Moving Into Intimacy
Moving Into Intimacy
Sensual Moving Meditations
Facilitated by Lui Gervais
DateNite for All Couples, Portland, OR, SomaSpace, January 27 4 spots open Link
Moving Into Intimacy for Men, Portland, OR, February 10. Waiting List Only! Link
Palm Springs, March 1-3 (teacher training). 2 Spots Open Link
Moving Into Intimacy for Men, San Francisco, CA, with the BodyElectric School, March 8-10. Link
Every sensual meditation in this moving workshop is a physical and emotional aphrodisiac. Each ritual casts a spell of transformation. Offering an escape from emotional isolation. Bringing each participant into an erotically alive, embodied state of peace, presence and intimacy with their partner.
The inspiration for this work came to me more than 20 years ago in a surprisingly tender moment. After my touring life as a professional dancer, I was back in my home state, reimagining the many creative movement ideas I had absorbed during my performing career. Putting all that inspiration to new use in my work as an arts educator in rural Maine schools.
With desks piled high along the walls, the moment of inspiration happened when a group of AP English seniors came face to face with a class of vulnerable Life Skills students. These students, some dreaming of college, others struggling to walk or speak, attended the same school, but they were completely isolated from each other. They met for the first time in my class as I invited them into a moving meditation. One that I still use in my teaching today. I was just exploring it at the time as way to help strangers break the ice.
It’s called The River of Love.
Facing one another, these teenagers paired up with a student from the other class and walked (or rolled their wheelchairs) slowly sideways together down a long corridor that I had drawn on the floor. The only real instruction I gave them was to maintain eye contact with their partners for the entire journey. For some students, this was a real physical, emotional challenge.
At the end of the corridor, the pair would move in even closer toward one another and slowly make their way back to the starting point. As the music ached, some partners instinctively reached out a hand of support for those in need. Drawing them closer physically and emotionally. Once back at the starting point, they thanked their partner with a deep bow and for some a hug before beginning the journey down the river of love again with a new partner.
Around 20 minutes in, the energy in the room profoundly shifted. The initial embarrassed laughter fell away and the room dropped into a new kind of focus. A feeling of warmth and intimacy fell upon the room. The sustained eye contact invited these students to really see one another. Eyes filled with emotion. Hearts opened. The collective consciousness of the students and teachers harmonized together, dropping into an overwhelming feeling of spiritual connection.
What had just happened? That harmonizing shift became a beacon of inspiration for me. I was caught in the rapture of this subtle miracle. I became wed immediately to its untold promise as a healing modality. With the possibility to create real change, not only in individuals but in the world. I began asking…how can I make the miracle happen again? What were the essential ingredients?
The ingredients of this opening were varied. They were sensual, spiritual, physical and emotional. Each recipe might have a few ingredients but the ingredients had to come together in just the right way. Commitment on the part of the participants was fundamental. Being willing to be vulnerable was key. To be able to listen closely to a partners body while offering sensitive/conscious/consensual touch. With shared breath. Loving touch. Creative movement and gentle stillness. Along with the practicality of space and a certain amount of time, these meditations created an intimate delicacy.
I tried a sensitive touch meditation with elders in a nursing home that left them feeling deeply moved with eyes moist with emotion. I tried a puzzle piece meditation with elementary school kids and watched them get lost in and around each others small bodies. When I explored a finger tip meditation with university students, one shared that he felt like he had just made love in some way that he didn’t quite understand.
As I tried new ideas, I couldn’t help but notice that these sensual meditations were also creating more than just intimacy. They were also calling forth sexual energy. Not an overwhelming erotic inferno but like heat from a wood stove ablaze nearby. I had an intuitive sense that I needed to set my sensual meditations free. Free from restrictions like shame or clothing to see just where they might lead. To wander as far as they might into the rooms of intimacy, sensuality and sexuality.
When I tried a hugging meditation with a group of gay men, with skin to skin contact and a slow undressing, inviting sexual energy to rise and flow, the room erupted in super charged Tantric tidal wave. Finding a new way to combine sexuality and spirituality felt like finding a holy grail. And at the center of it all, at least in the erotic lab I was working in, was a shared focus and expression of sensual intelligence.
I have been just as changed by this practice personally. Meditating on breath and sound, sensitively touching and moving with my many partners, I found my students and myself transforming in one on one sessions. Together, we explore the full spectrum of embodied pleasure. From sensual to sexual, to intimacy and back around again, all these pleasures become activated, integrated and amplified.
Moving Into Intimacy; Sensual Moving Meditations is coming to a space near you in a variety of formats. For an afternoon or a weekend, this workshop will forever inspire your pathway to pleasure. Giving you a map, a compass and plenty of fuel for your embodied pleasure adventures, you will find your erotic world open up to whole new spectrum. With new tools and the confidence to use them, your ability to create the intimate, erotic life you desire will be at your fingertips.
One recent workshop participant shared: “I now have the tools I need to create conscious connections. I discovered my love for movement and realized that there are many ways that can make my sensual life more interesting, creative, and healing. Lui taught us a vocabulary to navigate the space of intimacy, sensuality, and sexuality, and showed us meditations to deepen our experience in these areas. This work has had a profound impact on my life.” Julian J.
I can help you explore these meditations with your partner for greater intimacy. And of course, we can always dive into these meditations one on one. Please feel free to reach out to Lui at lui@embodiedinstitute.com with any questions. Check out his writing on his blog at embodiedinstitute.com. Don’t miss this exciting new workshops! May Moving Into Intimacy forever inspire your pleasure!
DateNite for All Couples, Portland, OR, SomaSpace, January 27 Link
Moving Into Intimacy for Men, Portland, OR, February 10. Waitlist Available Link
Palm Springs, March 1-3 (teacher training). 2 Spots Open Link
Moving Into Intimacy for Men, San Francisco, CA, with the BodyElectric School, March 8-10. Link