Mentor: Lisa Sarasohn

The year 2012 heralds a revolution in human consciousness. The signs suggest that the Sacred Feminine will be informing, and reorganizing, every aspect of human experience. As we embody the Sacred Feminine, we'll be equipped to participate in — and shape — this evolution of human awareness with wisdom and grace.

This course is the first part of an ongoing process through which you embody the Sacred Feminine by energizing your body's center with breath, image, story, and movement. As a first step, this course focuses on befriending your body's center and learning yoga-based movement and breathing exercises that will form the core of your practice. (Even if developing a movement practice isn't for you at this time, you'll still find a process that engages and rewards your participation.)

Our first lesson brings ancient prophecy together with astronomy and sacred geometry — including Joseph Campbell's writing on "the mystery number of the Goddess" — to explore the connection between the year 2012 and the emergence of the Sacred Feminine. You begin developing a practice for embodying the Sacred Feminine by honoring and energizing your body's center.

Each lesson blends experiential learning through reflection and creative expression with instruction in movement and breath. Every lesson guides you to work with words and images to develop an ever more intimate knowledge of and appreciation for your body's center as the source of your soul-power and the sourcepoint of the Sacred Feminine. At the same time, the lessons provide opportunities to investigate the ways that society and culture have shaped your experience of your body's center.

In the first lesson, you'll play with word-webbing to explore your experience. Activities in the following lessons include "Draw Out Your Deepest Knowing," "Honor Your Biography," and "Dialogue with Your Inner Wisdom."

Lesson 1 also shows you how to deepen your breath into your body's center with the Centering Breath. You learn the Side Stretches and Diagonal Stretches to limber your spine and prepare your whole body for movement.

By the end of four weeks you'll have learned The Gutsy Women's Workout as presented in The Woman's Belly Book: Finding Your True Center for More Energy, Confidence, and Pleasure. You'll have learned a total of two breathing patterns and ten moves, adding Cradle, Energizing Breath, and Bright Blessings (Lesson 2); Belly Bowl, Power Centering, and Lily (Lesson 3); and Wings, Tree, and Alignment (Lesson 4). You'll have developed a spiritually potent practice that enhances your vitality, pleasure, confidence, compassion, creativity, intuition, and sense of purpose — qualities of the Sacred Feminine indeed.

The Gutsy Women's Workout is the short form of the longer Honoring Your Belly ritual presented on the Honoring Your Belly DVD. Sequels to this workshop will provide instruction in additional moves, preparing you to practice the ritual as a whole. They will also offer you ways to expand your practice into new dimensions of insight, creativity, and purposeful action.