With Grace & Gratitude ~ Water Blessings 2020

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On November 1 dozens of participants came together in the virtual stream for a global Water Blessing. From the Pacific Ocean to the Nile River, each participant moved in resonance with a cherished body of water.

While we were geographically dispersed, our collective practice unified us as we slipped magically into the guiding currents of water’s elemental nature.

The poetry of Judi Bachrach and Beth Riley, included in this newsletter for you to absorb, invited us to explore water’s multitude of qualities. Musician Cory Blake bathed us in glorious live music so that we might “move like water.”

We welcome you to immerse in the photographs, quotes, and videos from this culminating Water Blessing event, along with all the Water Blessings of 2020 – our year dedicated to learning from water. A special thank you to all who attended on November 1 and to the myriad contributions documenting Water Blessings worldwide.

I wish you well as you surge, drift, bubble, melt, and more…

Elaine

Read the newsletter here.

An Invitation to Wade Into the Miraculous

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The miracle of nature can be a resource during times of stress. We, and the planet, are filled with the
elemental mystery of water.

Water is buoyant ~ it carries and guides.
Water is purifying ~ it cleanses and renews.
Water as a teacher can dissolve what no longer serves us and can support the best in us to grow a more beautiful world.

Read the newsletter here.

You are invited to dip into the virtual livestream
Sunday, November 1 for a Continuum Water Blessing
with live music by Cory Blake.

Join in a worldwide participatory sound and breath exploration of moving like water, augmented by poetry from Judi Bachrach and Beth Pettengill Riley.

Gather indoors with a bowl of water or out in nature with a symbolic offering to place in water. Honor the waters of your own being and the living waters of your environment.

Together we will invoke water to guide us in creativity and communication – hallmark processes of life force.

Waiting at the water’s edge for you,

— Elaine

Join together in the Zoom landscape for this 1-hour Continuum community gathering on Sunday, November 1:

West Coast North America 10-11 AM
East Coast North America 1-2 PM
British Isles 6-7 PM
Most of Europe 7-8 PM

Find your meeting time here.

Register now. Enrollment limited for this free event.

You will receive a Zoom link confirmation.

Below find the Water Blessing instructional video.
Also view recent Somatic Cinema Premieres.

Read the newsletter here.

Photos above: Water Blessing with Megan Bathory – Peeler and Elaine Colandrea by Michael Schreiber, Shantigar Foundation. Sunflower Offering by Prue Jeffries.

This August – Somatic Cinema!

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This August, Watermark Arts is thrilled to adventure into a new medium of creative exchange – the Zoom film premiere! We invite you to reserve your place in the virtual audience as we share two new films with subjects quite dear to me.

Materadancescapes
Sunday, August 16, 1 – 2 PM EDT 

A trio of short dance films responding to the canyons and caverns of Matera in southern Italy, a site steeped in mythology and human history as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Q&A with choreographer Elaine Colandrea, filmmaker Prue Jeffries, composer Morena Boschetto, and performers Claudia Catani and Naomi Walker will follow the films. Special guests Teresa Barbaro and Paolo Montagna will join live from Matera to speak about the distinctive features of the film location.

Susan Harper
Heart of Continuum
Sunday, August 23, 1 – 2:30 PM EDT 

A cinematic celebration of Susan’s extraordinary life journey.
Born in Africa to missionary parents, Susan began her devoted exploration of Continuum with Emilie Conrad in 1975, partnering with her in various ways until Emilie’s death in 2014. Continuum Montage, Susan’s lifework, began as a record company and grew into the full expression of the innovative somatic practices born of Susan’s deep inquiries and collaborative nature. Susan Harper, Heart of Continuum was created to honor Susan’s 70th birth year. A birthday toast with Susan will follow the film.

Reservations are limited for these one-time-only events. Reserve by clicking on the designated premiere buttons below. I hope to see you at Materadancescapes, Susan Harper, or best of all – both!

With enormous excitement,
Elaine and the Watermark Arts Creative Team

View the newsletter here.

What ignites you? Fire, the great transformer

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A note from Elaine

Fire, the great transformer, is the fourth and final installation in Watermark Arts’ Elemental Art exhibit. Whatever fire touches is altered forever by the intensity of its blaze. Yet, fire is a vital part of life’s rhythm. Just as we inspire and expire, we ignite and extinguish.

I often associate fire with creative passion, which led me to reflect on the meaning of these words:

  • heat: energy transferred from one body to another
  • art: the transfer of human imagination to an expressive form
  • heat + art = heart: the vital part or essence of a body or form

Is fire at the heart of the creative spirit? What sparks your curiosity and interest? What ignites you?

In the spirit of renewal,

Elaine

PS – Stay tuned for dates announcing two exciting Zoom film premieres. Watermark Arts will bring you Celebrating Susan Harper, Celebrating Continuum Montage and Materadancescapes.

View the newsletter here.

Elemental Moving Body, an online Continuum Workshop

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ELEMENTAL MOVING BODY

5 week online Continuum Workshop 

with Elaine Colandrea and Megan Bathory Peeler

Presented by Shantigar Foundation and Watermark Arts

5 Wednesday morning gatherings: July 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29, 10:00am – 12:30pm EDT

Suggested Tuition: $249, or pay what you will.  No one turned away for lack of funds.

Please register here.

 

Elaine Colandrea and Megan Bathory-Peeler unite again to bring you the magical delights of Continuum steeped in the beauty of nature at Shantigar in Rowe, MA. This July, our focus is on the 4 elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.


We will connect to explore together in a Zoomscape gathering once a week on Wednesday mornings 10:00 am-12:30 pm. In between gatherings, we will endeavor to inspire you with artful movement films we made this spring in order to bring Shantigar to you. We will help deepen your practice with guided moving meditation videos you can work with on your own also filmed at Shantigar.


Elemental Moving Body is a five-week workshop that allows for personalization and flexibility in this unusual time of the pandemic.

This workshop invites us to extend the scope of our ability to connect inside ourselves, outside in nature, and through time and space with one another.

 

About the Teachers

Elaine Colandrea explores how the somatic arts shape consciousness, inform and inspire the creative process, and foster connections with nature, organically creating a more humane world.

Elaine is the artistic director of Watermark Arts. She is also a movement artist, Continuum teacher, somatic educator, and massage therapist. Her work has been deeply influenced by her association with Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum. Her abiding passion is bringing people together to directly experience the body’s transformative capacity.

Megan Bathory-Peeler is a somanaut – a professional explorer of the body.A compassionate listener and a life-long lover of movement, consciousness, connection, communication, and self-knowledge, she is deeply committed to supporting health holistically through embodied awareness for people of all ages.

Interdisciplinary and curious by nature, Megan’s own Somanautiko approach to embodied self-care grew out of her inquiries as a movement artist, choreographer, bodyworker, somatic therapist/educator, and teacher of Continuum. She offers private sessions in her Western Massachusetts office, classes and workshops throughout New England, and intensive programs in Europe.

Learn more.

Harness Water’s Wisdom to respond to global challenges

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A note from Elaine

Water Wisdom, the third installment in Watermark Arts’ elemental art exhibit, is a tribute to the transformational powers of water. Our bodies are saturated with this extraordinary substance. Immerse yourself in Water Wisdom and bathe in your innate potentiality

As 2020 began, fires raged in many parts of the world. Watermark Arts responded with the Water Blessing Project, our yearlong dedication to life-giving water.

Now as Midsummer approaches, life beckons us to step into nature and reconnect with nourishing Water Blessing experiences, whether individually or responsibly in a small group.

As you convene with water, consider harnessing its wisdom to respond to the global challenges of this time. For many, fire has returned this week, setting streets and souls ablaze. Our hearts go out to all who are affected by long-standing racism.

In our search for reducing fragmentation and restoring wholeness, the practice of becoming like water offers a path of inquiry. We hope our gallery serves as a resource.

View the newsletter here.

Please join us,

Elaine Colandrea Prue Jeffries Sandra Capellaro Rori Smith
Artistic Director Creative Director Galleries Administrator Editor

Image: Prue Jeffries, CosmoBeing. Image below: David Gilbert, Immersion

Welcoming artist, poet Amber Elizabeth Gray

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Dr. Amber Elizabeth Gray is a human rights psychotherapist and a pioneer in the use of Dance Movement Therapy, Continuum and Somatic Psychology with complex trauma, political violence, and disaster. She leads eco-somatic retreats with humans, animals, and the earth and ocean mothers, to inspire embodied regenerative activism.

 

 

Friend 

Comfort is mirrored
In your gaze. Refuge is this
Familiar place. Friend.

Visit Amber’s gallery for her full bio and more haiku.

“Writing haiku anchors me to my soul when the ocean becomes a tempest.” ~ Amber Elizabeth Gray

 

EarthArt Exhibit, deepening connection to our primal home

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Dear friends,

First and foremost, I hope this newsletter finds you well.

With joy I bring you EarthArt, the second installation of Watermark Arts’ elemental art exhibition. This four-part series features photographs, film, haiku, poetry and movement meditations through which to deepen your connection to our primal home, Planet Earth. I hope EarthArt provides you with nourishment and support just as the ever-present ground beneath us provides the many nutrients we need for life on earth to flourish.

With sadness I am letting you know that Somatic Movement Summit V: The Elemental Nature of the Body at The Omega Institute will not occur this summer due to the pandemic. For many, the summit is a special time and place to share with a kindred community where we drop deeply into our internal nature. I am reminded of a quote from Bahauddun, father of Rumi, “What moves in the heart gathers and becomes manifest.” I know in my heart the impulse and energy of the summit gathering will take new forms for this new time.

From the NY Hudson Valley, where spring greenery is emerging from the moist and muddy earth,

View the newsletter here.

Elaine

Image above: Niki Berg, The Flowers – Three Poppies