Prose and Poses

03/10/2025

Amidst so much noise and the change of seasons, it can be normal to drown out the wisdom of the body. QOYA & Sound offer us another way. When we make time to listen, we also create space to honor the deeper, truer threads of our lives.

In this 2-hour experience, Leslie and Astrid will guide you through QOYA-inspired movement—to get out of your head and into your body—and an immersive Sound Soak. QOYA is a feminine movement practice that combines the benefits of fitness, like stretching and strengthening, with the wisdom of yoga and the creative expression of dance. Sound allows you to harmonize with your body as the soothing resonance of seven crystal singing bowls, a gong, and chimes carry you to deep inner peace.

Cost $45 nonmembers | $40 for The Center members

https://thecenterslo.com/events

Give yourself the gift of spaciousness to listen with your body, mind, heart, and spirit.

*Leslie and Astrid have curated a full experience. Please arrive 10 minutes early to settle into the space, so you may receive the greatest benefit. No experience necessary. Wear warm, comfortable layers.

01/28/2024

10/05/2023

"I feel a great regard for trees; they represent age and beauty and the miracles of life and growth." ~ Louise Dickinson Rich 🍂

Thank you to these beautiful souls who came out to dance QOYA inspired movement with us. We journaled ✍🏼 with our pens and our bodies to explore our relationship to Embracing Change. Loved experiencing this sweet container with Wise, Wild, Free women.

Thank you for the open space ; the lovely gifts 🍃🤍🍃; and the facial massage/gua sha sequence goddess ☺️(they can’t wait to meet you all n YouTube).

Stay tuned for our next Qoya gathering (probably November). Subscribe to my mailing list and NEVER MISS A CLASS. 💜

https://www.proseandposes.com/connect-1

09/14/2023

“Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.” - Audre Lorde

Rather than ignore or eliminate your contradictions, what if you tried to live with them?

What if they are, in fact, the most interesting parts of you?

✍🏼 Writing Prompt 1: What are some of your contradictions? Make a list.

I am shy…, and I am a performer.
I am an optimist with a few layers of hard-earned pessimism.
I am mostly vegetarian, and I eat fish (swimming vegetables?!).
I want to be “part of” and need to feel “distinct from.”

✍🏼 Writing Prompt 2: Pick one. Tell about a time you noticed your contradictions?

I long to be a part of the group—and I don’t want to be part of the status quo.

Debrah Levy said it best, “Sometimes we want to unbelong as much as we want to belong.”

As a young person, I was a mystic for Jesus, rejecting the prosperity gospel mega churches of the South for living room Bible studies and folksy worship music.

As a married woman in my twenties, I longed to feel deserving of my place in graduate school yet rejected what felt like a spiritually-vacant intellectualism more concerned with irony than truth, more proficient and debate than storytelling, more sarcastic than sincere. I wanted to be accepted but never one among.

I’m my forties, I seek the stability of family, status, relevance and I dismiss these conventions in the same breathless confession. I may not get to be a biological mother, but I will mother those I love with emotional support, gifts, honesty.

These contradictions are not necessarily easy to exist within, but they are what shape me; they are how I shape light.

And what of you? How do you live with your contradictions? Can you experience harmony with the dissonance?

Make your list. Write your story. Share it with me if you like (tag ).

Come explore this theme in our next MUSE - Writing Circle, Friday, September 22, 7-9pm in San Luis Obispo, CA. 💜✍🏼☺️

Venmo $35 & your email.

https://venmo.com/u/Leslie-Stjohn

04/04/2023

Have you met your Muse? I met her alone in a warm pool under tall redwoods late at night. She took me as a dance partner gliding me through water—spiraling and spinning, softening and allowing. Another time she held my hand, guiding me through golden-hour streets of Paris. And again, through a village to Erik Satie’s house, where I met my vision of heaven: an attic glowing white flooded with natural light, empty of everything except a ghost piano playing Gymnopédie. My Muse is confident, quiet, sensual, and always leading me toward beauty.

Where has your muse lead you? How has your muse helped you write? Create art? Cultivate your own life as your greatest masterpiece?

Though the stereotypical artist – muse relationship often shows the muse as a young, attractive, female figure existing at the mercy of an influential, older male, I know the Muse to be an embodiment of the divine feminine. She is here to guide and teach, love and create through and with us.

“At their ancient origin, the muses were far from passive subjects for an artist to paint or write about. Instead they were agents of divine inspiration,” says Ruth Millington, in her book Muse: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History’s Masterpieces.

Muses, whether physical or energetic embodiments, offer emotional support and intellectual energy.

Even more evocative is how we can become our own muse. Artist such as Frida Kahlo have, “framed themselves as their own muse to disrupt dominant narratives, explore their identity, and even heal themselves” (Millington).

Are you curious to meet your muse?

Join us April 14th, 6-8 for MUSE - Writing Circle. ✍🏼

This is not an academic writing workshop, focusing on critique; rather this is a supportive circle for generative writing.

MUSE is an experience, drawing from movement and writing, that takes us out of the analytical mind and into the creative, intuitive imagination.

Reserve your spot by sending $35 & your email to Venmo: -stjohn

Once I receive your email & payment, I will send you more deets, including the location.

I can’t wait to see how your Muse reveals itself to you.

Leslie 💜
Morningstar Anton

02/18/2023

How do you give yourself permission to slow down, to rest? Qoya is teaching me. 🌿🤍🌿

6 Likes, 1 Comments - Leslie St. John () on Instagram: "Qoya Inspired Movement has been a most unexpected, much-needed gift in my life. I’ve operated in push/drive/go mode for longer than feels good. And while I appreciate this part of myself—she got me into great travel opportunit...

02/07/2023

Join me for a 4-day yoga retreat on the Central Coast of California

💫 I’m thrilled to share a special discount for this weekend only: POET20 💫

https://www.sagradawellness.com/yoga-writing-retreat

Leave your city life behind and revitalize on this special Prose and Poses retreat located at Sagrada Wellness. Unplug and Tune In to yourself.

Tucked into the Santa Margarita mountains just a short drive from the central coast of California, this four-day retreat is a convenient way to relax in the slower pace of nature; rejuvenate with yoga, meditation, and nourishing meals; and recharge your creative expression and well-being.

Wake to the beauty of birdsong and mist rising off grapevines. Meditate, journal, or take in the pristine, natural countryside. After a light breakfast, we will practice yoga to awaken and energize the body; pranayama to open channels for creative energy flow; and meditation to sensitize the intuitive mind. At the end of class we will explore writing prompts. We’ll also dance Qoya to remember our Wise, Wild, Free essence. Evenings include organic meals lovingly prepared by Lourdes and Richie, blue-hour walks, authentic rituals, fire-side storytelling, writing opportunities, hot-tub soaks, and quiet reflection under the stars. This retreat is designed to give you time and space to enjoy nature, practice yoga/Qoya, and cultivate intimate connection to your creative self.

You will leave feeling relaxed, connected, and inspired.

Learn more about itinerary, accommodation, and investment here:

https://www.sagradawellness.com/yoga-writing-retreat

Reach out to me if you have any questions.

Leslie 💜

10/04/2022

I’ve been thinking a lot about the metaphors we use to talk about attention. We “pay” attention. We “spend” time. As of attention and time are commodities. What if instead, they simply were. What if time isn’t something we wrangle and chase and spend but something we just are? What if attention— what we do with it, how we experience it— is prayer?

I sense this would bring a whole new quality of reference to my every day life. 🍂🍁🍂

How do you experience your attention? Frazzled, distracted. Focused, honed. Spread wide like a net together sensory impressions.

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer,” writes Simone Weil. I love this quote because it suggests unmixed attention is possible. And I’ve experienced it in yoga, focusing on breath or tuning my awareness to the sensations in my body. I’ve experienced it while staring at a Rothko painting, diving into a pool of red and purple. I have experienced it in a deep conversation where everything else falls away and you just tune in to someone else’s heart. I’ve experienced it with poetry, reading and writing. ✍🏼 Awakening to the senses. Suddenly attention is here and now, unmixed.

How do you experience your attention? How do you pray? 🙏🏻

PS - Also, I’m choosing not to experience my finitude making tons of . But I want to stay connected with this community. I want to keep sharing words, because words are life, they help order chaos, or at least let us dance in the chaos. Is anyone out there? Does anyone read these words? ☺️