Clare Norelle

Clare Norelle is a bilingual community yoga teacher, songwriter, and storyteller in Madison Wisconsin.  She engages children and adults with warmth and humor, supporting a sense of connection with their own bodies, with people close to home and far away, and with animals, plants, and nature.

Clare offers a variety of yoga classes in English and Spanish, including yin yoga, gentle hatha, flow yoga, chair yoga, yoga & dance games for kids and families, and Yoga, Music, and Movement sessions for young children.  

Through Greenroot Yoga LLC she offers individual and group sessions in Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY), an adjunct treatment for complex trauma, and presentations in English and Spanish about complex trauma and body-centered healing.  

Clare also offers performances for adults and for children, with songs in various languages and storytelling from around the earth.  She has several albums of music available, some for kids and families, and others for adults.

“Clare Norelle is a skilled, sensitive instructor of yoga.  She is acutely aware of the physical needs and limitations of her students, and her warmth, good humor and positive outlook help make her classes both relaxing and enlivening.”

–John

“Clare Norelle is an extraordinary storyteller and musician! Her performance was a great way to end our winter reading challenge.  There was a wonderful variety of stories, songs, and audience participation. Clare’s bright smile and energy captivated all ages.  We will look forward to having her at our library again in the future!  …Clare Norelle’s bilingual songs and stories more than met my expectations and the community’s.”

–Amanda Brueckner, Youth Services Librarian, Waterloo, WI

The earth our mother always says yes. From the skins of the mountains to the depths of the sea, across all her vast surfaces, she blooms with as much life as can possibly be. Yesses everywhere swimming and floating and running, dancing a trillion dances for the sun.  Can we learn to bring as much life as we can to every place that we are, as she does?  Can we learn to nurture what we love and not kill what we fear?  What is the answer?  Yes.

–Anne Herbert

Hello, and thank you for visiting this website!

In spring 2018 I finished a new album of music, Islands of Possible Things.  Some great musicians played on it with me, and I’m pleased with it.  You can hear clips from it on the Recordings page of this website, and can purchase Cds or Mp3 downloads there as well.  

During summer and fall 2018 I began facilitating individual sessions of Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY), through the Dane County Comprehensive Community Services program.  I love the clients I work with through this program, and love seeing them benefit from the practice.

In the fall I was also invited to be part of an ongoing mental health project in El Salvador, with Madison’s Sister City of Arcatao.  I will travel there in early January with a good group of people from Madison and from around the US, and then two or three more times throughout the year, to learn from Salvadorans about movement and storytelling practices that they use to support healing and resilience around trauma, and to share with them some practices used here, such as TCTSY, Adaptive Yoga (for people with physical disabilities), and the Community Resiliency Model (a popular education approach to trauma resilience developed at the Trauma Resource Institute in California).

To prepare for this ongoing work in El Salvador,  in October I completed the Adaptive Yoga teacher training through MindBody Solutions in Minnesota, and I hope to attend the Community Resiliency Model training in California in July.  I feel fortunate to be able to do this work in El Salvador, and to be developing some new skills for my work in both countries.

Here is a schedule with some of my upcoming classes, presentations, and performances in and around Madison.  Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions–I’d love to hear from you.

Wishing you peace,

Clare

Winter 2019

Community Yoga Classes and Sessions 

Mondays

1/14/19 – 3/11/19   and  4/1/19 – 5/13/19

7 pm Yin Yoga, MSCR East on Cottage Grove Rd.: http://www.mscr.org

1/21/19   

5:15 – 6:15 pm.   Trauma-Sensitive Yoga: a free practice at Shambhala Meditation Center of Madison, 408 S. Baldwin.  This is a free opportunity to learn about and explore some Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, in a gentle one hour practice.   Space is limited, so it’s important to register, at: https://freetraumasensitiveyogasession.eventbrite.com

1/28/19 – 2/25/19

5:15 – 6:15 pm Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, 5 week series for people in recovery from trauma, at Shambhala Meditation Center of Madison.  $100 or sliding scale for five sessions, and audio and visual support materials.

Registration and payment are through the Shambhala Center website, at https://madison.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=388203 

2/25/19 – 5/6/19  

10:15 am.  Yoga Suave con Sillas para 50+, MSCR Goodman Rotary  Una práctica de yoga muy suave para personas con más de 50 años. Para aprender más o inscribirse: http://www.mscr.org/winter-spring-program-guide-book-spanish

Tuesdays

1/15/19 – 5/21/19

10:30 am  Gentle Yoga 50+ Goodman Rotary MSCR Covenant: http://www.mscr.org

1:15 pm, 9/11 – 12/18:  Gentle Yoga 50+ Goodman Rotary MSCR Odana: http://www.mscr.org

Wednesdays

Mornings & afternoons: TCTSY individual sessions by arrangement

Thursdays 

1/17/19 – 5/23/19

10 am  Flow Yoga 50+, Goodman Rotary MSCR Odana: http://www.mscr.org

Afternoons: TCTSY individual sessions, by arrangement

1/17/19 – 3/14/19    and   4/4/19 – 5/16/19

6:15 pm Family Yoga and Dance, MSCR Hoyt: http://www.mscr.org

7:15 pm, 9/13 – 11/08: Yin Yoga,  MSCR Hoyt: http://www.mscr.org

Fridays 

Mornings: Yoga, Music, and Movement Sessions for young children, UW Preschool Lab and elsewhere

Afternoons: TCTSY individual sessions, by arrangement

Saturdays

1/19/19 – 3/16/19    and    4/6/19 – 5/18/19 

10:15 am, 9/15 – 11/10: Yin Yoga, MSCR Odana: http://www.mscr.org

11:30 am, 9/15 – 11/10: Family Yoga and Dance, MSCR Odana: http://www.mscr.org

Saturday and Sunday, 2/2/19 – 2/3/19

Songs, stories, and yoga at Camp HOPE, a free weekend camp for bereaved families near Rosholt WI:  https://www.camphopeforkids.org

The world is full of beauty, magic, miracles, and patterns that induce wonder… Emergence is one of the best concepts I have learned for discussing this wonder.   Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind.

The crisis is everywhere, massive massive massive.  And we are small.

But emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies.  Emergence is our inheritance as a part of this universe; it is how we change.  Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.

adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy