Fall Session 2023 Monday nights, 6:30- 7:30 September 11,18, 24 & October 2 held at Full Circle
The four one hour classes will take you on a journey of finding your voice, confidence and clarity in communication. You will experience exercises both physically and mentally that can free and unlock your playful, childlike side to keep the mind youthful and enthusiastic.
These classes are Karen’s passion project which give you an experience that improves memory. Karen invites you to come back for another session even if you have enrolled before. Each class evolves into a unique experience depending on the dynamic of the group.
Reviews
“Who knew a month of Mondays would do so much to boast my mood and stimulate my mind. Karen’s course included exercises and information that I was able to put to use from the first session. Fun and informative! The lessons stick because they were introduced with laughter and movement and easily seemed to settle into the very core of me. I take those lessons learned into my everyday life well beyond the class. Thanks Karen”.
“By exploring script, annunciation, breath, timing, expression and movement I was engaged in learning new skills. Mostly it helped me to go inside and feel out and respond to the words. This gave me my true expression. I now can perform with confidence!””Karen is love and light all wrapped up in a bow! Thank you Karen.”
Full Circle would like to extend to you, as a clinic member, an invitation to join Karen for all four classes on Monday evenings for this interactive series of sessions that explore how you can improve your memory.
With such an interest being shown we are opening up the invitation to the class to your friends and family.
The cost of the classes offered is $200.00 for the four nights. Cost will be by donation for clinic members.
Please feel free to share this email with anyone you think might enjoy this class and isn’t on our email list.
Karen is Artistic Director of the Canmore Theatre School.
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/my-magnificent-mind/
Go on a playful journey to enhance your confidence, voice, and communication skills. Work with professional actress, Karen Barker. Her creative method improves memory through text, breathing and gentle movements. No experience necessary!
Full Circle would like to invite you to join Karen for a month of Mondays.
“My Aging Mind” is Karen’s passion project. The four one-hour classes will take you on a playful journey to enhance your confidence, voice and communication skills.
Did we say Memory? Her creative method improves memory though text, breathing and gentle movements.
Karen is a Professional Actress and Registered Massage Therapist who loves to weave the creative journey of being the best version of ourselves.
The class will be held at the clinic Monday evenings from 6:30-7:30 for the month of November, 2022.
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/my-aging-mind-speaker-series/
Rob Murray speaks with Karen Barker about why Shakespeare’s sonnets have been a constant source of inspiration for her, one she’d like to share with others through her “Sonnet in Your Pocket” passion project. They also discuss her desire to drive some spontaneous displays of love in the community with “The Love Project”, and how you can be a part of it!
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/new-passion-projects/
She is a professional actress and registered massage therapist. Barker moved from her home in Winnipeg to Canmore in 1998 with her daughter Aly.
“I was welcomed immediately by the community,” Barker said. “I opened the Canmore Theatre School, teaching classes for all ages and running my therapy practice in tandem. I am always open to weaving creativity in ways we can heal.”
Her love for the theatre and film started at a young age.
“I was a drama specialist in the parks and recreation department at 13,” Barker said. “I was accepted at Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1978 as an apprentice. After auditioning for the Vancouver Playhouse in 1979, I was accepted to train professionally and never looked back.”
Barker has been an actress in the TV series Heartland and she was recently in a Hallmark Channel movie called ‘Winter in Vail’.
“I was cast in Heartland season 10 as the head ER nurse,” Barker said. “The Hallmark movie was filmed in Bragg Creek and Turner Valley in the crazy snowstorms of November 2019. I white knuckled it to set. The film is about following your heart in life’s decisions. I felt that it was in perfect alignment to what I integrate in my practice and life. I play the real estate agent, Bev, who shows the star Lacey Chabert, a home she has inherited from a dead uncle in Vail. ”
She also had the experience of doing a Command Performance for the Queen.
“It was a Gala Performance of ‘Prairie Wind’ to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the opening of Saskatchewan legislature and the 1987 Royal Visit,” Barker said.
And she worked alongside Tennessee Williams in his play called ‘Red Devil Battery Sign’, at the Vancouver Playhouse.
In 2011, Barker was asked to head the ‘ArtsWell’ section of the Artspeak festival in Canmore.
“It introduced drumming, Qi Gong and walking the climbing rope Labyrinth, and presented Laura Schlessinger’s cello music at the RCMP Barracks.”
Barker was born with Necrotic femoral arteries at birth, which meant that her hips were deformed and she could not walk properly. She had hip replacement surgery in 1996 and then revisions to the surgeries from 2000 to 2011. At 14 years of age, she developed severe osteo arthritis.
“At 36 years of age, after I gave birth to my daughter Aly, I became cripple,” Barker said. “I could barely walk a block with two canes. Pain formed my understanding of what I do today. I became a practicing Buddhist in 1996 and explored Qi Gong to help train my mind to deal with the constant pain.”
Don Petersen of New World Samurai in Canmore tattooed Barker over her hip replacement scars. With Barker, they put together an ArtsWell exhibit called ‘Transformations, Scars Graced by Art’, with photos by Richard Alan Brown.
“The show was a story about four people who overcame a tragic incident which left them disfigured,” Barker said. “Their scars were transformed into beauty through tattoos.”
Barker was inspired by massage therapy because as a performer she used it to address her pain.
“I felt it was time to switch roles and be the therapist learning viscerally what constant pain does to ones heart and mind,” Barker said. “I trained with the Western College of Massage Therapy for a two year advanced course and never looked back. I took my portable table on the road as I performed, to treat company members.”
She discovered the work of osteopath Dr. Jean Pierre Barral in 1993.
“I knew in my heart it was calling me, so trusting the signs, I have been with him for 27 years on a yearly basis, as he shares his new research on the cranial sacral system, (visceral, neural and brain). These are gentle manipulations, which track external force trauma involving the emotions and mind,” she said.
“After 30 years with my basis in training massage therapy, I coin what I do to be called Integrated Osteopathy,” Barker said. “I assistant teach at the Barral Institute when I have the time. I am inspired when clients or therapists are relieved with gentle anatomical precision.”
Please visit her website karenbarker.ca for more information and to read her blog ‘Inspiring Health in the Human Spirit’.
Pam Doyle
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/art-for-arts-sake/
This pure heart meditation was inspired in the healing of Male/female relationship. If we live in this place all else falls away. The ego or energy of struggle we hold so tight to at times has nothing to take root in. In my heart I love and I act from there.
There is a great need in the healing of humanity the aspect of sexuality. So much hurt and old beliefs have been cultivated over millennia. My prayer in sharing this is that freedom and this purity take hold in all our hearts so we can be filled with the ease and grace of this joy filled celebration we call life.
Pure Heart Meditation I invoke the pure Heart I follow my breath Listening to the beating of my heart Quietly waiting Creating space
Sans thoughts Sans words Sans voices in my head
The brilliant light fills every space suspended I am pure of heart I am pure heart Let the frequency of truth resound within In its peace Lightness of peace I breathe in Expansive light Expansive peace The gentleness is easy Its beauty is soft
I am I am this light I am the highest understanding of light in the universe
Where do I feel tension? I feel tension in my shoulders Send the light there Let go of the holding in harmony with your breath
Release all old beliefs and hurt in all directions of time so you may live fully in this place Pure of heart has no room in its expansiveness for thoughts or voices It communicates using peace and love Saturate yourself with this love Its abundance and bounty supports the freedom of spirit on earth
Sans thoughts Sans words Sans voices in my head
Expand Purely Be at peace in this nothingness Fly into this abyss Of light Of compassion Of joy Become Pure Heart
Channeled Monday Jan 28, 2008
In Reflection: Meet me in the heart to share in the power of pleasure of the physical body, the power to heal, the power to anchor in together the highest understanding of love in the universe and have it radiate out to all humanity and the earth for re-balancing and healing.
Meet in the place of the pure Heart and set the intention that the generosity of come union will be abundant for all sentient beings.
The heart will guide you with unending oceans of light and creation.
I am your female. You are my male. Cherish the form.
Find the beauty in your heart to see, with love, the creation of form in the male and female. Hold it as your own completeness.
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/pure-heart-meditation/
1) Morning Mantra- I offer this day in service so it may benefit the highest and greatest good of all sentient beings.
2) Spiritual Stretches “7 minute workout”. Tutorial available on Karbarker Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qgbGwCkHis video 4 mins.
3) Make eye contact and greet all who pass you by. Be it a stranger or a friend treat them with the same openness of love and compassion.
4) Take 5 minutes, sit, feel the beating of your glorious heart. Count the beats and cultivate an inner and outer smile.
5) Feel the sun, breathe in and feel its warmth. Reflect how it nourishes you. Hold gratitude.
6) Take 5 minutes to follow your breath in and out of your body. Its rise and fall. Be conscious how it moves you physically and emotionally.
7) Bless All in Love.
It is in the cultivation of love and compassion that joy is born. It is through the diligence of a daily practice that the practice becomes ones nature. This mergence creates the radiance of love and joy that is felt by all living beings. Therefore pain and negativity of thought is transformed or recycled into the positive. Having the consistency in practice, the mind will become retrained in love.
Many have terms that describe the state of Mindfulness, being present, taking “time out” to slow down, but I seem to have discovered a precise description for myself that encompasses simplicity of a state of being. “Being Presence” the expansive embrace of mindlessness….coining the phrase “Live you Divinity” , Just do it!” is a contradictory in terms that requires reflection… or should it be….”Live your Divinity, Just be it! ”
My time in Goa has been one of intense, intimate, honest and personal reflection, truly experiencing new “Spiritual Stretching“. It encompasses the intention to be open in a state of receiving from others in ways I have never done so before..in this lifetime. The key word is softening to a place of the feminine where I am open to be taken care of….on all levels. Sounds lovely, but not easy from my life experience of being a single mother…..self employed and the story goes on…..re programming on a 180 degree turn with life….. No permanent home to go back to….non attachment on so many levels and experiencing freedom in ways I never thought, it could be defined. Physically, emotionally mentally and now spiritually.. Trusting in a power bigger than myself to guide me, believing in my heart. Choosing to be devoted to the honest voice within myself. Those voices you and I hear….listen….it is easier than the struggle of disbelief.
With constant power outages, I write because the internet is down again…One of the many things, I think, us as Canadians, take for granted. We are looking for high speed….In India…you are lucky to get a connection. Another voice, release and let go…It is India…the lesson serves me in other ways to slow down, have acceptance of what is and glide easy with myself and thru life….If there are struggles… cut the cord of responsibility and see what happens….others step in….a new reality morphs into being….those responsibilities are an illusion….set the intention to release the responsibilities you have for a few days and see what happens….you can always step in again if those around did not pick up the ball.
This is my unfolding homework or research in India….it will hopefully enrich my life so I can bring the awareness home and share with others another depth of the journey of being a spiritual being in a physical reality. What I can cultivate here for myself I ask that it happens for the highest good of all sentient beings. Have great compassion with yourself and others….play the game of life with joy…as it is a game…and free yourself on all levels ……I am FREE.
In reflection: The Power of Self Love is Profound allow yourself the experience
Permanent link to this article: https://karenbarker.ca/live-your-divinity-just-do-it/
Thanks so much for everything you do! The GERD conditions have improved significantly. I have had some pop and coffee and it still is good. My shoulder is better too.
Mom says daily that “Karen will be so happy my legs are working”
