vivid grove
Current Offerings:
Tuning Garden and Spring Qigong Online ~ Spring 2023
A Tuning Garden
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Saturday, April 22, 10am-1pm ~ East Bay Outdoors
Wednesday, May 10, 5:30-8pm ~ Online (PST)
Sunday, May 14, 2-5pm ~ East Bay Outdoors
$80 for series, register by April 19 / $100 After /
$40 for single classes
"We each have a different tune." Suprapto Suryodarmo, 2019
In this workshop, we will explore dancing as listening and the multi-sensorial experience that can emerge through attuning to breath, place, one's own story, contours, layers of receptivity, atmosphere, pleasure, the elements, and each other. The workshop will draw from the radical sensory-perceptual compositional practice, “Tuning” scores, initiated by Lisa Nelson and the vast movement cosmology, Amerta Movement, created by Suprapto Suryodarmo (Java, Indonesia). Layers by layers, we will invite communication of our own body-being in context, tuning a culture, together.
The Tuning Garden is a space and place to delve into moving from a garden sense, - together from our own positions, with the environment. It's a place to synthesize tuning as a vibrational tool, a compositional approach, a reciprocal and cultural research, a subtle and sensing movement, and a life art practice.
This group is open to people from all artistic media, all abilities, all walks. The online session will include small breaks for health and zoom capacity.
On Tuning Scores
Amerta Movement
Tuning Culture
PPPPayment
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome. Please note which class series when registering, and send me your email. For online payment, please pay any administrative fees.As ever, Racial Justice Fellowship is available. Contact me if the rates are prohibitive; there are work trade options, and sliding scales for those genuinely in need.
* The class will need a minimum of students to run, so please register minimum three days in advance! *

mara and Bae tuning at Live Oak Park, 2022
Spring Qigong Online ~ Session Two
April 11 - May 16
Tuesday Afternoons, 5-6:15pm PST

$120 for series, register by April 5 / $25 single classes
Zoom with video link for later viewing, shared upon registration
Wild Goose Qigong is a Taoist healing movement arts practice that supports health and energetic flow through the body in relation to our surroundings, the elements, and our life source. Wild Goose is a breathtakingly beautiful set of forms that helps people experience the inheritance of their self-healing through the dynamics of active movement, receptivity, and quiet. This access, — both calming and energizing — takes place through the practice of harmonizing movement, breath, attention.
In this six-week series, our practice will concentrate on Wild Goose sets, and additionally we will practice foundational qigong movement warm-ups, including healing sounds and meditations. The forms emerged over a thousand years ago, inspired by the movements of geese, and were popularized in China after centuries of hermetic and family lineage through the late qigong brilliant Yang Mei-jun. Our weekly classes will incorporate interests from the group, and sections from the several Wild Goose sets — each one offers different qualities of the movement of our qi.
Movements can be modified for all body types and people, qigong for everyone. Please do let me know if you have any access concerns and we will accommodate as best practice.
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome. Please pay any administrative fees and note which class series when registering, and send me your email!
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Early Spring Season 2023 ~ Qigong

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Early Spring Qigong Online ~ Session One
Feb 21 - April 4 (No class March 21
Tuesday Afternoons, 5-6:15pm PST

$108 for series, register by February 17 / $120 After / $25 single classes
Zoom with video link for later viewing, shared upon registration
Wild Goose Qigong is a Taoist healing movement arts practice that supports health and energetic flow through the body in relation to our surroundings, the elements, and our life source. Wild Goose is a breathtakingly beautiful set of forms that helps people experience the inheritance of their self-healing through the dynamics of active movement, receptivity, and quiet. This access, — both calming and energizing — takes place through the practice of harmonizing movement, breath, attention. In this six-week series, our practice will concentrate on Wild Goose sets, and additionally we will practice foundational qigong movement warm-ups, including healing sounds and meditations. The forms emerged over a thousand years ago, inspired by the movements of geese, and were popularized in China after centuries of hermetic and family lineage through the late qigong brilliant Yang Mei-jun. Our weekly classes will incorporate interests from the group, and sections from the several Wild Goose sets — each one offers different qualities of the movement of our qi.
Movements can be modified for all body types and people, qigong for everyone. Please do let me know if you have any access concerns and we can accommodate.
There will be a second session following, so we can continue throughout the spring, as well as classes outdoors in the East Bay, Ohlone land.
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome. Please pay any administrative fees and note which class series when registering.
2) LIVE OUTSIDE
Saturday Qigong Workshop Outdoors
February 25, 11am - 1pm
Ohlone Park, Berkeley
$30 / Register by February 22

& 3)
Spring Qigong Series Outdoors
March 23 - April 20 (No class April 6)
Thursday Afternoons, 5-6:15pm, Ohlone Park, Berkeley
$72 for series, register by March 17 / $85 After / $25 single classes
Wild Goose Qigong is a breathtakingly beautiful Taoist alchemical movement practice that harmonizes movement, energetic flow, and helps people experience the inheritance of their self-healing. The forms emerged over a thousand years ago, inspired by the geese. In this weekend workshop and four-week series, we will concentrate on Wild Goose movement sets, qigong movement warm-ups and meditations. Both the Saturday workshop and weekly classes will incorporate inquiries from the group, and various sections from the many Wild Goose sets — each one offers different qualities and principles of the movement of our qi. We will meet outside, supporting nourishment as well as practice with the elements in the spring. The class will offer simple qigong series that will be repeated, with discussion of how qi moves, — to cultivate qi, and to develop an ongoing practice for those who participate. We will focus on the connectedness of movement, awareness, and breath as it pertains to the Wood Elemental Force, for Spring. Wood: support your capacity to envision and make ideas in your life.
Movements can be modified for all body types and people, qigong for everyone. Please do let me know if you have any access concerns and we can accommodate.
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome. Please pay any administrative fees and note which class series when registering.F
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Winter Season 2022 ~ Qigong, Embodied Mentorship, & Cave Art/Incubations
DECEMBER:
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Saturday Dec 3, 2-5pm, Finnish Hall, Berkeley, $40
Sunday, Dec 4, 1-3 pm, Kokoro Studio, Oakland, only two spots, $40 (Covid health)**
Small groups for health and s p a c e
This is an opportunity to work in a small group and practice the nourishing experience of Caving and the aesthetic explorations of Cave Forms. Caving / Cave Art is a retreat space to nourish your yin and incubate your desires in preparation for the darkest weeks of the year, through movement, writing, transdisciplinary arts, subtle inquiries, and stillness. We will spend the afternoon in the studio-as-cave, and take time for quiet and exploration under cave-cloth. We will access a creative practice, our cave art, to set in motion our incubations, and to find the seeds for creative ideas to be sewn later, and to let them go. The day will offer a chance for collective support of the elemental force of water, and will make a bridge from the unknown as a rich resource into creative process.Please let me know if cost is prohibitive or if you would prefer some kind of trade ~ I am very open to this!
More info on Caving
More info on Cave Forms
Registration:
**Please check in with me about Sunday before you register, as there are only two spots available.**
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks, Zelle, and cash also welcome. Please account for any extra fees with service.
Please note your purchase through email or within the cash app and remember to send me your email address.
Winter Qigong Afternoon Retreat: Fluid Roots, Instinct, and Deep Nourishment
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Saturday Afternoon, Dec 10, 1 - 4pm
Ellen Webb Studio, Emeryville, $40
Time change ! 1-4pm.
Winter Qigong retreat will provide a space for deep winter nourishment — of the body-being and the mind. We will practice movement and meditations, and take time to converse and learn about Chinese energetic principles germane for the season, particularly focusing on the elemental force Water, – our inheritance, instinct, and the unknown. In our time together, we will access some basic, potent principles that underlie our cultivation of qi — our vital breath. With special attention to the sets of Bone Marrow Cleansing and Wild Goose Kidney Nourishing Qigong. This will be an opportunity to deepen your qigong practice / praxis in a movement sanctuary as we head into the center of winter.
Registration:
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Checks, Zelle, and cash also welcome. Please account for any extra fees with service.
Please note your purchase through email or within the cash app and remember to send me your email address.
Please let me know if cost is prohibitive or if partial trade would make it more possible.
Tuesday Afternoons, 5 - 6:15 pm PST
Oct 25 - Dec 13
$100 Register by Oct 20 / $140 After
$25 single classes with video link
Zoom Link shared with registration
Video Available Weekly After Class for your Practice
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Saturday, November 5, 11- 1pm
Local Berkeley Park, $20 - 25 suggested
Register through payment by Nov 1
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Saturday and Sunday Afternoons, Dec 3 + 4
Finnish Hall, Berkeley, + Kokoro Studio, Oakland
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Saturday Afternoon, Dec 10, 1 - 4pm
Ellen Webb Studio, Emeryville
Winter Qigong retreat will provide a space for deep winter nourishment — of the body-being and the mind. We will practice movement and meditations, and take time to converse and learn about Chinese energetic principles germane for the season, particularly focusing on the elemental force Water, – our inheritance, instinct, and the unknown. In our time together, we will access some basic, potent principles that underlie our cultivation of qi — our vital breath. This will be an opportunity to deepen your qigong practice / praxis in a movement sanctuary as we head into the center of winter.
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Fall Newsletter
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PREVIOUS OFFERS
SPRING 2022
Live Qigong Spring Series Outdoors
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Wednesday Afternoons
5 - 6:15pm PST - Dover Park, Oakland
Series 1: March 9 - 30 * STARTS SO SOON!
Series 2: April 27 - May 18
$75 each, $145 for both by March 7 // $85 per series after / $25 drop-in
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Payment
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TUNING COLLECTIVE
Composition, Communication, Context

A Tuning Workshop and Mentorship Group
6 Sessions This Spring, Outdoors East Bay, 2-5pm
Saturdays: March 19, 26, April 16, 30, May 14, 21
$125 for the series / $40 each / Register by March 16
(full series highly encouraged, even if you miss a few!)
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Embodied Mentorship, Somatic Coaching, and Creative Life Practice Support ~ Available by Appointment
Tailor-made, private, and small group sessions in embodied mentorships, somatic coaching, the Feldenkrais Method, Qigong, and bespoke creative movement and life practice. Offerings are based on the vital need to access our capacities for intimacy with our body-being in place, in this time, for utilizing embodied ecologies, aesthetic research and critical consciousness as a compass for creation and intention. This personal attention can help you access significant changes in your life, help to develop your own foundational practices, provide a facilitated space for you to follow your unique embodied inquiries, and can help you access your creative power, clarity, and grace. We can draw from the whole toolbox, and are guided by your interest and what emerges through our collective development.
These sessions are available both online as well as in a small beautiful studio downtown Oakland ~ Covid safe, indeed.
More on Movement Sessions

I I am so overjoyed to be joining the fantastic Kokoro Clinic and Studio in downtown Oakland, where I have started to be in residence (@kokoroclinic). It's a beautiful space for sessions and small classes, with a Covid-safe protocol. As I have begun my time there, it has invigorated me to make offerings and to re-evaluate what is possible for collectivity and commune now. Through the intensities and devastations of pandemics, shelter-in-place, and the revelations of racial upheavals, after a first year of hermetic zoom-academic and deep focus in Practice-as-Research at UC Davis, after an uprising of consciousness about indigenous lifeways, and #landback, after Radius at Counterpulse last weekend, after the power of tuning4armageddon, after returning to being with students and clients Live, I am so grateful for the power of community and to remember the potency of dancing, attuning, touch, and movement life to precipitate transformation and right relation.
Would you like for me to witness your creative process, support your embodiment, your land ethic, movement practice, intention and action, to support your ideas and visions? Get in touch if you would like to work together. My shingle is up and I am at ur service.
Vivid Grove Racial Justice Fellowship

The vivid grove program offers full-season Racial Justice Fellowships with preferences to QT/BIPOC. Fellowship participants take several workshops throughout the season, are invited to develop a program of participation based on the offerings of over the course of a year, and create an agreement based on their intentions. Fellowships are also available for individual programs and workshops. The Fellowship exists so that the vivid grove can mutually cultivate in equity and consciousness. For deepening in solidarity, to offer teachings to those who might not otherwise have the capacity to attend, and to participate in steps towards collective liberation. What has developed over time through the Fellowship is an ever-evolving community, sharing time and spirited ideas.
with loving curiosity
More info on the Fellowship
vg Equity, Inclusion and Racial Justice Statement
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***PREVIOUS SCHEDULES SINCE SHELTER - IN - PLACE |
Earth Qi Retreat in September
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June Summer Fire Retreat
![]() A workshop space to delve into the qigong movement, meditations, and Taoist principles / theories supportive for the seasonal elemental force of Fire. Through harmonizing our vital forces in the summer season, we will cultivate the aspects of our body-being that are nurtured through the elemental force of Fire, and its energetic pair, our heart-mind, or shen. In this retreat, we will access some foundational qi practices and principles that underlie our cultivation of qi — our vital breath, and the vivid space that comes from cultivating shen. This is how we root in spirit. Friday evening will be an online class and Saturday will offer the opportunity to practice either online or in person. Payment Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Cash App: $MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome. Weekly Qigong ClassesThrough July 2
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Online Qigong Classes During Shelter In Place ~ MAY
Here is the May qigong schedule to nourish our body-beings. I am offering some more classes per week as an exploration in deep resource-building as we continue to shelter in place, in whatever way it takes place for each of us. Margit is based in Berkeley, CA; all times are PST.
Mondays, 4pm ~ Qigong and Meditations
Tuesdays 2pm ~ Nourishing the Root Qigong
Thursdays, 5pm ~ Qigong and Meditations
Friday Afternoon ~ Local Outdoor Qigong

Gentle Qigong movement and meditations based in the practices of Taoist energetic medicines and Wild Goose Qigong. Tuesday's class is especially focused on gentle qigong, meditations, and slow movement to nourish the root connections of the movements of life.
Fridays are an opportunity for a small group (4 students maximum) to practice outside in a West Berkeley park. If you are interested, please get in touch, suggested $20.
Four Weekly Hour-long Classes through May, Monday, Tues, Thurs, Friday
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/215984648?pwd=QTNZTGJaSnFzTkpZdW5DQzNWaW9QZz09
Meeting ID: 215 984 648 / Password: 231559
$15 Suggested Donation. Fridays suggested $20. Pay as you are able, NOTAFLOF.
www.vividgrove.org
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Cash App: $MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome.
Tuning
@freeskewl Classes May 13 + 27
Class Info Coming Soon
Through @freeskewl ~ Check them out!
Zoom: zoom.us/j/3093774924 Password: 640262
$ Donations made directly to artists
Through @freeskewl ~ Check them out!
Zoom: zoom.us/j/3093774924 Password: 640262
$ Donations made directly to artists
Private Sessions in the Embodied Arts
~ Available online, by appointment


Tailor-made, private, and small group sessions in the Feldenkrais Method, Qigong, embodied mentorships, and tailor-made collaborative movement investigations. Offerings are based on the vital need to access our capacities for intimacy with our body-being in place, in this time. This personal attention can help you access significant changes in your life, help to develop your own foundational practices, provide a facilitated space for you to follow your unique embodied inquiries, and can help you access your creative power, clarity, and grace.
More on Movement Sessions
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Payment
$15 or Pay what you can. Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Cash App: $MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome.
@freeskewl CLASSES
Tuning mediations for the end-times, new times
How to reimagine the communications between ourselves, one another, and the environment, in real time, in movement? Tuning is a way experience moving-in-relation with the places we inhabit all the time, and expanding from there. These workshops will offer compositional practices and movement meditations that can emerge through embodiment, sensory-perception, screen-time, and our surroundings, sheltering-in-place. Attuning with our body-beings, the virtual, with the light, and our inner light. Dance and movement for breathing, making space and finding place, to nourish life and cultivate life force. What is needed now and forever. Inspired by the luminary Tuning of Lisa Nelson, Suprapto Suryodarmo's Amerta Movement, and the radical connectivity of Taoist healing qigong.
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Tuning Scores are a fascinating mosaic of movement and performance discovery-games originated by Lisa Nelson. The Scores reveal basic elements of action, by attuning to the rich details of composition, behavior, and communication, altogether. They are a multisensorial and kaleidoscopic set of practices that are wildly fun to do. Through the specificity of solo movement warmups, group dancing, and verbal cues, tuning lays out an approach for performance research that can change how you make, perceive, and do in any creative medium.
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Cash App: $MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome.
The First Round, March 18 - April 6
@freeskewl CLASSES
Tuning mediations for the end-times, new times
How to reimagine the communications between ourselves, one another, and the environment, in real time, in movement? Tuning is a way experience moving-in-relation with the places we inhabit all the time, and expanding from there. These workshops will offer compositional practices and movement meditations that can emerge through embodiment, sensory-perception, screen-time, and our surroundings, sheltering-in-place. Attuning with our body-beings, the virtual, with the light, and our inner light. Dance and movement for breathing, making space and finding place, to nourish life and cultivate life force. What is needed now and forever. Inspired by the luminary Tuning of Lisa Nelson, Suprapto Suryodarmo's Amerta Movement, and the radical connectivity of Taoist healing qigong.
**
Tuning Scores are a fascinating mosaic of movement and performance discovery-games originated by Lisa Nelson. The Scores reveal basic elements of action, by attuning to the rich details of composition, behavior, and communication, altogether. They are a multisensorial and kaleidoscopic set of practices that are wildly fun to do. Through the specificity of solo movement warmups, group dancing, and verbal cues, tuning lays out an approach for performance research that can change how you make, perceive, and do in any creative medium.
Payment
Venmo: @Margit-Galanter / PayPal: http://paypal.me/MargitGalanter / Cash App: $MargitGalanter / Checks and cash also welcome.
Details
Currently MARCH 18, 19, 23, 25, 26, 30, April 1, 2, 6. Indeed the classes may extend as we learn more. When I can record them, I will try make them available, as possible. To nourish our body-beings. Please help spread the word.
Zoom Link:https://zoom.us/j/215984648
Meeting ID: 215 984 648

General vivid grove sign-up
If you prefer to pay directly, please send checks to Margit Galanter, 1120 Carleton Street, Berkeley, CA 94702, or contact me directly for other methods. Please let me know you have sent a check, so I can look out for it.
Some work exchange available, and scholarships in special circumstances. For either, please submit a written request.
Payment is non-refundable, but can be transferred to other classes in extraordinary circumstances. If you have any questions, please contact me via email or by phone.
vividgrove@gmail.com
(510) 761 - 6097