Rooted Eros

8 week erotic rite of passage through dance and community

8 Wednesdays, March 16 - May 4, (2 - 4:30 pm pst) on zoom

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Rooted: firmly connected to the Earth, to who you are, and to our human family. Truthful about current circumstances and your soul’s desires.

Eros: the natural human tendency to share joy, play, sensuality and aliveness in ways that transform us.

My desire is to support you to bring clarity, permission, and play to the erotic life of our human family. When our eros thrives, we all experience more joy, generosity, and connection as we move toward the world we want to see. This past year has challenged and blessed us with a disruption to the familiar. Our love lives, our community connections, our health, our professional lives… so much shifted in our personal and collective path. Whether you are looking for more erotic connection with your partner(s), grieving a past relationship, and/or feeling lonely and dormant erotically, this rite of passage is a home coming and supportive space for your rooted eros.

Many of us have been socialized to fear the yeses inside us. This is an invitation to explore your yeses, to respond to them, to dance them, to be seen longing for what you truly desire. Let your yeses be a home coming, a resource, and a way of trusting your soul. Come co-create a community of permission, presence, and deep play! Together we will cultivate trust, solidarity and celebration for our erotic journeys. Explore breath, self touch, dance, voice, and sensuality practices. You will be guided and supported to design and share a dance ritual for the group as a rite of passage. Our group is limited to 12 people (open to all genders) for an intimate quality of sharing and connection. 

Designed to support you to:

1. Release shame, inhibition, and tension to embody your primal erotic nature, sensuality, and the dances that make your soul most alive.

2. Root in your own erotic energy and sovereignty within a community of trust, permission, and play.

3. Experience continuity between your erotic life and your daily experience of desire, choice and expression.

4. Bring more ease to voicing your truth and playing in a wider range of erotic expression.

5. Explore your inner Dominant and inner submissive so you can bring more clarity and confidence to sharing those energies with others when you choose.

6. Increase pelvic floor sensation, awareness, circulation, and coordination for more agency and depth in your orgasms. (If you have not experienced orgasm yet, you are not alone. You are most welcome to come explore.)

7. Experience what it is like to integrate, digest, and “come home” after a new or big expansive experience.

8. Cultivate more vital energy to direct towards what’s most important to you.

9. Reclaim your eros as a source of wisdom and connection with spirit and the larger web of life and death.

10. Be part of the thriving of eros in our human family, that contributes to more joy, generosity, and connection as we move toward the world we want to see.

Our time together includes:

1. Dance rooted in sensuality and improvisation with specific guiding prompts. Z draws on their background of Burlesque, qigong, and Sufi Dancemeditation to support you to expand your own expression of eros through dance.

2. A one hour individual coaching session for erotic authenticity. We will schedule this together over the 8 weeks. I’m honored to provide one-on-one support for you to move beyond your challenges whether they are internal stopping points or external circumstances. I will be practicing a specific coaching model from the Academy for Coaching Excellence: 1. Acknowledging your values, intentions, desires, and good heart. 2. Observing any ways of thinking or acting that might be getting in the way of what’s most important to you. 3. Discerning what is true vs an interpretation so you can clarify your voice of wisdom. 4. Taking action that is simple, doable, and rooted in who you really are.

3. Experiential pelvic anatomy with ball work to soften, tone, and awaken the pelvic floor. This work is applicable to all genders and explores the pelvis as a basin of power and surrender. It focuses on the pelvic floor, a structure closer to our core than our genitals. The details of our pelvic floor are nuanced, awe inspiring and a source of tremendous self knowledge and agency.

4. Self touch prompts to explore your own sensuality and arousal. You may choose to have your camera on or off for privacy. I will offer guidance including breath and vocal practices, imagery, specific qualities of touch, and cues to soften or engage parts of the pelvic floor. Expand your repertoire of arousal and rooting so you can take yourself on a soulful ride!

5. Erotic life mapping to observe where you have been and where you want to go. This is a powerful tool that I used to create my solo show, Waters of the Soul. It gives you a chance to observe your past experiences and relationships with curiosity. From this birds eye view you may see more clearly the meaning you have created and the values that are most important to you. You are already on your erotic journey. This is a moment to pause and share what you are celebrating, dismantling, learning, and what’s been most supportive so far. Life mapping provides a foundation and perspective from which to clarify what you want next.

6. Guided exploration of your inner Dominant and your inner submissive in dance and self pleasuring touch. Many of us first explore these energies in a dynamic connection with another person. Sometimes we seek others as if we cannot experience these energies within us. Yet each person we choose to play with reflects something about our own energy. In order to love the color red we most know what red is, to have a place within us with “red receptors.” Similarly the things that attract us to a Dom or a sub are reflections of those energies and capacities within us. The more we explore, accept, and play with these energies within us, the more we can bring clarity, creativity, and ease to sharing them with others. These energies show up in all aspects of our life including our erotic, professional, financial, spiritual, artistic, and justice oriented actions.

7. Support designing and sharing a dance ritual for the group as your erotic rite of passage. This is your time to be in ceremony with a community that honors your erotic growth. Over these 8 weeks we will all be developing a consistent listening to the wisdom of our eros. You will discover the specific ways eros wants you to become more alive and more trustworthy to your desires. We will be here with you as you say yes to this call in the unique way that only you know how to do.

This community calls in:

• Explorers at the intersection of spirituality, kink, dance, and cultural liberation

• Kinky and kink curious folx. What is kink? I define it as "sexual desires, behaviors, and identities that challenge social approval giving you the opportunity to explore your courage, shame, pleasure, and liberation." We see conscious power dynamics as an opportunity for healing a lineage of mistrust, for reparations, for heightening our perception and intention around power so we can do good things with power.

• Gender explorers who are curious about discovering your unique relationship to your experience of gender. As a trans facilitator I will not be using language that assigns gender to your experience or your genitals. This is a gender affirming space that will compassionately dismantle gender binary language or assumptions that may come up in the group.

• People transforming the socialized body to live the liberated soul.

• People who want to grow in community and contribute to our whole human family. While we welcome trans people, we are not a trans only affinity group. We are interested in human solidarity across personal identities and the power of the diversity that emerges from authentic self expression.

• We are permission generators who expand the permission within ourselves and within the group. The more I am at peace with who I am, the more I am at peace with who you are.

What this IS NOT

• Rooted Eros is not a replacement for therapy if you are looking to heal a significant past trauma. The dancers who thrive in this community have an internal steadiness where the idea of dancing and self pleasuring within a group container is more fun than confronting. I’m really intrigued and it might be a stretch for me, how can I tell if it’s aligned?

• Rooted Eros is not a choreography class. You will not be asked to memorize dance phrases. You will be guided with prompts and demonstrations. For the performance ritual that you design you may choose to choreograph or you may approach it in another way such as an improvisational score.

• Rooted Eros is not a weekly coaching group. You will have a one hour individual coaching session during the 8 weeks. The group sessions will be focused on dancing. We will have some group sharing with guided prompts.

• Rooted Eros is not creating dance duets or kink scenes with others in the group. We are focusing on self love and self eros bonding.

Investment

Time:

1. Attend all 8 Wednesday sessions live (March 16 - May 4) Given the intimate nature of this immersion sessions will not be recorded. (Please note all sessions are 2.5 hours except the 7th session, which is 3 hours.)

2. Schedule time to journal for 15 min each day.

3. Schedule and attend a 45 min buddy call.

4. Written homework:

   • Week 1: social locator (1 -2 hours)

   • Week 5: create your erotic life map. (1-2 hours, it can be meaningful to spread this out over a few days for reflection.)

5. Artistic and spirit work: design and prepare your 5 min rite of passage to share with the group.

6. Schedule and attend a 60 min coaching session.

Money:

Choose a tier that aligns for you:

• $800/month I am financially Flourishing

• $600/month I am financially Resourced

• Limited number of partial scholarships at $450/month I am financially Stretched

Spirit:

Joining Rooted Eros requires a significant commitment, not only of time and money, a commitment to focus, heal, to be in loving community, and to irreversibly transform your relationship with eros.

Testimonials

“Rooted Eros with Z is its an opportunity for you to truly understand what Erotic agency looks like in your specific body and to own everything you discover fully.” ~ Shevy Cardoza, Trauma Informed Life Coach, Money Teacher

“The guided somatic time in Rooted Eros helped me feel deeply supported in exploring the possibilities of how I can choose to engage my body vessel with the many forms of Eros.” ~ mo

“Rooted Eros is an incredible, deeply intentional, emotional (both joys and grief), layered, body shaking and life shifting/learning opportunity to come home to yourself, your desires, and sacred work calling…” ~ Phakiso "Kiki" Collins, Producer, Multi Media Artist, Coach

“Wow - this has been a totally luscious peekaboo into the places where the sacred and sensual meet, discovering deeper in me & in this community of stellar beings. It's helped me connect my devotion with my sex with the earth with all Life! To go from feeling covid aloneness to laughing, free, inspired interbeing. so Alive.” ~ Lyndsey Scott, Songleader + Artist

“Rooted Eros is a special container in which people vulnerably explore and expand their erotic understanding and capacity and witness each other with acceptance. The experience leads to healing, joy, & connection within the group. Participants learn to replace thoughts of difference as division within the human family and instead deepen a knowing that we are all in this life together regardless of our differences.” ~ Life coach, dancer, parent-to-be

“If you are willing to commit to this path with openness and discipline you will be transformed.” ~ Ric Stott Queer artist Mystic

“Rooted Eros expanded my whole perception of what Eros means, and particularly how to live an Erotic Life. It is not just a course focusing on sexuality, sex and pleasure, but the wider implications and embodied experience of living and offering the fullness of who we are and what we are capable of being and becoming!” ~ Heidi Hinda Chadwick, Writer, Creative Life Coach, Mentor

“In Rooted Eros, Z guided me in an exploration of my relationship to the erotic, through knowledge sharing, movement, somatic awareness, reflection, and shared processing, ultimately calling upon me to create and perform a rite of passage that honored what I discovered within myself.” ~ Mischa Freeman, therapist and social worker

“It helped me connect to ecstatic states of grief and sex through dance and self-eros, showed me how much radical vulnerability is possible in a space constructed for that purpose, and led me to a deeper relationship to my sexual spirit guide.” ~ Bishop, sadist, witness, witch-priest, and poet

Z’s Bio

Z (aka Zahava Griss, pronouns: they/them) is the founder of www.EmbodyMoreLove.com, a spiritual kinky dance community for personal and cultural liberation. I have had the pleasure of evolving and sharing this work since 1999. Below is a partial list of my training and where I have offered this work. So much of Rooted Eros comes from erotic partnerships, friendships, and community ritual beyond this more formal list. You can read my full story here which includes my identities and cultural background.

Mentors, Trainings, Certifications relevant to Rooted Eros: BA from Sarah Lawrence College with focus in dance, community building, and dismantling racism; West African and African Diaspora dance with Mari Basse Wiles in Senegal, Oh!ni Sowa of Ghana, Robin Gee, Alvin Ailey School, Baba Chuck Davis, Katherine Dunham, Ron Brown, Urban Bush Women, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Tania Isaac; Middle Eastern dance with Anahid Sofian, Serena, Zenaide, Sera Solstice; Sufi Dancemeditation with Dunya McPherson and Dance of Oneness with Banafsheh Sayyad; Burlesque with Shay Au Lait and Femme! instructor with Bernadette Pleasant; Yoga for Birth instructor with Mary Barnes (Anusara prenatal, postnatal, and labor coaching); Teeni Dakini, tantra, energy skills (lineage of Linda Cesnara); Lawrence Lanoff, energetic sex; Sexual Shamanism with Kenneth Ray Stubbs, Ph.D. and Sun Dancer; Urban Tantra Professional Training with Barbara Carrellas (trained with and assisted); Pelvic floor with Virginia Reath, RPA, MPH, PC; Pilates Teacher certified by the Kane School; Sheri Winston CNM, RN, Sexuality Midwife; Coach and Trainer with Academy for Coaching Excellence; Certified in Esalen Massage and Deep Bodywork by Esalen; Grief ritual with Sobonfu Some; Human Fragility: Anxiety, Trauma, and Grief with Zhenevere Sophia Dao; Mythopoetics: Emotion, Archetype, and Imagination with Zhenevere Sophia Dao.

Places I have had the honor of teaching: New York State Association of Licensed Midwives, Ina May Gaskin’s Farm, Deepak Chopra Center, Mama Sutra Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training, Smith Center for the Healing Arts (cancer patients), Body Connect Health and Wellness (Washington DC, physical therapy center specializing in pelvic floor rehabilitation), Lila Yoga, Dharma & Wellness (in partnership with holistic gynecologist Eden Fromberg, DO), NYC Theatrical Bellydance Conference, Interfusion Dance Festival (DC), Phoenix Temple (NYC), Touch&Play Festival (core teacher and organizer at Earthdance in MA, teacher at Dancing Shiva in Asheville, NC), Xplore Festival Berlin, Xplore Festival Copenhagen, Dark Odyssey Fusion, Actors Theatre of Louisville (KY), Clear Creek Festival (KY), SoulPlay Festival (CA), Hunter College (NYC), New York University, White Privilege Conference (TN), White Privilege Symposium (teacher and organizer in CA), Embodied Ambassador Facilitator Training with Stefana Serafina (CA.)

Alyssa’s Bio (assistant)

(pronouns: she/her) I’m a dancer, life and relationship coach. I coach big-idea creatives to take meaningful action with clarity and grace. I coach lovers to design and show up to their relationship/s in ways they are proud of. I’ve danced and taught dance internationally including living in Europe for 7 years. I co-directed the first anthropological film on Contact Improvisation, “Five Ways In,” exploring communication, partner dance, intimacy, and power dynamics. I’m a founding organizer of the Touch&Play Festivals at Earthdance, MA. My article, “Awareness, Engagement, and Resilience” was published in the dance and improvisation journal, Contact Quarterly. I co-authored Getting Along: Skills for Life-Long Love including topics of polyamory, long distance relationships, uncoupling, and finding a partner. I support folx to move toward the romantic partnership they seek through a 7 day Instructional video journey titled “Swiping Up”. Learn more about my work and my identities and cultural background at www.alyssalynes.com.

Alyssa & Z

Alyssa & Z have been growing a friendship since 2000. We first met as fellow students at Sarah Lawrence College. Over the past two decades we have toured together as dancers, community organizers and teachers. We both trained as coaches at the Academy for Coaching Excellence. Some of our core collaborations have included: 4 years of Touch&Play Festival, the Do Good Things with Power leadership program, and co-founding White Folks Soul By Any Dance Necessary, a dance company in NYC exploring the incompatibility of whiteness and humanity. We love performing, teaching, learning, and building community together.

Testimonials

“Z is for real. They live what they teach and their work is always growing and evolving…Z has an infectious joy, and a fierce honesty. Z’s work is deeply rooted in the body, keeping students grounded and integrating insights into the flesh.” ~ Ruth Vincent, author & educator

“I keep making myself giggle by tightening my pelvic floor muscles in a ripple/wave from back to front and front to back.  Z has totally transformed my relationship with and perception of the muscles in my pelvic floor!” ~ Faye Hermine, Erotic Health Consultant, RememberPleasure.com

“Z is bold about sharing directly from the body as an erotic vehicle. This is a gift not many teachers trained in yoga and so forth are open or ready to share. Z’s an expert in what they know, and knows it thoroughly enough to explain in detail from the anatomical perspective as well as socio-cultural, esoteric and psychological. Z’s completely committed to transformation…and embodies what they teach!” ~ Anita Teresa Boeninger, Founder of Embodied Femme

“Z navigates the mystical, the biological, the etheric, and artistic sensual landscape of what it means to be a [human.] Z’s work caresses, awakens, inspires, expands, and ignites the erotic spirit and moves you to your next stage of evolution. Z meets seasoned and budding sensualists where they are and unfolds them to their next layer of beauty, poetry, and divinity.” ~ Isis Phoenix, Sensual Shaman

“I came to Z’s workshop knowing I loved the way they expressed themself through dance. Little did I know Z would give me the nurturing excavation tools to my inner realms that have been yearning to moan, be touched, to be remembered, honored, revered, and celebrated. Z reminds us that everything in our lives is inextricably linked and we can use these connections to re-establish a sense of wholeness through our sensuality, which is the basis upon which all of life flows.” ~ Jennifer Maeve, artist, documentary creator

“I’m trained as a hatha yoga instructor but Z’s work is the missing piece in the holistic body experience and enjoyment and appreciation of our body and spirit.” ~ S.J.

“Z is a dynamic mover and gentle teacher. Z’s energy leads without words.” ~ Tammy Wise, Tao Minister

“As a Goddess two decades in the making…I have witnessed our Sacred Sexual Community Grow! In that time I have experienced several different “so called” healers goddesses etc. express their Sacred Sexual message in various forms… the courage it takes to stand in this personal spiritual energy is not easy and comes with Social conflicts. What I love about Z is their ability to grow and their willingness to learn from every aspect of their life. I have felt the need to be present in Z’s gatherings for my own personal process that has been very profound for me. A person has to be able to stand firm in their clear vision as a dancer healer naked and real in order for me to get something out of it. Z is a person that possesses the “conviction” I speak of. Z’s spiritual essence is a Kali Presence that is able to gently or roughly pull you the seeker into the space you need to become whole.  For people that enjoy the movements of the body as a vehicle to knowing the Divine within, this is Z’s most amazing ability. May Embody More Love continue to serve through Z’s vision and conviction to love.” ~ Rev. Goddess Charmaine