Dance Party Archives - the Numinous

A SENSORY EXPLORATION OF SAGITTARIUS SEASON

Posted on November 21, 2016November 4, 2018 by Bess Matassa

Sagittarius season is an invitation to explore our innate wildness, and expand our personal Universe, say Cara George & Bess Matassa of Mojave Rising…

Sagittarius season hoists us up from the underworld and sends us racing out onto the open plains of our own exuberant BECOMING. The zodiac’s expansive equestrian spills her blossoming vines over walls and across the borders of previous limitations, as she urges us to extend our adventuring to off-road spaces we couldn’t have imagined even in our wildest moments.

So pack your carry-ons, saddle your ponies, and let the wind throw back your hair. Your wildness cannot be broken or tamed or lost or found, but is constantly being born through the very air that you breathe. Fall in love with the blood coursing through your own veins and then let this love run faster and faster out across rich golden fields under carpets of pink stars.

Because baby you were born to run. And where we’re going, there are no roads.

The keyword: Locomotion.

The song lyrics: “Oh girl, dancing down those dirty and dusty trails/Take it hip to hip, rocket through the wilderness/Around the world the trip begins with a kiss”—The B-52s, “Roam”

Check out our Sagittarius season playlist, complete with wide-open anthems, road-trip rockers, and exploratory psychedelia.

The color palette: Nomadic hues fit for a full-on bacchanalian feast. Saffron, mustard, glitter-dusted taupe, and gypsy jewel-toned amethysts and rubies.

The style: Traveling circus performer meets Rio carnival queen on Route 66. Feathers, sequined unitards, untameable patterns, rich tapestried fabrics, and body-con mobility complete with cowboy boots and Canadian tuxedos.

The scents and flavors: Spiced, smoked, and hedonistically heated—warm curries, smoked trail mix, campfire, beef jerky, ancho, cinnamon, and cedarwood.

The healing: Exuberantly excessive and exploratorily expansive. All-night dance parties, adventure traveling, lost weekends, multi-course meals, and urban scavenger hunts.

Sensuous Invitation of the Month: Dance party! (by sign, below).

With Chiron stationing direct, and Venus joining Mars in Aquarius, Sagittarius season 2016 is infused with a call to face our pain head on and shake it out onto the dancefloor to be transformed under strobe lights. This month marks a radical opportunity for moving energy through our bodies, re-envisioning “the way things are,” and rediscovering deep meaning in places of seeming hopelessness.

Each sign can sample its own brand of kinetic expression as we let our bodies collide and celebrate the sheer exhilaration of movement and ever-unfolding change. Let’s werk!

***

ARIES
Sagittarius season invites you to relinquish some of your single-pointed focus as you journey towards the joyous buoyancy of infinite possibilities. Dance Party: Parkour. Solitary, assertive explorations that also rely on feedback from the built environment.

TAURUS
Sagittarius season invites you to infuse your deeply sensual pragmatism with some grand futuristic schemes and dreams, however eccentric. Dance Party: Belly-dancing. Getting low and getting down with a fully-embodied practice that’s both rooted and nomadic.

GEMINI
Sagittarius season invites you to go even further in your curious search for information, as you sample far-flung philosophies and belief systems, and begin to take a stand. Dance Party: Break-dancing. Responding to street culture and pledging yourself to the pavement.

CANCER
Sagittarius season invites you to take your looniness out of its shell as you experiment with sharing your creative process with the wider world. Dance Party: Pole-dancing. Sensual self-pleasure that’s unabashedly unafraid.

LEO
Sagittarius season invites you to share your generous, pulsing heart with people outside of your usual circle and to let yourself be changed through these collisions. Dance Party: Roller-disco. Hot-blooded, glittery glamour on wheels complete with rainbow lights and necessary negotiations between sequined skaters.

VIRGO
Sagittarius season invites you to let it all come undone as you leap headfirst into the experience without painstaking preparation. Dance Party: Irish step dancing. Intricacy and rapidity that springs into action from the ground up.

LIBRA
Sagittarius season invites you to rock the boat as you push towards complete honesty, even when it’s far from diplomatic. Dance Party: Synchronized swimming. Idealized aesthetics meet rugged physicality and strong-willed teamwork.

SCORPIO
Sagittarius season invites you to mix your darkness with light as you trust into both the gravity and levity of this luscious adventure. Dance Party: Flamenco. Raw intensity that harnesses the glorious sensation of passionate living.

SAGITTARIUS
Sagittarius season invites you to both revel in your wildness and seek committed conduits for your restlessness. Dance Party: Wedding dances. From the electric slide to the macarena, sampling the full-range of party moves while celebrating romantic loyalty.

CAPRICORN
Sagittarius season invites you to experiment with some healthy excess as you relax some of your ascetic measures and feast on the world around you. Dance Party: Ballroom dancing. Structure, tradition, and classical cool take to the floor with opulently majestic gowns and footwear.

AQUARIUS
Sagittarius season invites you to release from what’s “right” or what “should” be, and dive into the experience of unfolding meaning without creating calcified rules. Dance party: Modern dance. Interpretive, fluid maneuvers that push the edge of what’s possible in an embodied form.

PISCES
Sagittarius season invites you to fully release into the sensation of boundarylessness as you break down the walls between yourself and the world. Dance Party: Crowd surfing. Giving your body over to the intangible faith that you will always be supported.

Discover more about Mojave Rising and their work at Mojaverising.com

THE SOFTER IMAGE: HIGH VIBE NYC DANCE PARTY

Posted on October 18, 2016November 3, 2018 by Ruby Warrington

The Softer Image is a new NYC nightlife experiment from hip healer & mystic Luke Simon. On a mission to help folks “get turnt while staying woke,” we needed to know more…

The Softer Image is an exploration of new ways to party. Imagine, nightlife that expands your consciousness and improves your health. Let’s get wild without getting sick. Let’s get turnt up while staying woke. Let’s get psychic not blacked out. People want to let go and feel the Spirit so they turn to spirits. Our pop up party uses healing and holistic cocktails to open the human energy field to fun on a cosmic level.

THE NUMINOUS: What was the idea behind A Softer Image? Why do we need a party like this?!
LUKE SIMON: I wanted to start hosting a high vibe party because so many people in the city now are doing healing work and are no longer drinking. Or maybe just don’t like the spooky energy at bars, but still want to go out, dress up, dance and basically celebrate life.

We have so many amazing workshops, sessions and classes now, but there was this reservoir of vibes building up in me that just wanted to be free and have fun! Spirituality doesn’t have to be about serious self-cultivation and restraint. My higher self constantly urges me to DANCE through life. But when I try to do that at a club in NYC, it doesn’t even really start ’til 1am, and then I have to take off the next day of two to recover my sleep. Not to mention if there are drink and drugs involved.

TN: What’s your vision for the night?
LS: As I’ve honed my vibrational sensitivity, I’ve been dreaming of people hanging out in a beautiful space with great music and an elixir bar. The idea of Portals fascinates me—they say Stone Henge was one, and many cultures have used physical spaces and group energy to open up to the Universe. I was also intrigued by the idea of group trance, rituals and spells in the context of a party. Because a party basically is a ritual—the intention is FUN, and everyone brings their energy to the ritual in their own way. Partying is sacred!

TN: As you know, with our Club SÖDA NYC events we’re encouraging people to get high on their own supply. But nightclubs still feel flat to me without alcohol! Is it really possible to go wild on the dancefloor totally sober?
LS: The Softer Image comes after a lot of personal experimenting with how to feel good in a healthy way. It’s a gathering for people to explore this question for themselves: can they have fun without alcohol? And also, what are the other, softer substances that can also help us let go of our inhibitions and have fun?

Softening has been a huge theme on my personal journey: softening the mind and trusting the flow. But also, letting go of the aggressive reaching for things that make me feel tense. Yoga has taught me about “arriving” to every moment, and “abiding” in my body and in my heart. The deeper healing I have done in the past years is all about softening the edges and releasing all that still tries to leave this moment—which alcohol, ultimately, facilitates.

TN: What’s the music policy? Have you got a theme song for the night?
LS: The song “Now that we’ve found Love what are we gonna do with it?” keeps coming to mind! I am so amazed by all the spiritual energy in the air and how much people are transforming. But I feel there is still this seriousness and strictness that we can integrate with a little celebration and release. What do you do with the Love and the Freedom once you get it?! You want to celebrate, but where? The Softer Image will be popping up around cities to give people a place to be their high vibe self and have fun in a beautiful, playful, temporary zone.

TN: So what can we expect on the night?
LS: Kate Falcone is creating a beautiful pink tinted interior, and the first gathering features Shauna Cummins leading us into a group trance to manifest our desires. She calls the work “Wish Craft”! Light being and wellness coach Sah D’Simone is manifesting the high vibe bar with balancing and softly altering herbal tonics, superfood snacks and juice blends. And I will DJ, along with Bryce Hackford.

The Softer Image is happening October 20 2016 from 8pm at a private location in lower Manhattan (TBA to ticket holders). Entry is $20—but Numinous readers get $5 off with the code “NUMI” Click here to get your ticket and follow @thesofterimage on Insta for more info.

MY MYSTICAL LIFE: BLESSINGS, BOUNDARIES, AND HIGH VIBE JULY 4 BOOZING

Posted on July 1, 2016November 3, 2018 by Ruby Warrington

Plus a moment of swap-shop glory and a meeting with the mind behind Shaktibarre…Numinous founder Ruby Warrington shares her Mystical Week

:: MONDAY ::
Still buzzing from yesterday’s beautiful Blessing Way ceremony for my dear Victoria Keen. We gathered, we ritualled (yes I’m making this a word), we created an altar, we shared memories and we set intentions. My favorite part of ALL? When we took an actual bone-fide cauldron (purchased by our host at a Brooklyn junk yard) filled with fears and sage, out into the street to be burned away. As Victoria lit her fire, we stood around her in a circle of sisterhood, playing drums, shaking rattles, and singing. At the height of the Williamsburg brunching-hour. YES we got a lot of stares, and YES it felt so right to be bringing this kind of s*it out from behind closed coven doors!

:: TUESDAY ::
A l’il psychic moment in my favorite clothing swap-shop the Buffalo Exchange (first introduced to me by Goddess Gala Darling). I’ve been taking my cast-offs there for the past two years or so and have racked up a serious amount of store credit, so I stop by whenever I’m in the area for some guilt-free retail therapy. Today, as I’m browsing the racks, this little voice goes; “some Isabel Marant shoes would be nice, right?” I’m like, “yeah, higher self, sure would!” And YEP, found these beauties (below)—boots not sandals, BUT, my size, UN-WORN, and FREE (cos of my store credit).

What a beautiful lesson in the all-abundant nature of our Universe! Namely: when we just listen to our intuition, everything we desire is right in front of us; when we give freely of ourselves (or our old clothes), not necessarily expecting financial pay-back, we will get it back 10-fold; and when we don’t attach to the details, is when we grant the cosmos permission to surprise us in all kinds of magical ways.

:: WEDNESDAY ::
A lesson in boundaries. My first reaction when a friend in need texts to say: “I may need somewhere to stay the next few nights, can I have your sofa?” is to reply with a straight up “no.” Some things are a non-negotiable, and my sacred morning alone time is one—as such, I usually only have family stay over in my home. Sorry-not-sorry, but I’m also a believer in strong boundaries as a marker of self-respect.

But THEN I’m like: woah, here I am preaching (check out my IG account etc.) about how we need to create a world that looks after our most vulnerable first, and how the current political climate change is giving me a new depth of compassion for the displaced people in the world…like my friend who’s being kicked out of her apartment! And the first time I’m asked to walk the talk, I stumble.

Humbled, I text her back—”shit, of course, mi sofa es tu sofa, ANY TIME.” By which time she’s found somewhere, and actually goes on to tell me how MY strong boundaries are a lesson for her in cultivating the same in her life. HOWEVER, it was a moment of pause for me in terms of what it means to be a good Now Age hippie global citizen. #bethechangeyouwanttosee

:: THURSDAY ::
A meeting with incredible, inspiring Corinne Wainer, founder of the new Shaktibarre studio that’s coming to Williamsburg in August. Reasons I love this woman No.1: She’s all about the shaktivism (spirituality + activism), and so her studio has sliding scale pricing to make classes + workshops accessible to ALL, with the underlying mission of uniting women in the fight against body fascism in the yoga community. No.2: She’s a total no-smalltalk zone. No time + no interest = no holding back. No.3: She guessed that my spirit animal is a black stallion (which he is, I write about how I met him here). So suffice to say, watch this space for some Shakti-Numi collabs coming your way later this year.

:: FRIDAY ::
Regular readers will know all about my path to raise my overall vibe with sobriety—which has meant totally re-framing my relationship with alcohol. Which basically means treating like it’s as powerful a mind-and-heart expander as, say Ayahuasca, and thus only imbibing with extreme reverence and caution. And then along comes a big fat trigger like JULY 4 WEEKEND.

And you know, I likely will have a couple of cocktails Sunday, since I booked tickets to this super high vibe event (flyer below)—high vibe as in, it’s outside, it starts at 2pm, it’s on the West side so there will be a sunset situation, and it’s alllll my favorite DJs so I can be guaranteed an afternoon of truly emotionally resonant tunes.

And here’s another reason to maybe raise a glass (but really, how about just one?) this weekend. It’s America’s birthday—and America could really use some truly intentional toasting rn, and some reminding that far from broken, she’s just going through a rough patch. As a Cancer country, I think this weekend’s reading from Strong Eye Astrology resonates for the good old US of A pretty darned hard:

Cancer :: Cancer Rising
Taking a horse over jumps. You are sitting in the driver’s seat. But where do you want to go? We can so easily get caught in an image of ourselves. But who do you want to be? This is a fresh start. Now is the time to visualize about who you are becoming. Get very, very specific in your intentions.

*NB: read the weekend forecast for your sign here!

GET DOWN AND GET GOD: A DANCE PARTY WITH THE DIVINE

Posted on August 15, 2014November 4, 2018 by Nadia Noir

What if the way to enlightenment wasn’t through your crown chakra…but your feet? Nadia Noir heads to the nearest dance party to find out.

Prayer and meditation are awesome tools for channeling moments of introspective clarity. But as a spiritual species that spends an unfathomable amount of time psychoanalyzing ourselves through mantra apps, self-help books on Audible.com, and grounding ourselves through following our favorite guru via social media, channeling a primal version of Miley Cyrus while gyrating to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” can be a bridge into unbridled bliss. We live in our heads enough already. Enter the body-purifying sweat of a good old-fashioned, orgiastic dance sesh.

It wasn’t just the ancient Greeks who encouraged the human iterations of their gods, goddesses and muses to get down and get God through song and dance. The Torah calls for dancing, not only as a celebration of God or as a way to worship, but as a way to create the frenzied, supercharged atoms between two lovers in Song of Solomon. In Hinduism, there are the Apsarases, 23 celestial gods that dance to “express the supreme truths in the magic of movement.” Sufis twirled themselves into ecstasy and the Ancient Egyptians thought of everything they did in life as one eternal dance. They even danced at funerals, ready to dance their way through the darkness of death and into the afterlife.

If you’re still perpetually feeling low-grade anxiety or self-abusing your ten pound weight gain, maybe that’s because the answer isn’t in your crown chakra. Sure you can keep seeking a connection to a higher power, but you might never understand what true liberation is until you strip away your sins at classes like Sheila Kelley’s S Factor, talk up to yourself at Patricia Moreno’s Intensati, bump-and-grind your way into a state of Bhakti at Yoga Booty Ballet, or the spiral-sensationalizing of Buti.

But about just hitting up a dance club and twerking shamelessly to a raunchy Nicki Minaj song, feeling the sensation of strength and pleasure crawling up your root chakra, through your core and into your heart. You could stomp it out to some metal like the world’s sexiest Kali, destroying the earth below you and incinerating any doubts you have in yourself. Or, if that’s too hardcore for you, if you’re one of those supple, gentle souls that drowns in tears and whiskey, go sing some old country songs by Patsy Cline at your local karaoke dive bar. Studies even say that moderate drinking accompanied by karaoke is super good for your health.

And in case you’re like, “When am I going to have the time to do any of this stuff? I’m a super woman trying to be a spiritual being having a human experience and those bills don’t pay themselves,” here are four easy steps to just sing when the spirit says sing and twerk when the spirit is like, “Work it girl.”

GET OVER YOURSELF
That’s right. Who cares if you’re flabby or ungraceful or if you’re hailing a cab on a busy street. The minute negativity starts creeping into your psyche, do a little dance on the sidewalk or belt out some Beyonce. The only person who is embarrassed by what you’re doing is you. Maybe other people are jealous or hating, but a majority of people will feel inspired by your little performance. They might just join in. Spontaneous soul-healing flash mob? Sounds awesome.

PLAY ON, PLAYA
Keep a playlist on your iPhone for those times that you really need to really play. Songs you can dance to in the mirror while dripping wet from the shower or to encourage anyone around you to join you for a slow dance. If that sounds awkward, ABBA usually works.

RECORD YOUR POSTERIOR FOR POSTERITY
Have you ever looked back at pictures of yourself when you were in high school or college or some other time you were mired in angst and depression and went, “Damn. I looked hot. What was my problem?” It’s always good to keep visual reminders to yourself that sometimes your pain can be blown out of proportion by your own psyche. There’s no better way to document yourself than at the height of some fun time; dancing, singing, glowing. You might grimace, but guarantee you, when you’re 70-years-old, you’ll be thinking, “I was having the time of my life.” Like me in this video singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” I kind of hate it, but in five years I’ll love it. Don’t shortchange your future with how you feel about yourself today.

GRAB YOUR PARTNER BY THE HAND
Mix things up in your relationships with some Sir Mix-a-lot and a mixed beverage of your choice. Or just let the wild nymph out to play and make up some songs in the middle of a hike or something. Start a fake band. Create a fake dance. In fact, keep faking on it ‘til you make it. Let your fake persona, the confident and sassy one, override your warped internal programming to bring out the “real” and really dope damsel and dimepiece that is you.

But you know, some things work for some people and other things work for other people – a really simple and trite statement, but it’s true. If you hate something, you’re not going to keep doing it. If meditating and mantra-repeating doesn’t work for you, you’re not broken. You’re not spiritually unevolved. It’s just up to you to find out what you vibrate with. And maybe, just maybe, what will really reshuffle your chakras and shake up your soul is a sultry striptease in front of one other living being who will never judge you—your cat.

Read more from Nadia Noir at Illuminadia.com

@NadiaNoir

@NUMINOUS_BOOKS