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Embodied Movement Practices

daily contemplative movement

online + in-person movement classes, workshops, events + audio series

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Welcome to daily contemplative movement

Our premier audio packages offer programs that contain 10 individual sessions created around a specific theme. Each session offers guided embodiment inquiries and a curated playlist around a topic within the theme. When you sign onto a program you have 30 days of access to all ten sessions. They’re available to you 24/7, inviting you into embodiment explorations whenever the moment calls you.

Our goal is to have the time commitment be around 45-60 minutes for each session, and replaying sessions as often as you like during that 30 day period is encouraged!

Each program is carefully designed to bring you deeper into your own physical experience while awakening sensation and imagination. With Daily Contemplative Movement, access to dance is always just a click away!


NEW PROGRAM!

 

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The Shape of Us:

The world around us shapes us. Lines, circles, triangles, squares, and spirals are present in nature and resonate within our bodies and movements throughout life. In this series, we delve into these essential forms—not merely abstract ideas, but dynamic experiences that reside within us. Through movement and thoughtful exploration, we engage with the geometry of our existence, uncovering fresh ways to embody shape and structure flow.

10 sessions with guidance & music on these topics:

1: Line
2: Circle
3: Triangle
4: Square
5: Spiral
6: Line
7: Circle
8: Triangle
9: Square
10: Spiral

Each session invites you to experience these forms within your body, tracing their presence in your gestures, postures, and pathways through space. The instruction is an entryway into sensation and awareness, while the curated music supports your personal movement exploration.

With The Shape of Us, you can move on your own time—without video, without constraints. Whether in the morning, during a quiet pause in your day, or at night, this practice offers a chance to return to yourself and discover how the language of shape lives in you.

Time commitment is around 45-50 minutes for each session. Registration brings you 30 days of 24/7 access.

additional programs

Be Earth:

We are bodies made from minerals and water. We are forms shaped by landscapes and Earth. Where our feet meet the ground a relationship can grow. We learn to listen to the steady music of our hearts beating, echoing the heartbeat of this planet, and singing her up through our bodies. 

Click register now for specific details about this program

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Be Fire:

Fire is an incredible force that we have learned to harness and cultivate. It warms us, cooks our food and inspires awe and contemplation. It is wild, untamable, and can be completely destructive even as it clears the way for new growth. 

This audio program explores the diverse qualities of this essential element and entices you into the heart of your own fire.

Click register now for specific details about this program

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Be Wind:

Wind is a powerful invisible force that makes itself known by interacting with the objects it touches.

It spirals around us drawing life to us, with the gifts of gentleness and the exhilarating thrill of acceleration. Wind echoes in our breath, inviting an intimate connection between our inner body and the outer world.

Click register now for specific details about this program

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My Body/My Home:

In a world that is constantly seducing us away from our body this series is a call to awaken and claim the inherent wisdom that comes from embodiment. My Body/My Home provides tips and techniques to fully inhabit your body while strengthening your ability to trust the next move.

Click register now for specific details about this program

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be water – Water is sacred. Water is life. 

While our bones are our living architecture, the water within helps us to find fluidity and ease in movement. This imaginative series explores the liquid nature of our bodies. Take a deep dive and discover what the water flowing within you reveals.

Click register now for specific details about this program

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for the senses – Enliven your relationship to movement through the direct experience of your senses. Meet the air as it touches your skin, listen with your whole body for the subtle sounds that move you. Invigorate the majesty of life with more attention, awareness…and joy.

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from the ground up – This series embraces our grounding down into Earth as we foster a sense of freedom stretching into the sky. By strengthening  the journey inward, towards our center, and exploring the pathways up and out ~ new possibilities emerge.

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Copyright © 2025 MOMENTUM CONSCIOUS MOVEMENT

Creation Story

Several years ago, I became busy with a simple but profound practice. Make a circle every day. Armed with a stack of three-inch square blank pieces of paper, a single paintbrush, a few colored pencils, and an inexpensive palette of watercolors, I set off following this thread of curiosity, not knowing where it would lead or that this practice would hold me for the better part of three years. The rules were that iI could only make one circle per day. What was made could not be discarded or thrown out at the whims of my liking of disliking it. I could spend as little or as much time as I wanted to on it. If there was a day when the circle-making was skipped, the little white square had to be left blank on one side with the date written on the back. There was no going backward, no return.

From the outside, the task is an effortless thing to do. Yet, as the days passed, I found it surprisingly difficult to maintain, especially in the beginning. I learned that my mind would find many justifications for the streaks of inconsistency. I invented imaginary conditions that had to be met before I could fully immerse myself in the task. This illuminated the feeling that I didn’t have a suitable space or enough time. I navigated this by placing my art supplies beside the kitchen sink. Every morning, when I got up to make my coffee, all I had to do was reach my hand to those objects, and the circle-making could begin.

Once I learned how to navigate my initial struggles, the magic of this practice started to appear, revealing how I am in relation to my creative process and teaching me to trust. I learned that all I had to do was meet the task, and once I began, there was no need for me to strive for creativity. It was already present and built into the design of the practice. I was moving away from the capitalist demand or production, queering it toward my sensation and joy. This freed me. It took away an arbitrary sense of pressure, allowing me to rest in the creation, reviving and inspiring me.

I have come to think of creativity as a tiny flame. There are times when It feels like a far-off whisper in the dark. Turning our attention to the little actions that attend to that flame allows it to breathe and blaze. I have very few circles I didn’t fall in love with from that time. Without intending to create beauty, I was able to be in a new method. Without worrying about the outcome looming, I discovered that the beauty would emerge on its own.

Information about Covid Protocols

About five years ago winkys life partner, J’aime was diagnosed with three types of cancer. During the pandemic she needed to receive aggressive treatment for these conditions. The two and a half years of debilitating treatments and side effects, were certainly a challenge. We are both relieved and delighted to be past that, even as we deal with the after affects. Today we are cautiously optimistic about our future, as J’aime is doing well. Even though there isn’t a current cure J’aimes medical status is: ‘no evidence of disease’. We hope it lasts for a long, long time!

One after affect is J’aime has been left with a compromised immune system. This will be the case for quite some time and leaves her particularly vulnerable to Covid. For this reason Meshi and I have kept our offerings online….Until fairly recently when J’aime’s oncologist changed our protocols for being around other people. Unexpectedly, I am allowed to return to in-person dance, albeit with specific restrictions. See below.
I understand that these requirements may not work for you. Know that you will be missed at dance and we will keep our mailing list informed as things change.

Requirements:

•properly worn masks [N95 preferred], while in the building and while dancing.
• proof of vaxx/boosting prior to attending
• pre-registration and prepayment
• class size will be limited
• please do not attend if you have been traveling by airplane within seven days, tested positive, been exposed to someone who has covid or if you are not feeling well.

Refunds or credits will be given for those who need to cancel because of covid issues. Otherwise your registration is not refundable.

Seeker, Dreamer, Explorer of the Unknown ~

Here is an independent study program tailored specifically for you. You have a yearning, a desire, dreams that you are not sure how to fulfill. You have questions tugging at the edges of your being. Personal Inquiry supports your search for ways to understand the confluence of the richness of your life. It provides tools towards unearthing your curiosity while illuminating the pathway. Let’s explore together.

In our Personal Inquiry Movement Program you work with Meshi Chavez or Winky Wheeler to co-create a customized program for you to delve into your inquiry. This three month program includes six personalized mentoring sessions which provide accountability, support, and refinement.

We will assist you in the development of an engaged movement practice which may incorporate other creative pursuits, such as: journaling, reading, artistic expressions and other contemplative practices. This is a unique opportunity to cultivate a more intimate relationship with yourself, develop your curiosity and maybe even discover a new way of being in the world.

Three Month commitment with your own start date

Local or out of town participants welcome.

$550 includes initial interview, customized program and six personalized mentoring sessions

Contact Meshi Chavez 503.730.2737 • meshichavez@icloud.com

or Winky Wheeler 503.788.8060 • wwd@comcast.net for your application

Join Middlebury’s Artist in Residence Meshi Chavez and NW Creative & Expressive Arts Institute faculty member Kriya Kaping as we guide you in developing a stronger relationship to movement, presence, and your personal narrative. 

Meshi Chavez Artist in Residence, teacher, choreographer, and performer. His work is predicated on the concept that creativity is our birthright. With a career that has spanned over two decades he has taught and performed nationally and internationally. Meshi is currently Artist in Residence at Middlebury College. He works with author, scholar and theologian Matthew Fox, teaching Movement as Meditation. He has taught at Schumacher College and offered online courses through The Shift Network. His choreography has been presented at The Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans.

Kriya Kaping, BA, MA, is a storyteller, multimedia creative director, and educator. She has worked regionally and internationally creating trainings and adult education initiatives, webinars, workshops, panels, and roundtables. Kriya is a seasoned storyteller and facilitator who has collaborated on a number of courses with Bobbie Kidder, Drama Therapy faculty at Antioch University in Seattle, WA. Kriya has performed her personal stories for the stage with Portland Storytellers’ Guild, Portland Story Theater, Speakeasy DC, and Living Stages. 

Join Middlebury’s Artist in Residence for this 5 day dance intensive as we explore movement, practice creative generation and focus on transforming our discoveries into potent meaningful metaphors.

——–

Meshi Chavez Artist in Residence, is a teacher, choreographer, and performer. His work is predicated on the concept that creativity is our birthright. With a career that has spanned over two decades he has taught and performed nationally and internationally. Meshi is currently Artist in Residence at Middlebury College. He works with author, scholar and theologian Matthew Fox, teaching Movement as Meditation. He has taught at Schumacher College and offered online courses through The Shift Network. His choreography has been presented at The Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans.

In this workshop we open our arms and imaginations to words as a gateway into dance. Using a process that Winky has developed over fifteen years, you are guided into movement from an original angle. Discover how poetic phrases can spark your curiosity, and build unique connections with others and movement. Not only will be dance, but we will create new writings ~ alone and together.

Join Winky for this intriguing, committed series that enriches your kinesthetic experience of the world by befriending words.

Thursdays 9-10:30am Pacific Time

September 23, 30 + October 14, 21, 28 + November 4 [no class October 7]

$135

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