Freedom Buried in the Body

Yemaya Renuka Duby moved to Santa Barbara only last year, but the somatic therapy practitioner-health and lifestyle coach brought with her a wealth a experience. Duby is a 25-year veteran of the Rosen Method – a psychosomatic system integrating body, emotional, and mental experiences in releasing unconscious patterns of behavior – who trained directly under founder Marion Rosen and counts more than 2,500 hours of patient work. But she’s also a world traveler who has studied and practices yoga, plant medicine, dance therapy, and other methods and has lived in a Zen monastery and a yoga ashram. She’s also the former owner of Mana Luna Healing Arts in Northern California and Sacred Waters Healing Arts on the island of Kauai.

“All these experiences made me who I am and go into what I do,” said Duby, who left Hawaii when she no longer felt she could continue to grow as a healer on the island. “Evolution is important to me.”

What she does, Duby explained, is combine the Rosen Method with her own modalities in something she calls Bones of Freedom, “because it’s the skeleton of emotional, mental, and physical freedom. A holistic freedom, on all levels, something that brings us more choices.”

Bones of Freedom helps people to feel everything, she explained. “It’s about trusting that our emotional body is wired in a way that if we allow ourselves to feel, what we need will come out.” It’s like surfing, she said. “Even if we get tumbled into the depths of a wave of emotions, if we let go and trust, we can come out with peace and grace and ability to love with everything we’ve got. That comes from a deeper understanding of the body-mind connection. We can heal trauma as long as we stop resisting.”

Putting her money where her mouth is, Duby extended deep discounts to those who were affected by the Thomas Fire and Montecito mudslide/debris flow through March (and will still work with those still suffering who have a limited budget). This weekend, she’s also offering a taste of her modalities in a three-hour seminar at Yoga Soup called “Healing our Bodies’ Buried Stories”. The hands-on training will cover such areas as “emotional anatomy,” using language as keys to emotional unwinding and teach methods of touch she calls “muscle whispering” that allow the nervous system to relax into healing.

“We’ll learn to read the body and to touch in a way that helps free the deep emotional contractions stored in muscle memory and how to process what’s coming up in a safe way,” she said. Of course, three hours isn’t enough time to cover a lifetime of learning, but Duby said participants will walk away with some “nuggets, little jewels on the path. The process will facilitate their own ability and being in the same space for three hours will be its own transformational journey.”

Healing our Bodies’ Buried Stories takes place 2 to 5 pm on Sunday, May 6, and costs $60 in advance, or $75 on Sunday. Yoga Soup is located at 28 Parker Way. Call 965-8811 or visit www.yogasoup.com. For more information about Yemaya Renuka Duby, visit www.yourbelovedhealth.com.

Get Your House in Order

Chiyan Wang, who has been providing Feng shui consultation and ongoing courses and sessions in Taoist Light Qigong in Santa Barbara for 25 years, is hosting a special one-day Fengshui Workshop (for Prosperity, Health, and Harmony) on Saturday afternoon, May 6. Those with experience as well as newcomers are welcome to the event, where the focus will be on identifying a good Feng shui house and the main wealth corner and sub-wealth corners; how to make amends to Feng shui problems and how and when to do a Fengshui cleansing; and learning to use the five elements to choose colors and shapes inside a house. The intention is to provide support for finding, building, or remodeling a good Fengshui house, as well as how to protect your property from disasters.

Over her quarter-century in Santa Barbara, Wang’s on-site consultation has successfully helped people to improve their financial flow, harmony in relationships, health in body and mind, as well as joy and peace at home and office. She has also successfully helped people to quickly sell or rent their property, happily for both sides of the transaction. The Taoist Light Qigong website also says that those who have followed up and made coordinate Feng shui changes have protected their houses from Santa Barbara’s disasters, remaining intact in the wake of fire, flood, and mudslides.

Ongoing classes take place at the Taoist Light Qigong center, 411 East Canon Perdido Street, Suite 16, which is also the site for Saturday’s workshop, which costs $80 including materials. Call 699-6688, email chiyan@sbqigong.com or visit www.taoistlightQigong.com.

Yin + Yang in the AM

Nuria Reed and Damian team up to guide early risers through a relaxing and revitalizing yin and yang yoga practice accompanied by a sound bath. Participants will move bodies with the breath, clearing stagnant energy, before diving deep into the healing qualities of the yin and restorative poses. The class comes with a live soundtrack, the healing sounds of ancient Sanskrit mantras, didgeridoo, flute, chimes, gongs, and 432Hz crystal singing bowls. Nuria Reed – who has taught at several other studios in town before joining up with the Santa Barbara Yoga Center and is also the creator of Urban Sadhana, a one-of-a-kind meditation experience – combines creative sequencing, attention to anatomy, and a deep understanding of the true nature of the self in assisting her students in achieving a new level of energy and awareness. Damian teaches Asana Yoga in addition to Nada Yoga (sound healing), and finds joy in sharing the universe of sound and witnessing the amazing effect the vibrational frequencies have on the human body, mind, and spirit.

The two-hour class, which costs $35, starts at 10 am Sunday, May 6, at the Yoga Center, which later that afternoon also hosts the final of five monthly Depth Movement sessions with Katya Bloom. No need to have attended the previous classes to enroll in the 3 to 4:25 pm workshop, which cultivates the yoga skill of “you are your own best teacher.” In Depth Movement – which incorporates meditation, movement improvisation. and awareness of your changing being within the changing environment – participants are guided to become more responsive to their own bodies and discovering movements – positions and transitions – via a suffusion of awareness. You move intuitively, following your own sensations and your own pace. In fact, rather than starting from a posture suggested by the teacher, you start from your own being. In this approach, you can recognize subtle patterns and feel for yourself what you want and need to do, with gentle guidance. Fee: $20.