Notes from the Field.

Here are some observations following our recent session.

Beginning with the meditation is exactly what is needed; by focussing on your breath, you start to notice thoughts coming in and out of your head (expectations, preconceived ideas, judgements of self and others, random trivia etc). After twenty minutes, your mind calms down, and the overriding feeling is of sinking or falling into the body. The quiet intellect is now in a position to witness the intelligence of the body, which although largely unacknowledged, is ever present in our day to day lives. We lie down, we stand up, we walk, we turn, we acknowledge each other through bowing.

A friend of mine from Northern Ireland, regularly uses the phrase 'catch yourself on', which basically means 'wake up', or 'get with the programme' etc. Through just being in our bodies, we can indeed 'catch ourselves on'. There is no-thing to do, now-here to be, no-one to impress; there's just your breath, your body and the floor. What luxury! Yes, and no. True, it is a gift to be able to deepen our physical awareness through authentic or archetypal movement, rather than just 'going through the motions', so to speak. It is, however a crucial, and largely overlooked source of energy and creativity; you might even say it is the source. Everything goes back to the body, so it would serve us well to re-member and reconnect.

This, of course, leads to more questions; Where do we disconnect, and why? Why is touch perceived as taboo, in Western culture especially? Has our reliance on technology increased our disembodiement, replacing physical connection with virtual connectivity?

Embodied Presence Practice, as conceived by Arawana is one (very effective) way of redressing the balance. The vocabulary of the body isn't about words; it's about sensation and feeling, and so in order to get grounded we need to go with the flow, and avoided rationalisation. An important aspect of the work, is being witnessed by your peers, who are actively supporting and encouraging the unfolding of your genuine expression. A very simple, yet powerful way to validate the experience.

That's it for now...more to follow! Chris.

Adding moves

We have been experimenting with the addition of 'moves' such as a lean, a click of the fingers, clapping hands, touch or contact and sound. We noticed that leaning or contact has the effect of taking us into contact improvisation. A lean in particular had the effect of taking us into dance with the observer, Simon, noticing that it looked like 'modern dance'. Sound had the effect of taking me out of my body and into creating something. An option we are experimenting with at the moment is the use of Arawana's 'archetyple' moves and if the opportunity arose, we would move into contact improvisation and when that is over, to return to the basic moves. It was interesting to notice the difference in energy and it was possible to maintain awareness without losing the emergent nature of what was in creation nor awareness of the field.