to nurture a culture of ecological awareness and provide the means to connect urban youth and families with bioregional natural living systems.

-We hope to build and test replicable modules of alternative sustainable natural living systems that can be applied/adapted to any community throughout the world. Malcolm X advised that the only way for communities to experience liberation would be to create better working systems that make oppressive systems obsolete. We combine this axiom with the wisdom of indigenous cultures and the science of ecology which tell us that the answers to the world's problems are to be found in the ground beneath our feet. The path towards global peace, harmony, and liberation we believe starts by developing permanent local subsistence strategies that rely on the abundance of nature, not the scarcity of the industrial economy, for survival. Our purpose is to reunite people with each other and the land to restore resilient systems of human ecology.

-In this life-time we're committed to growing bioregionally sustainable communites that can survive with or without the global industrial economy.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 5:26 PM and has received 1229 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we do an Imbolc ritual with Devinder Kaur to goddess Brigit, light the fire of purity and rededicating yourself for the remaining year. With Imbolc on Tuesday 2nd on Wednesday February 3rd we will kick off the Valentine erotic theme of the month with an Imbolc ritual. Imbolc means, literally, 'in the belly' (of the Mother). For in the womb of  Mother Earth, hidden from our mundane sight but sensed by a keener  vision, there are stirrings. The seed that was planted in her womb at  the solstice is quickening and the new year grows. Imbolc (or  Candlemas)  may then be seen as the Pagan version of Valentine's Day,  with a de-emphasis of 'hearts and flowers' and an appropriate  re-emphasis of Pagan carnal frivolity. This also re-aligns the holiday with the ancient Roman Lupercalia, a fertility festival held at this time, in which the priests of Pan ran through the streets of Rome whacking young women with goatskin thongs to make them fertile. The women seemed to enjoy the attention and often stripped in order to afford better targets. While I don't see things getting quite that wild we will have  plenty of fun!

Brigid is the traditional patroness of healing, poetry and smithcraft, which are all practical and inspired wisdom. As a solar deity her attributes are light, inspiration and all skills associated with fire. Although she might not be identified with the physical Sun, She is certainly the benefactress of inner healing and vital energy. So if you are inspired to heal or share poetry or craft your future for 2010 then come along. We will do a fire circle too.

The ritual begins after dinner at 8pm.  I invite you to join us, though as always what ever choice you make you will be honored in.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 5:17 PM and has received 1417 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

The Real Doll is no barbie - weighing in at 75 lbs, costing $6k+ and being a full sized sex toy it is different on many counts. But men (and some women) like to play witht them, pose them for photos and buy clothes and accessories for them. Salon asks if the men who own Real Dolls are sick or normal. Perhaps they are just lonely people who like to cuddle at night - not so different from sleeping with a full length pillow. Or in other cases they are porn artists in need of a completely posable model. Finally Nevre sends in a reporter to go all the way with a Real Doll and tell us about his experience (a laugh out loud story in my opinion!)

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 5:11 PM and has received 4685 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Which is better for photo sharing online -Google Picasa or Yahoo Flickr? I am experimenting with Picasa at home and we have used Flickr at work for years. I like the Picasa photo editoring tool - fast and good features.

This review gives a detailed comparision of the two. And this one adds some thoughts too. You can even use the Picasa editor to upload to Flickr. The cost of storage differs too with free and unlimited options on both services.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 5:03 PM and has received 1106 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I read Sea of Poppies  by Amitav Ghosh while travelling to Florida for Winter Solstice. Great language and exciting plot - it is set in the 1830s in Indian where many of the characters are involved in the (then legal) Opium Trade. We learn many details of how opium destroyed not only the consumers of it but also the producers. We also see the effects of rigid caste, class and racism among the different characters. I gained an interesting understanding of the times and how different people thought and felt back then.

The book contains a lot of authenic language of the period, and has an appendix which defines and gives the entomology of many of the words that have since come into the English language, such as bandanna and shampoo. This dictionary was written by one of the book's characters, Neel. a distance relative of the author who updated the word list and provides the author's connection to the story.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 4:39 PM and has received 1429 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I eat Marmite on toast sometimes (a British upbringing I guess). I always wondered how it got into those small jars - the answer it arrive by tanker from the marmite oil fields! :-)

Photo by Cross Duck

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 4:35 PM and has received 1982 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

If you like chanting and Kundalini yoga then check out the first Spirit Fest 9/17-9/19/10 in the mountains of West Virginia. Three days chanting, singing, dancing and practicing Kundalini Yoga. With morning Sadhana it is like a mini Solstice nearer to DC!

http://www.spiritvoyage.com/musicfestival/

Music Performers and Yoga teachers include

•     Snatam Kaur
•     Gurmukh
•     GuruGanesha Singh
•     Nirinjan Kaur
•     Sada Sat Kaur
•     Gurunam Singh
•     Sat Kartar
•     Satkirin Kaur Khalsa

This entry was posted on January 26, 2010 at 4:22 PM and has received 1447 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I went to Kundalini yoga Winter Solstice in December - amazing time with about 500 yogis and yoginis attending. We got up at 3am for meditation and yoga each day and I did a lot of clearing of subconscious blocks. I took the auto-train to Florida with Dana and we drive by via the Hostel in the Forest in Georgia - staying in a tree house! Dana taught some Kundalin yoga to the other guests. It is a center which promotes and teaches environmental sustainability, and is also a spiritual retreat. It show cases a sustainable lifestyle - self building houses, free range chickens and outdoor shower in the forest. More photos of the hostel here.

Sort of like the Earthships I saw in Taos NM in the summer. After Solstice I am doing a 40 day meditation for self-esteem that I learned at Solstice - so far so good!

This entry was posted on January 15, 2010 at 9:18 PM and has received 3226 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.