Heart Warriors!

I would like to introduce you to my new Nia body of work called Heart Warriors, and share with you about its creation.

My inspiration for this body of work was sparked on April 28 when I attended The Cosmic Mass in my hometown of San Antonio. The Cosmic Mass was created by Matthew Fox, and invites a new way of celebrating and worshipping through dance, meditation, music and imagery. It also invites us to be in community, to celebrate our humanity, to honor and preserve our earth, and to take action. With this spark of inspiration, combined with the present turmoil in our world, a new heart felt desire emerged, along with the beginnings of dance and intention.

The dance and intention continued to evolve and change, as I also participated in a 5 week Yoga-In-Action challenge called Climate Awake, that was led by master yoga teachers with Yoga International. This challenge too called for oneness and a call to action as individuals and as a community.

Music magically came to me while exploring Spotify. The peak and finalization of the routine and music came with the shootings the weekend of August 3, 2019, compounded with the prior ten 2019 shootings, and events happening along our U.S. borders. The Sunday morning after the shooting in El Paso, I danced the routine in sorrow, along with joy and honoring of people ALL across our earth. I also needed to take physical action, so I went to the blood bank that opened their doors on Sunday for this purpose, and gave blood. It was while I was waiting to give blood I heard about the Dayton, Ohio killings, and the name Heart Warriors was born for the body of work.

Heart Warriors

Focus: Heart. The heart of Self and Humanity.

Humanity: Everyone on Earth.

Intention: Cultivating Peace through Courage, Strength, Compassion.

Cultivating: To encourage, to foster, to work to make better.

An invitation for action to individually and collectively cultivate peace.

Here are the songs and the intention I have with each song:

1. Calling Wisdom (by Karunesh): Honoring the 4 directions of the earth through the practice of Pranam (scroll down to "Why Practice Pranams?"). What is bringing you to your knees? What is your reverence? We also start the Nia 5 stages of Healing, calling upon the wisdom of our body - pre-verbal, where ALL humanity started their evolution.

2. Preparation Pulse (by Bryon Metcalf): Continuing the 5 stages, and into stances and drum pulses of earth. What is your call to action?

3. Heart Warriors (by Bryon Metcalf): Warrior 1, 2 and 3 asanas of Courage, Strength, Compassion, calling us into action .

4. East West Stoned Together (by Richard Dorfmeister): No matter what the call, our intention is peace.

5. Mother Earth (by Veeresh and the Humanversity Sound): Grateful for Mother Earth, grateful for life. "Because of our earth we have the foundation to say Thank you to our existence."

6. The Drummers of the Earth (by S. Martina and J. Smeraglia): We are connected together by this earth, we all drum together on this earth. What if we saw each other as feet, the hands that touch the earth? We walk together, we drum together.

7. All Related (by Nessi Gomes): As the title says, we are all related. Can we cure each other with the medicine of Love?

8. Shanti Mantra (by Veronica Dumount and Rogerio Jardim): Om Shanti, Peace, Peace. OM, sound of the Universe, sound of oneness.

9. Heartbeat (by James Asher and Arthur Hull): We are ONE heartbeat. Our spiral of Peace, Heart Warriors come together as we step out together.

The Prana hand mudra is also used at various times during the dance. Prana means ‘energy’ or life. Prana mudra excites the root chakra, that makes vibration plus heat, which awakens and energize the body. The power of life manifolds and stimulates the entire human body. This mudra links to the heart plus soul of each of us.