Laura Lee - Ecstatic Trance: Ritual Body Postures

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about Laura Lee

ABOUT LAURA LEE

Laura Lee and her husband Paul are the Co-Directors of the Cuyamungue Institute (CI), a 501-c-3 non-profit educational research organization, a worldwide headquarters in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They are leading authorities on the practice of Ecstatic Trance Postures and the work of the late anthropologist Felicitas D Goodman. They teach and speak widely at online and in-person events, write the CI website, newsletter, articles, social media, manuals, add to the research and to CI’s extensive, 50-year collection of archives, and more.

They worked with Dr. Goodman the last ten years of her life and since 2000 have taught this work around the world. For the last ten years they’ve been at the helm of CI. They’ve certainly put in their 10,000 hours a few times over!

Current Teaching Engagements

This past year saw Laura and Paul move their presentations online, offering thrice-weekly events. From April 2020 to April 2021 they hosted over 140 two-hour Zoom sessions for an international community of 5,000. These were both experiential Ecstatic Trance Posture sessions, and their Sunday Lecture series, with topics alternating between their own presentations on various aspects of their work, and interviews with a wide range of multi-disciplinary guests to expand upon the research in its greater context. Recordings are posted on the Cuyamungue Institute Youtube and Podcast Channel, where you will also find media interviews with them.

Recent Teaching Engagements

Laura Lee and Paul travel extensively as presenters and workshop teachers. As CI’s Directors since 2011, they teach at CI’s worldwide headquarters in Santa Fe New Mexico with a full schedule of workshops during the summer season. Winters were spent traveling, teaching, and speaking internationally, most recently in Munich, Paris, London, Malta and Sydney, Australia. They enjoyed the opportunity to add another venue in 2017, when they were invited to collaborate with artist Mel O’Callaghan to bring CI’s Ecstatic Trance Posture Ritual to a modern art exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where they also choreographed a performance piece, and gave a one-day workshop for over 100 art students at the New School Parsons Paris. Laura wrote the script and narrated a short video, “The Cuyamungue Institute: Bridging Two Worlds” filmed and produced by filmmaker Mark J. Gordon.

Media Career

Laura Lee hosted “The Laura Lee Show” on nationally syndicated terrestrial radio talk show for over a decade, from Seattle stations KING-AM and KVI-AM. “This show was my personal quest to expand my worldview by talking with leading-edge experts from all disciplines who could help ponder those age-old questions: who are we, where did we come from, where are we going?” she says. “I invited my listeners to come along, and make up their own mind as we tried new ideas on for size.” From its inception, her show earned top ratings. After a decade, Laura left radio to join her husband Paul teaching Ecstatic Trance Postures. “It was time to dive headlong into the body of knowledge beckoning us. This work with CI has been rewarding on every level.”

Educational Background

Laura Lee earned a Bachelors of Arts degree in English Literature and Art History from the University of Washington. Semester-long overseas programs took her to Rome, Montreal, Jerusalem, and London.

writings

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LAURA LEE’S ARTICLES
Sacred Soundscape: A 12th Century Chapel …
Article on CI – Sacred Hoop Magazine
Art & Spirit – We All Speak Art
CI ONSTAGE IN PARIS: Consulting & Choreographing a Modern Art Exhibit

interviews / press kit

INTERVIEWS: Listen to Laura Lee & Paul, interviewed on these podcasts.

VIDEOS: Watch a 6-minute video on the Cuyamungue Institute written and narrated by Laura Lee and her welcome message.

PRESS KIT: Book Laura Lee & Paul for your podcast or event. See press kit & interview questions & what others are saying.

Laura Lee & Paul Robear love to talk their work with Ecstatic Trance Postures. Ask them about:

There are many techniques for spirit journeying, what is unique about this?
Who first decoded these postures as “ritual instructions” as depicted in ancient art, and when?
How did you get involved in this work?
What roles do postures play?
Briefly, what was the evidence that led Dr. Goodman to this in the 1960’s?
What else did Dr. Goodman do, to this put this long-lost spiritual practice back on the map for our time?
What did the laboratory tests find, as indicators of this natural physiological shift that supports an alerted state of mind?
How far back in time do these artifacts go?
How are they related to Yoga Postures?
What are the typical experiences, or range of experiences, with Ritual Body Postures?
What are the benefits, and is there a deeper meaning to these experiences?
Can anyone do this? What’s required?
What is ecstatic about this state of what Goodman called “Ecstatic Trance?”
How has this added to your lives, personally? How has this changed your perspective on life in general, and your life, personally?
What keeps you fascinated, what keeps you going, after decades with this work?
What does this perhaps indicate about the nature of reality?
You offer free, and open to anyone sessions over Zoom, why do you suppose you find this works equally well on Zoom, as it does in person, when practiced with a group?

free ongoing live events
SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS ON ZOOM

SATURDAYS: ECSTATIC TRANCE POSTURES with two-hour open sessions anyone can join. Hosted by Laura Lee & Paul, and includes a brief introductory lecture before diving right in!

SUNDAYS: CONVERSATION4EXPLORATION hosted by Laura Lee & Paul with our own presentations and interviewing guests from a wide range of multi-disciplinary fields to broaden the ongoing research into Ecstatic Trance Postures and to ask the underlying big questions of life — who are we, where did we come from, and where are we going — to better enjoy the journey with like minds!

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