:: March 2008: Volume 7/Number 2

Sisterhood, Fluid Bodies and Listening to the Trees

angela farmer’s women’s retreat at harbin hot springs

Story by Charlotte Holtzermann & Photo by Stephanie Canada

“It’s all about healing and empowering women. It’s not about the form of yoga, systems or competition. The women are here to recharge and dive deep inside to uncover parts of themselves they have not had a chance to express. I’m sitting at the helm trying to guide a ship through the ocean. What comes through is guided by the spirit of the group.”

A radiant and majestic muse, Angela Farmer guides 72 women in a week-long retreat of yoga and healing arts at Harbin Hot Springs, north of Napa, September, 2007.

This year marks the ninth such retreat since 1992, of a group who has cultivated a sense of sisterhood in the fluid coming together of yoga teachers, bodyworkers, doulas, writers, therapists and athletes. It is a reunion as many of them have returned from previous retreats.

An air of community and sisterhood arises in Harbin’s enclaves nestled beneath tall pines. They bring with them their arts, and healing skills along with their breath, body and spirit to share with other women on the retreat during afternoons. On two afternoons, the women create a market of art, books, jewelry and clothing.

“Everybody works. We’re a sisterhood here. We’re not being served. We’re serving each other. It’s a sacred space and all of us know it. We are invited to bloom as women, to explore our beauty, our radiance, our fullness in life,” said Simran Skie, who originated the event. After breakfast, the women share in shifts of chopping onions, peppers, basil and celery at tables on the deck. In crisp morning air, a round of communal life begins as the women swap stories, dreams and announcements.

Angela leads morning and evening classes in exploring internal movement in asana (posture) and meditation. Between practice sessions, the women soak in mineral pools, journal, hike and share bodywork. Angela encourages bodywork, particularly the aquatic variety; she feels that we get dry and brittle in the lives we lead, and that aquatic bodywork wakes up the fluid content of our bodies. After practice sessions, we are introduced to the bodyworkers at Harbin who incorporate modalities from craniosacral to Breema.

Morning practice is from 9:30 to 12:30. I find space for my mat under red and mauve chiffon draped over the rafters. Organizer Patricia Schneider and a team of helpers arrive in advance to prepare our space with vases of lilies and birds-of-paradise. These are soft walking women wearing gentle smiles, pendants and earth-tone leggings.

We begin in sukhasana, a comfortable cross-legged sitting pose. Angela suggests we let our trunk root down into the Earth and sense the light above us. Her language is rich: “Let the back of the body open out like a veil. Let your kidneys widen like wings.” We explore a seated twist as Angela continues to describe actions for the back and front body: “Let the pelvis stay back, so the contents of the belly can come forward.” Angela coaches us to “slowly, easily, adventurously explore every part or your body.”

On our backs, we shake our arms and legs in happy baby pose. There is freedom in the room to emit sound. Ahhhhs, moans and sighs fill the air. As we move into downward facing dog pose, I hear cues to allow the palms of our hands to dome, to sense the domes inside our foot’s arch, our perineum, our shoulders, our nostrils and our skull. We are exploring movement in an oily, elastic downward dog, finding out how to lift and turn our abdominal organs.

I am coaxing a stiff ankle to soften and remembering teachers who have instructed me exactly how to move into a pose. This way of practicing feels different; free, female, dynamic. We are winding our way from one pose to the next, each woman finding her way.

When Angela demonstrates her journey from downward facing dog into the floor, through cobra into upward facing dog, we see a mature dancer/yogi engaged in stretching like an animal. One can also see the clarity of her Iyengar training. She was a member of the first group of teachers certified by B.K.S. Iyengar in 1967. Before encountering yoga, Angela taught creative dance including Laban’s Art of Movement. As a child, she recalled, she used to lie in bed and let every part of her body move. Growing up during the war in England, she said “I climbed trees all the time, my trees. I knew every tree, every branch.”

Morning practice closed with Angela suggesting that we listen to the trees, like tribal people who revere the patience, rootedness and listening presence of trees. She comments on the milieu of women on retreat: “The women soften and deepen their practice of yoga in its broadest and most feminine aspects.”

Visit angela-victor.com or email patricia at brainfingers.com for workshops in the U.S., England, Mexico and Greece.

Charlotte Holtzermann, MFA, M.AmSAT, offers sessions in Alexander Technique, Aquarobics, Chi Gong, Watsu and Yoga.

charlotteholtz at yahoo.com

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LA Yoga Ayurveda & Health Magazine

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