Mac Talla: A Somatic Embodiment Workshop

Mac Talla is simple movements (rise/fall, push/pull, open/close) while moving to lush music. When your body moves to music in these repetitive patterns, it stirs a deeper, collective knowing, syncs you up with primal rhythms, and offers profound insight. Mac Talla means resonance or echo in Gaelic.

Created by Sarah Tolan-Mee, this therapeutic modality expands past typical floor-based somatic practices. Somewhere between talk therapy and axe-throwing, Mac Talla is the perfect middle ground. There is guidance, grounding, centering and attention to breath. There is also freedom to move unscripted, according to the dictates of your body following the music. Mac Talla is a regulated flow state.

This 3 hour workshop offers: (the italicized portions involve movement)

• Locate yourself in your Epic Journey: a seated guided exploration of your life stage. Are you on the threshold of change, alone in the eye of the storm, or finding your allies?
• Intend, Name, Wish: the audacity of desire guides us in times of uncertainty.  Write down what can pull you through this moment and into a more consciously chosen next step.
• 1 hour of Mac Talla: Move and Breathe
• Symbol: each participant will randomly receive a symbol to reflect on. How do you resonate (or not) with that symbol? How does it echo your experience now, in the past, or in your hopes for the future?
• Voice Echoing: Call and response mantra/sound. Learn to resonate--create deep, full, reverberating sound in different areas of the body.
• Stomp & Silence: group movement, creating sound with our feet and hands then collectively lying in savasana in silence, to witness and be witnessed. 
• Close & Contain: repeated simple gestures to direct excess energy from "louder" parts of the body to the infinite openness of the heart. Followed by blissful, potent rest. 

The workshop is led by Master Somatic Therapist Sarah Tolan-Mee and IAYT-Certified Yoga Therapist Sarah Westbrook. Each has years exploring movement, voice and breath as therapeutic mediums. Read more about them here.

Date: Saturday July 20, 2024

Time: 1-4:00pmCST

In-person only

Location: Heartwood (Skylight room)

1818 Dempster Ave.

Evanston, IL 60201

Free parking in lot/free street parking

Cost: Early Bird Pricing before July1! $49

After July 1: $69

Sliding Scale pricing available: $30-55