Welcome to another bonus episode of The Body Knows Podcasts. These feature in-depth discussions with some wonderful individuals Marcela is working in partnership with to provide some upcoming somatic offerings. We’d like to think that no matter if you participate in the offerings or not there will be insights and wisdom in these conversation nonetheless.

This bonus episode is very special for Marcela. She is speaking with Maru Albor Bibian, her ceremonial cacao teacher, about one of her core embodiment practices; the art of cacao ceremonies.

Maru facilitates ancestral medicine ceremonies with Cacao and Rapé. She also provides both group and one-to-one healing sessions, as well as leading women’s circles with medicine songs and prayers, and is an energetic therapist, working with Reiki and chakra balancing too.

Cacao ceremonies are one of the most beautiful ways to enter into deep inquiry of what is to have a body, and what is to have a soul and connect with the Great Spirit. It was actually through tapping into the wisdom of her body that Marcela awakened this ancient memory, this ancient medicine, coming from her indigenous background.

Once this seed was awakened and begun to bloom she entered into a quest to find her initiation. In every indigenous tradition you must be initiated or have the sacred wisdom of the ancestors transmitted orally, encoded in the language. And this is how she found Maru. She gave Marcela the honour of transmitting to her the essence and life of the Tabasco Jungle where her teacher lives and tends his cacaotal. Both Maru and Marcela we were born and raised in the great city of Mexico Tenochtitlan.

They are going to join forces to run an online initiation and transmission of the Cacao Spirit. This CACAO SPIRIT INITIATION will be four online ceremonies running – 17:00 - 21:00 GMT, Week One 10-11/07/21 and Week Two 17-18/07/21.

We hope you enjoy this bonus episode about the art of cacao ceremonies. If you are interested in this initiation please follow this link - https://embodiedpractices.com/cacaoexperience/ Or you can always DM our socials; https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ and https://www.facebook.com/thebodyknowspodcast/ or Marcela directly; https://www.instagram.com/embodied_practices/ and https://www.facebook.com/embodiedpractices/

This is the final bonus episode Marcela has recorded about her upcoming offerings, and it's been good to use the platform as sponshorship for something near and dear to us but now it's time to rest and reflect on what's next for the podcast. We are sure our bodies will guide us in this. 

However we’ll be releasing on more special episode soon too in collaboration with a podcasting partner, so please keep an eye on our socials for news about that. In the meantime, as ever, please share this episode with anyone you think it may be of benefit to and rate and review on Apple Podcast if it speaks to your heart. Thanks for you time listening and your on-going support of The Body Knows Podcast.

This is the last episode of SE#01 of The Body Knows Podcast. Thanks to all who have listened throughout the series, to those we have met and spoken with, and who have reached out, inspired by what you have heard. This was our purpose in creating the show and makes our work worthwhile.

Our final guest is Bruce Parry; English documentarian; indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, and former Royal Marines commando officer. His documentary series for the BBC: Tribe, Amazon, and Arctic have shown Bruce exploring extreme environments, living with remote indigenous peoples and highlighting many of the issues on the environmental frontline. What started out as a simple desire for adventure for him developed into a profound love for humanity and nature that comes with having experienced first-hand what our way of life is doing in the world.

He is best known for his time spent living with Indigenous Peoples, and for bringing awareness of the shamanic use of psychedelic plant medicine to the mainstream, as well as his investigations into globalisation and climate change. Bruce's latest film; “TAWAI – A Voice from the Forest, is about how humankind has shifted its connection to nature with devastating results and suggests how we might return to the egalitarian structures we lived in for 95% of our time on the planet before the agricultural revolution.

This is a deep and wide ranging conversation taking in; awareness practices, psychedelics and shadow work, the nature of spirit and consciousness via the lenses of felt sense, indigenous wisdom, meditative awareness and scientific study and the possiblity for evolution through egalitarian revolution. We dive too into this vision for life informed by ancestral wisdom, through an innate, heart lead connection to the natural order, the peoples he has met who embody this and the importance of this in order to find something bigger than ourselves. Bruce outlines what the new cultural narratives and tools and could be in order for us to live truly grounded, and egalitarian lives beyond our Western, individualistic patriarchal power structures so that we might discover what it truly means to be fully ourselves.

As ever if this last episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and to subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal. Please continue to do so in our absence and until we return later in the year.

You can find Bruce online at https://www.bruceparry.com/ where there's more about his filmmaking, his talks and writing on pyschedelics, ecology, and power and reveloution as well as links to further interviews. There’s also an extensive, dedicated site for TAWAI with further resources, study materials and outtakes at https://www.tawai.earth/ Bruce’s social links are https://www.instagram.com/bruceparrytribe/ on Instagram, and on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXvXgseDKknhTknuuzlCtLA where, among a number of other extracts from his extensive travels is the full length TAWAI documentary.

There is no somatic Body Knows Practice at the end of this conversation, but we have some special related materials to share on our socials later in the month. . Please follow us there if you don’t already do so Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thebodyknowspodcast/

Thanks once again to you all. See you for SE#02 later in the year, and in the meantime remember to listen to the body because The Body Knows.

This episode of The Body Knows Podcast comes with a * TRIGGER WARNING! * | 

Our guest this month is Michelle Roberton; Tantric therapist supporting women, men and couples through releasing fears and limiting boundaries around intimacy, sensuality and exploring the true sense of being a sexual being. She is a licensed Councillor, specialised trauma therapist and body worker, certified by The Association of Somatic and Integrated Sexologists.

Drawing on her own experience of extreme sexual abuse as a child, Michelle identifies and focuses on the disconnection and dissociation experiences of childhood sexual abuse and the developmental trauma created within the body. Michelle has shared with her work with many over the years, specialising in sexual trauma & intimacy as a tantric educator, bodyworker, trauma yoga teacher, and counsellor for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

In 2013 she was diagnosed with Grade 3 breast cancer, and both breasts were removed and later on reconstructed. Her passion stems from her own journey of discovering the healing medicine in the poison of her own experiences as she set it upon herself to reclaim her body, her breath, her sexuality and sensuality and express them in new, life enriching ways.

Michelle very much believes that our mind can only take us so far into any release of body trauma and healing of our sexuality. The discovery of who we authentically are is not hidden in our thoughts but in the sensuality and home of our body. Her touch has been described by many as her gift to others, and her gentle, authentically honest & calming approach, a comforting breath of fresh air. 

MICHELLE'S LINKS | 

You can find Michelle online via her website; https://michelleroberton.com/ where she has many services and offerings available, both in person and online including courses, workshops and meditations. She’s also on YouTube as Michelle Roberton - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgK6XLb00lxIO22FWFR9WkQ/featured and Instagram as Michelle K Roberton - https://www.instagram.com/michellekroberton/ and has her own podcast, entitled Brighton Talks Sex - https://brightontalkssex.com/podcasts-blog/ . All full of clear, resonant, somatic teachings on how we might live an orgasmic life. Her book ‘Stepping Stones to You; A Journey of Body Love’, is available on Amazon also - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stepping-Stones-You-Journey-Body-ebook/dp/B07HVXSRL2 

LISTENER SHOUT-OUT | 

Our listener shout-out is a bit different this month as we’d like to show our gratitude to two special people, Ashley Whiting - http://ashwhiting.com/ and Orlando Cubbit - http://www.orlandocubitt.com/ , who respectively have both generously supported with audio mastering and video editing out of the goodness of their own hearts. We are both so grateful for your kindness and for the work, and above all for your friendship. 

SUPPORT US | 

As ever if this episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal. 

THE BODY KNOWS PRACTICE |

This month’s somatic Body Knows Practice is at the end of the conversation, and is offered so that if time and circumstance permit you sit with it to orient yourselves to the felt- sense of the conversation and integrate it into your body-mind-system.

This month we’re speaking with, Gemma Mallol the originating founder and creator of Still Flowing Yoga Teacher Training. She is a senior yoga and mindfulness teacher, a somatic experiencing practitioner, and body orientated trauma therapist.

What she offers in her teaching is in-depth somatic therapeutic experiences and process through Buddhist insight meditation, embodied journeying and movement practice in and with nature that cultivate resource and regulation in the mind-body-system.

This conversation takes place at turning point, which its self is one of many, in the history of the teacher training - on which Marcela teaches Embodied anatomy & Physiology of movement - and we took this as an opportunity to tell Gemma’s story, and that of Still Flowing, as they map much of the evolution of yoga in the West from the late 90s onwards.

Her teaching has many influences, Somatic and Scaravelli Inspired Yoga, Buddhist Mindfulness & Eco Dharma, and body oriented somatic therapy, movement and creative process, yet the roots of her own practice go back further; through the rise to mainstream popularity of Ashtanga in the 90s, mindfulness and Vinyasa-Flow in the 00s, and the trauma informed somatic methods of today, being there amid the birth of each of these emerging waves of health and wellbeing.

Throughout them all, Gemma’s core interest has been understanding and connecting with existence, and this has been the focus of her 20 plus years of practice and teaching, and that is an enquiry has taken place through her body. We cover much of this in the conversation - and more too - taking in these personal, cultural and also hereditary factors and traditions that have informed Gemma, and Still Flowing, but which have never defined or held her in.

You can find Gemma on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stillflowing/and her website address is http://www.stillflowingyogateachertraining.com/ where there are links to Gemma’s Zoom classes, courses and one to ones. If you want to know more about Still Flowing Teacher Training at its new home at The Yoga Garden in West Sussex, on the Knepp rewilidng Estate you can also go https://www.the-yoga-garden.co.uk/200hr-teacher-training where there’s information about the taster workshop taking place in March and the training is scheduled from June 30th 2021 to April 11th 2022.

As with last month’s show we begin with a somatic practice, so we recommend that if time and circumstance permit that you sit with the practice to orient yourselves to the felt- sense ahead of listening.

This month’s listener shout-out goes to Phil Greenfield. Phil is a body-worker of 20+ years, and educator, athlete and author of the amazing book ‘Unraveling - Letting Go, Getting In.’ We connected with Phil on a Buddhist meditation group - where we had shared EP007 of the podcast with Ajahn Sucitto - and where we had both commented with mindful embodiment tools for anxiety in response to a post. It speaks volumes to Phil that he was there sharing his wisdom freely and openly. You can find him on Instagram as https://www.instagram.com/philgreenfield/ and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/phil.greenfield.3 for his personal account, and https://www.facebook.com/CoreAlignmentBodywork where he has links to his book and his contact details. The book website is https://www.theunravellingbook.com/ too.

As ever if this episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal.

This first episode of The Body Knows Podcast of 2021 is with senior, Western Buddhist monk Ajahn Succito, and we could not be happier to be sharing his deep, compassionate, somatic wisdom as we set forth into the New Year together.

Ajahn Sucitto entered monastic life in 1975 in Thailand, but been based in Britain since 1978. He spent fourteen years training under Ajahn Sumedho, the senior Western disciple of the Thai Forest Buddhist master Luang Por Chah, and so is part of that direct lineage of Theravadan monastic practice. Beginning in 1979 with the founding of Chittaviveka monastery in Chithurst, West Sussex, under the guidance of Ajahn Chah, and later Amaravati in Hertfordshire with Ajahn Sumedo, he is one of those who is instrumental in establishing Theravadan Buddhism in the West. He was also then abbot of Cittaviveka between 1992 & 2014, when he resigned the post, although he continues teaching.

The title of Ajahn denotes an expert spiritual teacher in the Thai language, and for both of us has been just that; directly on silent retreat, practicing mediation and Chi Gong, as well as through talks on the Buddha’s teachings, and in his many written works also.

This first season of the podcast has been all about us speaking with those who have been direct influences, teachers and companions to us and when drawing up our wish list of guests Ajahn was always one we both dearly wanted to interview, such has the impact of his teaching been upon us.

The Thai Forest tradition has a very direct style and approach to practice, the Buddha's teachings and to daily life. There are spiritual traditions that ignore, deny, abuse or try to transcend the body, and we wanted to gain Ajahn's spiritual perspective on the importance of reclaiming our feelings, sensations, and instincts and the value of listening to wisdom the of the body.

Some of the Buddha’s instructions on mindfulness emphasize that we should ‘Directly know the body in the body’, and that ‘Mindfulness of body encompasses all states that give rise to wisdom’. We knew Ajahn would provide clear, loving, joyful, first-hand personal experience upon this, and we  were not disappointed by what he had to share.

Ajahn’s books are available for free distribution and are free to download via https://forestsangha.org/ His talks, essays and reflections are also available on his own site https://ajahnsucitto.org/ where you can sign up for his newsletter, to get updates about all his teaching engagements, both live and virtual, as well as links to recorded teachings. You can also find him on the Insight Timer app https://insighttimer.com/ajahnsucitto

The interview took place over Zoom between the 2nd and 3rd lockdown in the UK. Marcela was in Devon teaching the final module on The Still Flowing Yoga Teacher training, Mat was at home in West Sussex and Ajahn was at Chitaviveka. The recording of Mat’s voice is not great for some reason, however we have done our best to maximize playback quality. This episode was edited by https://www.fiverr.com/bijoyahmed21094 who deserves the biggest Enriquez Wakeham family shout-out for saving Christmas when our edit crashed and corrupted and left us out of time. His services are highly recommended.

Our listener shout-out this month goes to Jessie Rose. Jessie is life coach, who is also a near death experience survivor. Jessie reached out to us via Instagram to share her story after we posted a reflection upon the ineffable awareness and support the body gives us even when facing death, in response to our last conversation with counseling psychotherapist Mark Craven. You can discover more of Jessie’s story of self healing, harmony, love and alignment for yourself at https://www.instagram.com/jessierosecoach/ where she also has a link to her site and services.

Finally please like, subscibe, download and share. Find as at https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/

Thanks for joining us again for EP#005, and if this is your first time listening we hope you enjoy it, and invite you to stick around and listen to some of our previous episodes too.

For this conversation we spent an afternoon at Whiteheart Crossfit, in the heart of West Sussex, sharing cacao, ceremony, connection, conversation and cold immersion with James Shaw & Chris Baker of weMove.

weMove is a podcast at the forefront of documenting the ‘movement revolution’, hosted by these two former over-worked, and over-trained music and fashion industry professionals who felt there was another way. James & Chris believe wholeheartedly in the transformative power of movement, and shared experience, and their lives and podcast are testament to that embodied philosophy. 

We covered their journey from their early days, dealing with the mental, emotional and physical price of material success… Moving on to the lessons learnt on the road together, connecting the dots as documentarians of contemporary movement culture. We spoke too about how this path has completely transformed them, and their movement practices, and how it continues to do so, through the experience of their bodies in motion, their connection with their guests and their audience, and their felt sense of the natural world.

Their own conversation style on their show is long form, free flowing riffs, and inspired by that we threw much of our prepared questions out of the window, and followed the flow of what was presenting itself, and what wanted to be spoken and heard at the time.

It felt like we barely got started telling their story, as their experience through their four-year journey and 140+ conversations is so in-depth, and full of truth and somatic experience. Yet still we covered so much ground too, and listening back it unfolds like an origins story, as they cross the threshold from the ordinary world into connecting with lives led by purpose and meaning, integrating and living everything they have learnt from their conversations, driven by curiosity and passion for all that life can offer. We’re sure this won’t be the last conversation, or time we share with these two free spirited adventurers of movement, human connection, meaning and potential.

The guys are easy to find on socials and the web, where you can follow their on-going, unfolding story –

wemove.world is their site - https://wemove.world/

@wemove.world is their Instagram account - https://www.instagram.com/wemove.world/

And you can find them on YouTube under wemove world - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuoE_D6_VNPuZ4RrgLcqPUQ

You can also find Whiteheart Cross Fit, where James and Chris keep the weMove cold immersion freezer here - https://www.whitehartfitness.com/

SPONSORED GIVEAWAY

This is the last two weeks of our sponsored giveaway, ending November 30th 2020. To win Made by Coopers products and be part of an online Cacao ceremony held by Marcela just subscribe, download, rate and review on Apple Podcasts and send us a screen grab of your review to [email protected]

Doing this will also help us to share our message, and we’d like to ask you to do the same; if there’s one person you know who would benefit from this conversation, or any of our others, please pass it along to them. Please tag us too in any post and stories you share about our show on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ - and we’ll be sure to reshare to our socials, and also we’ll feature one of you on our next show.

Thanks, once again, for listening, we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. We'll be back again in another two weeks with another show, but in the meantime remember to listen to your body, because your body knows. 

This episode of The Body Knows Podcast is with Michelle Baker Jones. We met and spoke at her private practice in Kingston Upon Thames, London, where she works as an integrative psycho-therapeutic counsellor. 

Michelle is also a member of Imperial College’s Psychedelic research team where she is a lead guide on their trials comparing psilocybin to anti-depressants for the treatment for depression. She also offers individual psychedelic integration for people struggling to process psychedelic experiences, and co–facilitates a monthly Psychedelic Integration group in London.

This in-depth interview with Michelle explores her experiences on the clinical trials for psychedelic-assisted therapy, as well her personal experiences with psychedelics and her work in the integration groups. As one of the lead therapists on the trials she outlines their design and context in which the psilocybin sessions occur. We spoke too about the history of the trials, the qualifications for a psychotherapist to use psychedelics and how this transpersonal, and ancient and medicine, with its mystic, shamanic tradition of communion with nature, fits in to a Western scientific, positivist model. We also discuss methods used by the program for integration of the psychedelic experience. The subjects of state chasing and spiritual bypassing are also addressed, as is the need for an authentic, Western cultural container for the experience, equivalent to those found in indigenous communities.

Psilocybin mushrooms have been part of religious rituals for thousands of years. The Aztecs of Mexico referred to the mushroom as teonanácatl, or “God’s flesh”, in homage to its believed sacred power yet Psilocybin remains in the most restricted category today, which David Nutt, professor of neuropsychoparmacology at Imperial, and who is overseeing the current trials, calls “one of the most atrocious examples of the censorship of science and medicine in the history of the world”. 

The work Michelle and the Imperial team are doing is set to revolutionise the treatment of depression, if not the Western medical model its self, by placing the individual, and our innate propensity to heal ourselves, at the centre of treatment.

OUR SPONSORS 

We're sponsored by Made by Coopers, a modern Apothecary, crafting products for your skin and soul. Head to their shop at https://madebycoopers.com/ and use BODY20 at checkout for a discount. 

We’re running a competition to win Made by Cooper products, as well as ceremonial grade cacao for an online cacao ceremony run by Marcela to celebrate our launch. To enter subscribe on Apple Podcasts, download, rate, review and send a screenshot to [email protected]. Closing date Nov 30, 2020.

THANK YOU

Please share this conversation with someone who you think it would benefit. If you share on socials, please tag and follow us too on Instagram or Facebook @thebodyknowspodcast. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it, we’ll be back every two weeks with more, and in the meantime remember, listen to your body because your body knows.