Brighton May 2007

Making space for awareness
There are fundamentally two different ways in which we create new things. The first approach is where we reach out to the world and actively seek new ideas. In our fast-moving, downloading culture, there is a strong pressure to decide what we are looking for and then to apply our focused attention on the world around us in order to find it. But this ‘will-based’ or driving process can have the effect of placing a limit on our degree of openness to what else might be present. As a result, what we think is ‘breakthrough’ may only be ‘repackaging’, leaving a great deal of potential unmanifested.

The other way to create new things is to let the world come to us. This mode of creation is in harmony with the world. It involves us being completely “present” and feeling and sensing everything which is happening, so that we can really sense all the opportunities there are for creation.

This introductory three hour workshop is an opportunity to experiment with ways in which we can develop a greater capacity for creativity, by taking in more of what our environment has to offer, so that we allow the world to come to us. Sometimes, the most ordinary is also the most unique.

Participants in the workshop will be able to share some new techniques from ‘Embodied Presence Practice’ developed by Arawana Hayashi. Arawana is a dancer, choreographer and a Shambhala senior meditation teacher. She is currently working with Otto Scharmer at the Presencing Institute in the USA. She looks at how embodied practices can be used to bring about profound change for some of the most pressing social and global issues.

The facilitators at the Critical Incident, Amy and Chris, will be sharing some of the basic practices which can enable individuals and groups to increase awareness and widen their window of perception, so that they are better able to sense what is emerging in their environment. The session will start on an individual basis and, time allowing, be extended to whole group sensing. Simple movements will be used. No dance background is needed. We consider participants to be co-creators.

‘Your state of consciousness determines how you act in the world and interact with others.’ Eckhart Tolle, ‘New Earth’, 2006.

The facilitators

Chris Tero is a qualified dancer, mover and musician. He freelances in corporate, higher educational and entertainment fields.

Amy Barnes is a facilitator, Gestalt coach and trainer. She freelances in corporate and further educational fields.

Amy and Chris are working together to develop Embodied Presence Practice and to see how it may be used in the service of bringing greater awareness, integration, connection and wholeness to individuals and groups.

The beautiful picture was taken in Hawaii by our great friend and collaborator, Simon MacCarty.