Banafsheh Sayyad – Sacred Dance to Activate the 7 Elemental Forces 2024

Reconnecting to the earth element is more about doing less than adding more. Simplifying, letting go, and getting back to our most primal selves can serve as a way to feel grounded, rooted, and earthed.

Grounding can lower levels of inflammation, enhance the immune system, help wounds heal quicker, and gently treat chronic inflammatory conditions.

In this module, you’ll learn to ground yourself and establish presence in your body with a focus on form and technique. You’ll explore how to execute dance and daily life movements using the economy of movement to feel energized and to prevent injury.

Clear yourself of busy forgetfulness and fragmentation, so you can come to see and feel and know the blazing truth that all is love. Dedicate your dance as a prayer to Gaia, our precious Earth.

This week, you’ll:

• Discover how to ground yourself through dance when you feel disembodied, anxious, and fearful
• Connect deeply with the Earth and access the stability and security of this connection
• Become present and focused — and become more adept at dealing with mental and emotional overwhelm
• Discover the changes that happen in your body when you set clear boundaries and accept “what is,” including your body itself
• Be guided through the “Weave” and Middle Eastern/tribal dances

Enter the element of water in this module as the inner space and the realm of the psyche, the unconscious, emotions, and feelings.

What is water like? Water is life-giving and generative — it’s fluid and flows continuously. It’s cooling, refreshing, purifying, nurturing, and nourishing. It’s resilient and adaptable, taking the form of what it’s poured into yet always free, always maintaining its own identity.

You’ll get in touch with how your body is 50 to 70% water (depending on your age) through fluid movement inspired by Tai Chi and Dance of Oneness “Waves” and “Infinities”…

… and embody the oceanic Goddess Aphrodite through liquid, sensual movement that unveils the fountain of the water of life within.

You’ll:

• Summon the cooling power of water through dance to ease anxiety and anger — and to calm your senses
• Let your creativity flow by being fluidly present in your body
• Come in touch with how your body is 50 to 70% water
• Be guided in Tai Chi-inspired movement and Dance of Oneness “Waves” and “Infinities” to get into the flow and become more fluid

This module takes you into the fire element as passion, transformation, creativity, destruction, and resurrection.

You’ll learn basic Flamenco as the alchemical dance of fire, sparking the transformation of shadow content into art and the transmutation of lead into gold…

… and how to use fire as a tool to uplift yourself during moments of low energy, sadness, depression, uncertainty, or despair.

By summoning the energy of fire, you can transmute these emotions, sparking enthusiasm, passion, and unconditional joy. Ultimately, this exploration empowers you to activate a fiery resilience, transforming adversity into vitality and embracing life with renewed zeal.

You’ll discover:

• How to summon fire through dance to enliven your energy and uplift your mind and spirit when in despair
• Flamenco dance as the alchemical dance of fire and its transmutative power
• Your own capacity for easeful change through renewed vitality and a revived zest for life
• How to turn adversity into passion and purpose for being alive

What is your breath but the presence of the unlimited — the presence of Spirit in you?

For an element that can’t be seen, air certainly holds a vast array of sacred symbolism — such as communication, breath, and life. When we consider how the air element interacts with our senses, we can experience this part of nature in a way that helps us become more present and sensitive to the world around us.

This week, you’ll discover air as the element that connects you to the present moment through your breath… and dance with awareness of your life-giving breath and the divinity within you.

You’ll experience how what you seek is truly within you and learn to blend the celestial and the sensual through the ethereal beauty of Persian Dance as you experience your body as more energy than matter.

You’ll:

• Summon the buoyancy of air through dance to uplift you when you feel heavy — and when situations and responsibilities are weighing you down
• Learn how to breathe for optimum health
• Experience the celestial and sensual through Persian Dance
• Be guided through a breathing practice to build coherence between the mind, heart, and body

For the journey into sound, you will be initiated into Sama, the Sufi practice of whirling, which means “to listen.”

An inner journey to the Beloved as the source of all that is, Sama dissolves the limited mind into the unlimited ocean of presence, and you begin to simply be… a channel for compassion and wisdom.

Physics states that matter is actually space spinning. How profound to spin consciously, activate supernatural powers, and upgrade ourselves.

Rumi’s poetry flowered while whirling in perfect rhyme and meter — a testament to the power of Sama to receive direct transmissions from the source… and create body-heart-mind coherence.

Banafsheh will also guide you through a chanting practice to open to unconditional loving.

You’ll:

• Embody the element of sound through sacred dance to dissolve the limited mind and open to deeper presence
• Discover how to effectively ground and center yourself in preparation for whirling
• Learn how to whirl without getting dizzy and persevere in the spin for a sustained period of time
• Learn the philosophy and short history of Sama as a spiritual path
• Create unity, harmony, and coherence between your body, heart, and mind through the profound Sufi movement meditation of Sama
• Begin to surrender the chatter of the mind and become empty
• Become silent and still enough to listen to your inner voice for guidance through a seated meditation following the Sama

This week, you’ll clear yourself of distractions — including the incessant need to stay busy — and open to receiving and filling yourself with light.

You’ll explore how the more light you can hold and emit, the higher the frequency of your being and your level of consciousness.

As you begin healing and repatterning ailments, limited beliefs, and fragmentation, you’ll begin to access your lightbody more and more…

… and sustain an elevated and empowered, loving, and joyful state in your heart, body, and mind — truly opening your wings to fly.

Through the “Shake to Liberate” routine, you’ll free the central channel of your body to receive light unobstructedly — and activate your inner vision, imagination, and intuition.

You’ll:

• Access your lightbody through sacred dance and illuminate your true self and potential
• Awaken your life force and let it ignite your whole body, energizing and uplifting you through the “Shake to Liberate” dance routine
• Gain deeper access to your inner vision, imagination, and intuition
• Elevate yourself — and feel energized — throughout the day
• Feel and begin to embody your own beauty with radiant confidence

Moving from the stability of earth, through the flow of water, the passion of fire, the lightness of air, sound, and light… you’ll reach the element that makes everything else possible: ether (or space).

In this final module, you’ll explore ether as nothing and everything at the same time. It’s stillness, yet it’s the very thing that makes all movement and life possible — connecting us to spirituality, intuition, and our full potential.

Medieval alchemists were fascinated with the ether element, believing it could turn lead into gold and even prolong life. They referred to the space element as “quintessence,” a term also used to describe the heavenly bodies, such as stars and galaxies.

For the journey into ether, you’ll deepen your experience of Sama (whirling) and access the profound stillness at the core of your being.

You’ll also integrate all that you’ve learned through a celebration of coming home to your body and discover your capacity to dance the pain and the joy, the sorrow and the deliverance.

You’ll:

• Embody the element of ether — emptiness and spaciousness — through sacred dance to open to possibility when feeling confined and hopeless
• Integrate all that you’ve learned over the past 6 weeks
• Be here now, surrendered to what is as you access inner peace and joy — regardless of circumstance
• Experience the sacred and the unfathomable in the still depths of your being beyond concepts, dogmas, conditioned activity, and all preferences
• Learn to summon an element on the spot when you need its qualities

Astrological Outlook for 2024 — The Year of the Wood Dragon
Video Dialogue Between Banafsheh Sayyad and Chinese Astrologer Anastacia White

In this 44-minute video, Banafsheh interviews Anastacia White, a matriarchal wisdom keeper and practitioner of the Chinese Sciences, to discover our collective possibilities for 2024 — the Year of the Wood Dragon. You’ll learn key insights about 2024, as well as the challenges that lie ahead and how to best navigate them. Anastacia also explores the interplay between yin and yang energy throughout the year, and why it’s important to “go within and connect with yin” if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the chaotic and often overwhelming energies of our time.

Register by February 25 to claim this bonus before it expires.

In this 45-minute, mixed-level yoga and stretching practice, Banafsheh will guide you on a journey from rigorous asanas to a lying down meditation that will ground you deeply in the soil of your body. You’ll explore what true embodiment feels like as you reconnect with the wisdom of your body and this expanded awareness fills your cells and enlivens your soul. It’s recommended to do parts of this practice or the whole practice after each course module to stretch and unwind.

Gain potent insights on how to shift out of the patriarchal mindset and embrace the healing principles of grounding, belonging, and interconnectedness. In this one-hour video, Banafsheh will share how the archaic patriarchal system is based on a severance of humans from the Earth, our bodies, and the feminine principle. By consciously reclaiming the sacredness of living in a body as part of the Earth and your connection with the whole of life, you’ll gain a profound appreciation of the physical body as truly limitless… as you viscerally experience how important it is to ground and center yourself, especially in the turbulent times we live in. You’ll also gain simple tools you can use to ground and center yourself in peace.