Soul Medicine Through the Seasons
Samhain: What is decaying in me?
Join Monika Denise for a virtual ceremony and visual journal workshop
With Summer Starr, spirit worker and a guide for people to find their own relationship with the ancestors and the unseen.
November 3
IN-PERSON: 1-3:30 PM at the Chuckanut Center (Bellingham, WA)
OR
ZOOM: 5-7pm PST // 8-10pm EST
THE WORKSHOP:
Monika Denise will offer a short ceremony: we will light candles, sing a song or two, and engage in a nature-based meditation led by Summer Starr.
Monika Denise will share a prompt for a visual journal practice to listen to What is decaying in me?
There will be an optional sharing.
TO SIGN UP:
$15-$40 suggested donation
Email Monika Denise connect@monikadenise.com with questions
The Workshop Series
I am offering you a soulful creative process that I have engaged with the last 10 years to support my own journey.
In this virtual workshop series, Soul Medicine through the Seasons, I will share how to develop your own visual journal practice, which is a sort of mashup between a mindful and expressive art process with creative journaling.
We will enter into our time together as a space of ceremony. I will guide us in song/chant as we gather. We will have a brief introduction to the season, followed by a guided meditation that will invite you to connect with the more-than-human ones as a part of your process. Following the time for you to work in your visual journal, there will be a time of optional sharing.
Give your soul some medicine around the Wheel of the Year to honor the season in ceremony and listen to your inner wisdom!
Medicine For Our Times Embodied Grief Circle
setting a place for our grief and gratitude for the world
November 22, 6-9pm
guided by Monika Denise & Kelsey Maloney
setting a place for our grief and gratitude for the world
In this embodied grief circle, we’ll name what is present in our hearts and practice giving expression to our grief and gratitude through movement and song. While we are tending a space for our sorrows of the world to be shared and witnessed, all grief is welcome. Our time will include guided meditation, song, small group sharing, and embodied ritual practice. This grief circle is a standalone event as well as part of Grieving Ground, a 5-part grief intensive centered around practicing embodied ritual, witnessing, somatic listening and art making–resources to navigate the grieving terrain. Participants in Grieving Ground will be in attendance at this circle.
Guided by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise
Presence Studio / 1412 Cornwall Ave.
$50-$90/circle, sliding scale
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Winter Wellspring
A 6-week Open Floor Movement Lab and Residential Workshop
We remember. Before masks. Before gathering spaces were closed down. Before screens and zoom rooms.
We remember that once, we gathered at wells where nourishment and connectivity flowed along with the stream of water. When our ancestors were connected to the old ways. When our skin fit true and that was enough for belonging.
In these times of heightened disconnection, mystery, and grief, we show up together in the heart of winter to shed the restrictive stories keeping us out of alignment. We return home to our true skin—celebrating our naked selves as an essential thread in the tapestry of life.
Join us for a 4-day Open Floor workshop of movement, art, song, and story. On the magical grounds of Aldermarsh, we’ll lean in, resource and receive the nourishment times of darkness can bring.
Guided by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise.
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Grieving Ground: Medicine for Our Times
A 5-part grief intensive for anyone longing to shift the story of grieving alone. Together, we bui
sept. 15 & oct. 27: 130-8pm
nov. 22: 6-9pm
dec. 15 & jan. 19: 130-8pm
guided by Kelsey Maloney & Monika Denise
GRIEVING GROUND is as it sounds–a ground to be with your grief.
A ground where you can go slow and breathe into the places it hurts to go alone.
You don’t need to hold it together here.
With the medicine of meeting ourselves and each other as we are, we’ll follow the wisdom of the body’s process. We’ll lean into embodied ritual, witnessing, somatic listening and art making–resources to navigate the terrain.
Between each gathering, we’ll stay connected by sharing resources,
checking in together, and exploring creative projects.
Guided by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise.
TO SIGN UP:
$475-$600, sliding scale
3-part payment plan available for $200/payment.
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
MORE-THAN-A-HEALER
Soulful Canoe Retreat on the Green River
More-Than-A-Healer
Paddle. Song. Create. Ritual. Connection.
Do you ache to remember who you are, in addition to space holder, nurturer, motherer, tender, healer? Do you remember what it feels like to be in your own skin, the voice of your inner 4 year-old, the wonder that unfolds a path of whimsy without the weight of responsibility? Do you long to breathe into your full size and colorful expression without filtering for the role you’re in? Do you just need time and space to feed the thrum of connection that brings you alive?
Let the canyon return you to Source. Allow the descent through her blood-red walls unravel every honorable burden of being one who nurtures. Shows up. Holds space. Cares. Let the river carry you in generous reciprocity. Let the desert free your wild child who has inspired every shiver of delight in you.
You will encounter the uncomfortable. Flirt with the feral. Step outside the box you could map in your sleep. Surrender to the unexpected. Discover the empowerment of thriving in the desert and experience the relief and homecoming found in resting into the web of interbeing. Come sing yourself home.
Return to more of who you are, where you remember you are only a healer because you are more-than-a-healer.
September 28-October 5, 2024
7 days, 45 miles of canoeing
For femmes and thems who identify as a woman and resonate with being a healer
delicious food, 16 participants max.
Facilitator: Monika Denise
Guides: Lauren Bond, and The RIver's Path
EARLY BIRD Pricing: $2495 by August 1
Pricing: $2695
payment plans upon request
The River's Path
OUR VISION:
We support those longing to re-connect to the land to find a profound sense of belonging to the river and all of her inhabitants. By reconnecting with the river, those we guide find their center, their purpose, and their desire to have a positive impact in their community, both human and more-than-human.
OUR MISSION:
We offer canoeing journeys for deep
connection and personal transformation.
Wild Kin
a council of all beings ritual
august 2, 6-9pm
august 3, 10am-4pm
guided by Kelsey Maloney & Monika Denise
“We imagine that other beings, other life forms apart from humans, seek to be heard at our council.”
-Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown
slowing down to listen,
opening our ears to hear,
giving voice to someone beyond ourselves,
we set down our human identities
to nurture “a sense of solidarity with all life.”
join kelsey maloney and monika denise
for 1.5 days of mask making,
forest exploring, singing,
and sitting in council.
DATES, TIMES & LOCATIONS:
August 2, 6-9pm at The Chuckanut Center (1013 Chuckanut Dr. N)—We will meet inside the red house.
August 3, 10am-4pm at The 100 Acre Woods—Location details will be provided when registered.
PAYMENT DETAILS:
$155-$230, sliding scale.
Payment is due at registration.
CANCELLATION POLICY:
If you need to cancel before July 1, you will receive a refund minus a $55 administrative fee. After July 1, there are no refunds. If you are unable to attend, you are welcome to transfer your “ticket” to another person. Please inform Kelsey if you are unable to attend and plan to have someone come in your place.
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Embodied Grief Circle
Medicine For Our Times
July 12, 6-9pm
guided by Kelsey Maloney & Monika Denise
In this embodied grief circle, we’ll name what is present in our hearts and practice giving expression to our grief and praise through movement and song. All types of grief are welcome. Our time will include guided meditation, song, small group sharing, and embodied ritual practice.
Join us in remembering how to grieve together.
Guided by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise
Presence Studio / 1412 Cornwall Ave.
$50-$90/circle, sliding scale
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Deepening Into the World of Sorrow
a three-part grief intensive
March 14, 2024, Thursday 6—9pm
April 7, 2024, Sunday 10:30am—5pm
May 9, Thursday 6—9pm
guided by Kelsey Maloney & Monika Denise
Sometimes we don’t know quite what we are grieving. Sometimes we catch a glimpse and then it wisps away as we move closer to it. Sometimes we know exactly what we are grieving and that which we can name is also a taproot to a broader sorrow, too wide to articulate, but felt in the collective. In places we’ve felt helpless or alone, in places that are difficult to fully access on our own, in places asking for witnessing and holding, we remember the wisdom of grieving together. How can we practice deepening into our sorrow, building trust with ourselves and each other as we go, so we can more fully inhabit our experience of being human?
Join Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise for a three-part intensive exploring both personal and global grief. Our time will include guided meditation, song, small and full group sharing, embodied ritual practice, between session art invitations and readings/listenings, and a nature-based Council of All Beings (as developed by Joanna Macy). Group size is limited.
TO SIGN UP:
$180-$360 sliding scale
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
LEAP
An art and dance extravaganza
A once in a four year opportunity-let's go for it--with big breath, curiosity, laughter, and a splash of color! Let's take a risk in exploring where our story may have constricted, and widen our way into a third possibility. Join Monika Denise and Kelsey Maloney in an embodied creative process that includes movement and splatter paint as we leap towards spring!
For more info & to register: www.fireandmoss.com/LEAP
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Winter Wellspring
A 6-week Open Floor Movement Lab and Residential Workshop
We remember. Before masks. Before gathering spaces were closed down. Before screens and zoom rooms. We remember that once, we gathered at wells where nourishment and connectivity flowed along with the stream of water. When our ancestors were connected to the old ways. In these times of heightened disconnection, uncertainty, and grief, we show up together in the heart of winter to lean in, resource, and receive the nourishment times of darkness can bring. Through the simple (though not always easy) practice of meeting ourselves and each other just as we are, we give ourselves space to expand and contract as necessary, metabolize grief and emotion, and listen to the wellspring of wisdom emerging.
Join us for a 6-week Open Floor Movement Lab and/or a residential weekend workshop at Aldermarsh.
Lab or workshop only options available.
THE MOVEMENT LAB:
Held in an open circle ritual, we will build our capacity to hold ourselves and each other, layer by layer.
Thursdays January 18-February 22, 2024 6:15-8:45pm Presence Studio, Bellingham, WA Facilitated by Kelsey Maloney, supported by Monika Denise and Summer Starr
THE RESIDENTIAL WORKSHOP: Held by movement, art, and song, we invite you into a deep exploration of the wellspring in you, and the connectivity that flows between us.
January 11-14, 2024 Begins Thursday at 4pm and closes Sunday at 3:30pm
Aldermarsh, Whidbey Island, WA
Facilitated by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise
supported by Summer Starr and Duncan Green
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Embodied Grief Ritual
Setting a Place for Our Grief and Gratitude for the World
In this embodied grief circle, we will name what is present in our hearts and practice giving expression to our grief and gratitude through movement and song. While we are tending a space for our sorrows of the world to be shared and witnessed, all shades of grief are welcome.
Join us in stepping into the circle.
LAB DATE, TIME, & LOCATION:
FRIDAY November 24, 2023
5-8:30pm, doors close at 5:05 pm
Presence Studio (1412 Cornwall Ave. B'ham, WA). Please note that Presence Studio is only accessible by stairs. Please contact Kelsey if you need assistance.
You are welcome to bring leftovers from your holiday meal(s) to share with others after the ritual.
PAYMENT DETAILS:
$40-$145*, sliding scale.
Please pay what feels right for your financial situation. If financial resources are a barrier in being able to attend, please reach out to Kelsey.
$40-$55: supported
$70-$100: standard
$115-$145: supporting
*a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Whiteswan Environmental, a local, native-led 501 (c)(3
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Set the dam waters free
A night of song & story
Once upon a time, people gathered to sing songs and tell stories. Once upon a time, in some places, people still do this. On December 10, we will gather together for an evening of song, story, and ancestral honoring. Monika and Taber weave something magical and resourceful with their voices and instruments. Kelsey will be telling a story that she wrote some of, though most of it wrote her, while she was studying in England last spring.
Set the Dam Waters Free is an evening of remembering, letting ourselves be right sized, and setting a ghost free.
$25-1,000 donation
All proceeds go to the Fire and Moss Embodiment Scholarship Fund. Light snacks and tea provided.
A night of song & story with Taber Darland, Monika Denise & Kelsey Maloney
December 10, 2023, 4:15-6:15pm
@ The Center for Spiritual Living
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
CLOSER
A 10-week Open Floor Movement Lab
What are you longing to move closer to?
What is courting you–asking for your attention and presence?
Closer is a space to show up just as you are. There aren’t any fancy steps or how to’s, just space to be a complex, genuine, vulnerable human being in good company. We will practice softening and defining our edges, exploring polarities, and opening to possibilities to deepen connection with ourselves, each other, and that which is bigger than us. We will rest in the Open Floor Movement Practice, a body-based moving meditation and creative dance inquiry, weaving play and story into our personal and collective explorations of intimacy.
You don’t need to know what you are doing to come Closer.
with Kelsey Maloney
supported by Monika Denise
LAB DATES & TIMES:
Thursdays October 5—December 14, 2023: 6:30-9pm
& Saturday November 11, 2023: 12:30-8pm*
*A simple, vegetarian/GF dinner is included with the Saturday lab.
There will be no lab on Thanksgiving, Thursday November 23.
LAB LOCATION:
Presence Studio, 1412 Cornwall Ave. Bellingham, WA 98225.
Please note: Presence Studio is only accessible by stairs. If you need assistance accessing the studio, please contact Kelsey.
PAYMENT DETAILS:
$435-$495 sliding scale
Click here to learn more and register
Kelsey Maloney
At the root of it all, Kelsey values deep and meaningful connection. She teaches in a style of receptive response to what is emerging in the moment. Through simple offerings, she invites students to deepen their self-learning, expand their capacity for connection, and practice re-humanizing our relationships. Kelsey Maloney is a certified Open Floor International movement teacher. She has completed two years of immersive study with Lisa Iversen in Systemic Family Constellations, studied Authentic Movement, improv theater, ecology and sociology. Kelsey has over 15 years of experience integrating writing, art, and play into personal and professional life. She has volunteered with a bicycle-touring theater (Otesha Project, Australia), worked at environmental education centers and camps in the US and Australia, and self-published a book, Cloak Woman Vs Man, in 2017. She has cycled over 15,000 miles across four continents.
Archives
Thursday Night Embodiment Collective:
June 22nd 6:30-8:30: Inner Alchemy Series: Water
Summer Starr, Monika Denise
June 8th 6:30-8:30: Grief and Joy: embodied and expressed
Monika Denise, Christina Greené, Taber Darland
May 11th 6:30-8:30: Inner Alchemy Series: Earth
Summer Starr, Monika Denise
April 20th 6:30-8:30: Inner Alchemy Series: Fire
Summer Starr, Monika Denise
March 16 6:30-8:30: Exploring Breath Through Song and Movement
Monika Denise, Taber Darland, Ren Skolnick
Winter Wellspring: A 5-week Open Floor Movement Lab and Residential Workshop
THE MOVEMENT LAB:
Held in an open circle ritual, we will build our capacity to hold ourselves and each other, layer by layer.
Thursdays January 12-February 9, 20236:30-9pm Presence Studio, Bellingham, WA
Facilitated by Kelsey Maloney, supported by Monika Denise and Summer Starr
THE RESIDENTIAL WORKSHOP: Held by movement, art, and song, we invite you into a deep exploration of the wellspring in you, and the connectivity that flows between us.
February 10-12, 2023
Facilitated by Kelsey Maloney and Monika Denise, supported by Olympia Open Floor Teacher Duncan Green
WYRD: an embodied exploration ofc onsciousness, wisdom, and seeing deeply for the new year
SATURDAY, January 21st, 12-6pm 2023
Presence Studio: 1412 Cornwall Ave, Bellingham, WA 98225
$75
Guided by Summer Starr with support from Kelsey Maloney, Monika Denise and Rebecca deGraw
Wild Card: An open floor movement lab
Thursdays Nov. 3 - Dec. 15, 6:30-9pm 2022
Saturday Dec. 3, 2-9pm
At Presence Studio
With Kelsey Maloney, Monika Denise, and Summer Starr
