Learn How to Bring Balance to Your Life.
Look to Brighton Pathways for ancient practices and educational opportunities led by holistic healthcare professionals to help you tend to your mind, body, and spirit. Returning balance to your life will enhance your overall health and wellness.
T'ai Chi
Pronounced tie chee chwan, T'ai Chi Ch'uan is an ancient Chinese exercise that blends self-healing, meditation, and martial arts. Noted for its slow, steady, and rhythmic movements, T'ai Chi is a gentle exercise performed calmly and peacefully, often in groups in the outdoors. The relaxing state that results in reduces tension and increases vitality, making it a beneficial practice for all, regardless of age or condition!
Brighton Pathways offers the Yang Style—Short Form—as taught by Professor Zheng Manjing (Cheng Man-ch'ing). Students learn the 37 postures linked by flowing movements that fully exercise the body, the mind, and the spirit. During the practice, students become aware of body mind spirit as one and its inseparable connection with one's subtle breath energy or qi (chee), the life force or energy found in every living thing. Life is movement! Even stillness contains energy. We will explore the many different qualities of qi in our classes.
Long-time T'ai Chi practitioner Diane Macchiavelli, L.Ac., was a student of Robert W. Smith (1927-2011) and has studied the Ancient Chinese Philosophies, including Taoism and Buddhism for over 35 years.
Check our calendar or contact Diane by email to verify T'ai Chi Class dates and times.
Yoga
The goal of yoga is to bring peace and focus to the mind. This sense of calm is the direct result of asana (yoga poses) and pranayama (intentional breath work). Classes offered by Mary Aman, M.A., E-RYT 500 aim to combine these two in order to maximize centering and relaxation.
Mondays, 5:45–7:00 p.m.
For the continuing practitioner with a two-year minimum of yoga. Having harnessed stability in the standing poses, level two continues the exploration by carefully incorporating seated forward bends, backbends, and inversions into class. Come and set a tone of presence and connectedness for your week.
Saturdays, 9:00–0:15 a.m.
For beginners or those desiring a mild, evenly paced class, this class teaches the foundations of a balanced practice. Enjoy a revitalizing class in a supportive environment.
Email Mary for more information and to verify class dates and times.
Meditation
Shamanic Healing
Found throughout the world in most cultures, and is at least 30,000 years old—the oldest known form of healing. Shamanism is not a religion; it is the mystical underpinning of all the major world religions. Although "shaman" is a Siberian word for a spiritual healer, shamanism has also been practiced in parts of Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, Greenland, and native North and South America throughout history. That it has endured and prospered through the millennia speaks to its effectiveness.
Shamanism is an ancient spiritual methodology of direct revelation for connecting to spiritual guidance in our lives. One of its most important techniques is that of the shamanic journey, which transports one through a change in consciousness, from ordinary reality into non-ordinary reality—that reality in which everything is alive spiritually. The shamanic journey allows one to part the veils between the seen and unseen worlds to access information and healing that can help awaken us and restore us to wholeness.
When using shamanism for the direct spiritual healing of others, practitioners employ specific cross-cultural techniques and modify them by the teachings of the spirits with which they work. Shamanic healing addresses the spiritual aspect of a physical or emotional problem, which may or may not result in direct physical or emotional changes. Request a consultation with a shamanic practitioner.
The Shamanic Connection of Western New York offers instruction on How to Journey followed by a Shamanic Drum Circle on the first Wednesday of the month at Brighton Pathways. Visit the group's website for more information and fees.