Concha Garcia Allen

Go to the North where your own elder wisdom resides and offer to the elder's circle and receive acknowledgement, confirmation and guidance. Go to the East, the place of vision and clarity and power, clarify your visions and receive the power to know you can accomplish what you want and need."

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Somatic Experiencing:

Somatic Experiencing is a short-term naturalistic approach to healing trauma. The process is based on studying wild prey animals, which are rarely traumatized, although they are regularly threatened. Unlike prey animals, human beings with our rational brains (neo-cortex), override or inhibit the natural animal instinct to discharge trauma. The result is that trauma remains locked in our muscle, bones and nervous system. This can cause extreme experiences such as fear, anxiety, rage, feelings of helplessness and a sense of loss and depression. In addition, it can result in a number of felt sense (somatic) experiences such as numbness, pain anywhere and everywhere in the body, tight muscles, dizziness, vision changes, loss of appetite, diarrhea and insomnia to name just a few. Using the model of an animals ability to discharge trauma, we create a safe circle through prayer, smudging, sacred song and silence, where you can let go and take the time to really feel in your body the places that allow you to feel safe, happy, energized and alive. Then we gently, ever so slowly approach the unsafe, painful places, through a system developed by Somatic Experiencing, never, never jumping into the well of trauma, but teasing at the outskirts of the trauma so that you can return to your established resources, coaching the bodies own innate process to transform your nervous system.

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Aztek dance:

I am the leader of a traditional, ceremonial Aztec/Mexican dance circle. We dance to fulfill prophecies that were put in place for us by our ancestors. The Dance opens your heart and lifts your spirit. It is the Flower and Song of my people. Each dance represents the spirits of our land, the wind, the rain, the earth and planting and hunting.
Danza Azteca is a living, evolving, cultural tradition filled with the artistic and spiritual traditions of the pre-Colombian Indian nations of Mexico, and their descendants. It is a form of prayer, individual, and yet communal. It is a way of life, all encompassing. It is a form of ancestor worship, and a way of communicating with the future yet unborn. It is not just a modern folk dance tradition. In reality La Danza Azteca is closer to a church service, than to a ballet performance. Danza Azteca is a form of communication. It is a rich blend of music, choreography, poetry, theatre, and most importantly of all, of deeply held spiritual faith.

La Danza Azteca is a culmination of fifty thousand years of cultural celebration within the valleys and forest of Mexico. Danza Azteca is kinetic prayer. Using brilliant colours in their uniforms, headdresses, and musical instruments, the Azteca dancers communicate across generations, sacrificing their bodies, their economic abilities, and even their limited socio-political power, to carry on a tradition which they have been entrusted with. Mixing pre-Columbian spiritualism with Spanish folk Catholicism, and to a lesser extent, African animism, dancers of the Azteca tradition redefine modern Native American tradition. Using intricate dance steps, turns and jumps, the dancers evoke a kinetic prayer. Drums, seed pod shells, flutes, mandolins and guitars, unite to create a mind expanding experience that reflects the cultural heritage of modern Mexico and Aztlan.
Each dancer according to his or her age, agility and physical stamina, dances in cohesive unity to create prayer: kinetic, powerful and emotional. The prayer is carried within the dancer's heart and without the dancer's consciousness. The Azteca dance tradition is a climax of thousands of years of cultural wars, conquests and ultimately, survival. This is perhaps the greatest legacy of the Azteca dance tradition.Through the dance steps, drumbeats, and ceremonies, the memory of ancient peoples survives into the 21st century. Through this tradition, the largest indigenous nations of America (the Mexican and Chicano nations) find new spiritual, cultural, political and economic power.