The Local Light

10K Walk/Fun Run: 6th Annual Step Out to Stop Abuse

The sixth annual Step Out to Stop Abuse 10K walk/fun run kicks off this year at 10 AM on Saturday, September 6 at the totem pole at Addison street in Lincoln Park.

Entertainment will be provided by the Ruth Ghant Memorial Gospel Singers, the Korean Drumming Corps and the Peace Bus. The celebration includes food and beverages provided by the Northside Cafe and the New Wave Riders jet skiing team, Big Apple Bagels, Power Bars and Wrigley's Gum. Sponsors include The Body Shop, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois and the Women's Jewelry Association.

The walkathon is an important outreach and fundraising effort which benefits five area agencies that support women and children who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, Chicago Abused Women Coalition (the hosting organization), A Friend's Place for Battered Women & Their Children, Korean American Women in Need, Rape Victim Advocates, and Sarah's Inn.

Pledge sheets are available at all local The Body Shop outlets or through the Chicago Abused Women Coalition.

"Home is Where the Art Is" to Benefit Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

On Friday, September 19, the Aldo Castillo Gallery at 233 West Huron, Chicago, hosts "Home is Where the Art Is" to benefit the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

More than 40 works of art including paintings, drawings, photographs, works on paper and sculptures by such artists as Peter Himmelman, John Cougar Mellencamp, Hollis Sigler and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones will be sold through live and silent auction. A percentage of the sale price of any piece sold from the concurrent show by artist Luis Fernando Uribe will go to the Coalition. Music will be performed by Michael Miles and Friends of the Old Town School of Folk Music and a light buffet is included in the festivities. Aldo Castillo is a member of the Chicago Art Dealers Association.

Proceeds are earmarked for the Women's Empowerment Project, which works to break the cycle of poverty and despair by giving homeless women with children a supportive, safe environment to develop self-esteem and the skills necessary to better their lives. Now WEP is developing Brand New Beginnings, the nation's first cooperative building to be developed, owned and operated by women..

The event is $15 per ticket. For information, please call (312) 435-4548.

An Unusual Workshop to Improve Speaking and Singing

Toward the end of this month, Marina Gilman brings to Chicago a unique perspective to speaking and singing, combining body movement and awareness with the best of both the science and the art of using the voice. She is combining her background as a Feldenkrais practitioner with knowledge gained as director of the vocal coaching program at Cornell University as well as participating in a Masters of Arts program in Speech/Language Pathology at Northwestern University.

Marina is presenting a workshop, Dynamic Anatomy of the Human Voice, for those who wish to learn to speak and sing with greater ease and range of expression. A brief discussion of the anatomy of the voice will be combined with Feldenkrais lessons aimed at improving speaking and singing ability, with a focus on two of the many dynamic properties of voice use -- breathing and resonance.

The workshop will be on September 28 from noon until 4:30 in Chicago. Before September 15 the fee is $50; $65 thereafter. For more information, contact Charlotte Palumbo at 773/561-8023.

Pre-Announcement Sales of Meditation Tape Brisk

The folks in the office listened to the first in a series of meditation tapes by Mark Earlix -- and the consensus is that it's a winner. 45 participants who previewed it at a recent healing workshop Mark presented thought so too, and ordered 83 copies as gifts as well as for themselves. One tape is titled "Higher Self Meditation", a soothing meditation with a unique backing of music, intermittent chant by a woman's voice, and the sound of Aum (Om). The second tape in the series, "Breath of God Chant", without the spoken meditation can be used with anyone's personal meditation. To order the tapes, write or phone The Art of Healing, Mark Earlix, 1761 Harrison St., Glenview, IL 60025 or phone 847/657-0659. The cost of each tape is $12.95 plus $3.00 s/h. Cash, check or money order accepted.

Wellness and Massage Training Institute
Announces Unique Addition to Training Program

The Wellness and Massage Training Institute in Willowbrook, Ill., will hold an open house on Friday, September 19 from 7 till 10PM during which faculty and staff will discuss WMTI programs in massage therapy, Ortho-Bionomy™ and continuing education, and announce a new Oriental Studies Program. Jeneva R. Garrett of the institute told us that no single school in the midwest offers such comprehensive study of Jin Shin Do®, Shiatsu and Tui Na all under one roof.

Jin Shin Do and Shiatsu are Japanese systems in which the chi or life force is regulated at pressure points as it travels along invisible pathways (meridians) on the body. Tui Na, literally translated as "push and grasp" is well-established in the Chinese health care system. Oriental Studies students declare their emphasis in one of these three areas after completing core courses such as anatomy and physiology, traditional Chinese medical theory, and point and channel location.

The 700-hour training program has been accredited by the Accrediting Commission of the American Massage Therapy Association Commission on Massage Training Accreditation/Approval. The new 750-hour program in Oriental Studies exceeds requirements of the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association. WMTI is a private vocational school approved by the Illinois State Board of Education.

For more information, call 630/325-3773, ext. 10, or visit the school's website at www.wmti.com. The institute is located 30 minutes from downtown Chicago.

Meditation on the Aramaic Words of Jesus

The Abwoon Study Circle, meeting each month in southern Chicagoland locations, focuses each month on the works of Neil Douglas Klotz, author of Prayers of the Cosmos and Desert Wisdom, and founding director of the Center for the Dances of Universal Peace.

The study circle meets to renew ancient traditions present in the Middle East at the time that Jesus lived. Participants dance a line of the Lord's Prayer cycle and experience the deeper wisdom that comes through such practices as body prayer, walking meditation, sound and breath awareness.

Monthly meetings, starting in October, are to be the first Sunday of each month from 2 to 3 PM, followed by a meeting of the Dances of Universal Peace from 3 to 5 PM. The location is the Unitarian Universalist Community Church, 70 Sycamore Drive at Western Avenue, Park Forest, Illinois. For more information, please phone Ed Dixon at (219) 838-8719.

Wedding Bells at Unseen Insight in Niles

"Wedding bells were ringing Friday night -- not in a church but a Niles gift shop," The Niles Herald-Spectator (a Pioneer Press newspaper) and The Lerner Life of August 14, 1997, told neighbors in features on Mary Soutar's and Jim Johnson's wedding held recently at Unseen Insight, the metaphysical shop at 7507 North Milwaukee Avenue.

The bride and groom first met on a radio station dateline. Later, a reading by numerologist Philip Clark convinced the couple that the number significant to both of them, eight (togetherness, the power to work together as a couple), indicated that theirs would be a successful marriage. The numerologist, who also happens to be a minister, conducted a traditional wedding in the specially decorated shop.

One newspaper reported the bride's comment that the store is one of the most spiritual places she has ever seen. June Hammond of Unseen Insight said, "This is a first for us!" Pictures showed guests joyfully ringing small, hand-held wedding bells to celebrate the nuptials.

On the Way to the Chicago Area:
Continuum - A Path to Awakening

Continuum: breath work, movement, vibrational therapy, hands-on energy therapy, guided imagery and body awareness techniques that are combined to transform passive existence into whole, conscious living. Janet Ko, who has facilitated breath and movement workshops across the U.S. will be returning to Chicago to teach a weekend workshop, a Deepening class and private sessions all based on Continuum training.

The weekend workshop, Awakening Your Body, is to take place October 11 and 12 at 4057 North Damen Avenue, Chicago; and then on Monday, October 13, a Deepening class will expand on the weekend to encourage greater exploration of non-linear resources that can penetrate through fixed patterns.

For further information about the Awakening Your Body workshop, the Deepening class or private sessions, please contact Julie Andelin at Prism Promotions, 773/472-5298.

Whole Life Expo Countdown

The Whole Life Expo, a celebration of all aspects of the body, mind and spirit connection from complementary and holistic health to personal growth, arrives in the Chicago area October 10-12 at the Rosemont Convention Center. Appearing at the three-day event will be many of today's most popular and best-selling authors (Dr. Wayne Dyer--Your Erroneous Zones, Your Sacred Self; James Redford--The Celestine Prophecy; Julia Cameron--The Artist's Way for instance), several of the people featured in our A Conversation With... (including Brad Keeney, whose interview is in this issue), twenty-seven hours of music and movement, and workshops and lectures featuring many of our advertisers.

Watch for the center section in our October issue. It will contain several pull-out pages, an advertisers guide that will tell you who to watch for, where their booths are, and when they're speaking or performing.

Alternative / Complementary Therapies
Offered at New Health and Wellness Center

With the August 18 opening of The Health and Wellness Center at 5252 North Western Avenue in Chicago, the future of health care is available right now. To fulfill their goal of top quality care for the whole person, the Center offers medicine as well as an array of alternative and complementary therapies.

The goal of the Center is to create a blueprint for the medicine of the future where allopathic physicians work hand in hand with practitioners of traditional modalities such as acupuncture and Oriental medicine, ayurvedic medicine, homeopathy and various type of massage. Of course, osteopathy, chiropractic and naprapathy will also be offered.

Here you will find the herbalism of Europe, Native America and the East. Various types of psychotherapy and spiritual counseling including rebirthing and past-life regression are offered as well as Native American and Incan shamanic practices.

Energy work includes Reiki, crystal healing, therapeutic touch and rebirthing. Various other modalities include aromatherapy, medical astrology and iridology. In addition to such services, classes in health education will include yoga, meditation and tai chi and the center will be offering lectures on health-related subjects.

The practitioners at the Health and Wellness Center are pleased and excited to be able to offer a wide range of possibilities to help people achieve not just wellness but radiant health. For more information, call 773/271-9460.

The Center is planning to expand and is accepting applications from practitioners of holistic medicine and all alternative, complementary therapies. Those wishing to apply should call the above number and ask for Sally Golf.

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