Ritual Postures
Synchronicity and Tarot Map A few weeks ago I was having coffee with my friend Judy Anne. She is what I call a Tarot scholar. I mentioned that I had a zoom call with someone named Kasia who lived in Poland. Judy stared at me: “Is that Kasia with Tarot Map?” Yes, I thought so. Kasia had emailed me to ask for a set of [...]
November is National Native American Heritage Month. The National Congress of American Indians says, “The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both [...]
I grew up in Ohio and was educated here from first grade through my doctoral program at The Ohio State University. All I knew about earthworks was that the Serpent Mound in southwestern Ohio was famous; I had visited once when I was in grade school. When I learned about the Hopewell culture and the existence of about 10,000 mounds in Ohio, I was intrigued [...]
2020 was quite a year! With the world in great need of healing, we too may have lost our balance. We may be feeling battered from the losses we have endured in the past twelve months. And while some positive changes are happening, the world can still seem to be coming apart. Public health is in tatters from the COVID pandemic. Climate change continues to [...]
In a complicated world we are all faced with questions about what to do about all sorts of things. How do I mend a relationship? Where can I best invest my time or money? What will support a project that inspires me? Everyday Divination Tools for Guidance When I’m wrangling with problems that confuse me, it helps me to write about them in a journal, [...]
Why would we want to roll back the centuries to what may seem to be primitive times in order to find a spiritual practice? Why not use all the discoveries from neurobiology and contemporary research on the evolutionary stages of adult development to support our search for enlightenment? With Ancient Ritual Postures, the more profound question is: why not integrate both? When I shared my [...]
Body-based Spirituality teaches that our physical bodies empower us in making a direct connection with the spiritual world. We are familiar with practices such as ecstatic dancing, chanting or dervish-style spinning. The Cuyamungue Method, based on the teachings I learned from anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, outlines the steps necessary for our bodies to use Ancient Ritual Postures and experience what Dr. Goodman called the ecstatic trance [...]
Meeting Felicitas Goodman, the founder of Ancient Ritual Postures, in the winter of 1984 changed my life. My friend Anita had called one afternoon in January 1984 to tell me she had just had lunch with one of her former yoga students. “She’s Hungarian, an anthropologist, and she plays the violin,” was how Anita described her. Felicitas had just returned from Europe where she had [...]
Beginning at least 36,000 years ago indigenous people around the world were creating works of art in the form of ritual body postures. Think Lascaux Cave and the Venus of Laussel. These images were painted on cave walls, carved in slate, and sculpted in stone. We can see them - along with later totem poles, terracotta effigies, and figures in gold and silver - [...]
Here is a simple ritual with all the basic elements for practicing Ancient Ritual Postures. It is what we call the Cuyamungue Method, named after the Cuyamungue Institute that Felicitas Goodman founded. Using this method you will learn to set up a sacred space, calm your mind and let sound and body position awaken your body’s natural ability to experience a shift in consciousness. You [...]