Experiential Sessions Saturday, October 23, 2010
Gentle Flow Yoga. Wendy Faith. yoga@wendyfaith.com
Start your day activated with energy, intention and a clear connection of body, mind and soul. Wendy Faith (Yoga Tree teacher and founding member of the Shamanic Cheerleaders) will lead you through a gentle flow yoga practice that will leave you energized and balanced. This is an all-levels class, easily accessible to beginning yogi's. Class will begin with pranayama (breathwork) to awaken and balance the body. Asanas (poses) and movements will focus on hip-openers (easier sitting in workshops), hamstrings (for all that walking amidst the booths), and shoulder/neck stretches (helpful when writing or at the computer). Use your breath and awareness to access your prana (vital life force), encouraging it to flow through your body all day long.
The Discipline of Authentic Movement: Non-duality through Movement. Rita Venturini. ritaventurini@rocketmaiLcom
Authentic Movement creates a basic duality, mover and witness, that offers different options to access the experience of non-duality. The mover allows him/herself to bring inner impulse into form as movement or dance, usually with eyes closed. The witness intends to empty him/herself of her own content to be present with the mover.
From this perspective a dual aspect that can be transcended is the one of separation between oneself and others. Fully being with the mover clarifies the personal boundaries thus allowing the witness to recognize the "false", projected or self imposed nature of the separation. This gives the witness access to the experience of being one with the mover's experience and they may have an intuition of the others inner landscape. The mover is encouraged to listen to their inner impulses and move. The consciousness of the witness allows the mover to deepen their ability to surrender to the point of just becoming a full expression of movement, without the conscious presence of the doer. In a group setting it is then possible to experience many movers clearly "moved" by the same energy. In the duality of the form, witnessing the expression of non-dual consciousness becomes possible.
In the brief experience we are offering, we will all have the possibility to touch on some of these moments in which separation becomes unity. Come ready to move - everyone welcome.
TransDanceŽ. Heather Munro Pierce. dance@templfartsinstitute.com
Come engage in an embodied exploration of the delightful and divine "Dancing Universe" through music, movement and mindfulness. ATransDance journey integrates elements of tribal motion, freeform expression, moving meditation and activated imagination into a potent, playful and prayer-full ecstatic dance experience. We will let the possibilities, probabilities and opportunities of physics deliver us to the Mystery.
Spaciously facilitated, all movement is at your own pace and interpretation. Heather has facilitated inspirational, transformative and healing movement for over 20 years. As well as producing her own workshops and retreats in Northern California, she leads events for many groups and organizations, including Esalen, Spirit Rock, and die Omega Institute.
Breema: The Art of Being Present. Yasmin Bardor. yasmin@breema,com (The Breema Center)
There is a reality that is higher than what our habitual mind and senses tell us. In this dimension, Consciousness is the authority, not our mind. To be receptive to a higher level of consciousness, we need to be present. The aim of Breema is to bring us to a tangible experience of presence that becomes our foundation for a new dimension of health, consciousness, and self-understanding. The philosophy and principles of Breema address the essential nature of life, the deeper meaning of health and how to actualize it, and the means of gaining practical, self-verified knowledge that can lead to an understanding of our unique potential as human beings. Breema establishes a true body-mind connection that makes it possible to live fully in each moment, with a sense of wholeness and aliveness that supports an openhearted and open-minded posture towards life. Breema invites our Being to participate, and guides us towards higher levels of consciousness in which we can wake up to our essential nature. In his book, Breema and the Nine Principles of Harmony, Jon Schreiber, Director of the Breema Center and Breema Clinic, writes: "Working with the Nine Principles and practicing Breema gives us the possibility to create a new relationship to life, one that doesn't stem from our conditioning. Every moment we have of being present becomes the foundation of that relationship. Those moments organize you inside, and create an atmosphere that's free from past and future, free from your conditioning. When you connect to that atmosphere, you find yourself having new thoughts, new feelings, and a new posture towards life."
In this introductory workshop, we practice Breema partner work and Self-Breema exercises as we are introduced to Breema's Nine Principles of Harmony. Breema is practiced on a padded floor with comfortable clothing and socks.
Expressing the Inexpressible-Nondual Creativity in Action. Prema Akasha. prema@prema,us
The central intention of this presentation is to offer participants a lived understanding of their innate capacity to express the inexpressible – the truth, beauty, clarity, and insight that arise from the nondual perspective. We will accomplish this by mapping the territory of nondual expression and its foundations in silence, surrender, and structure. Then we will venture directly into diis territory through a simple yet engaging creative experience through which we can directly tap into the Unknown source of all creation. Drawing inspiration from nondual sages Nisar-gadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi, and weaving in threads of her unique style of "Zentertainment," Prema will lead you on an insightful, gentle, and engaging creative journey that opens doors of creative potential and possibility.
Living as a River: A Buddhist Practice of Nonduality. Boethipaksa Sering. bodhi@wHdmind.org (Wildmind uww.wildminet.org)
The goal of Buddhist practice is abandoning the notion of a separate and permanent self. Among the many techniques helping us move toward that goal, the little-known "Six Element Practice" is one of the most intriguing. The self is considered as: 1. Earth (the solid matter constituting the body) 2. Water (liquid) 3. Fire (metabolic energy) 4. Air (gases) 5. Space (the body's appearance and apparent separateness) 6. Consciousness (the flow of experience formed by sense-perceptions giving rise to feelings and conceptualizations).
These categorizations are not intended to point to real dualisms, but to help us let go of the self-identification that leads to the arising of the dualistic mind. In the case of each of the first five elements, we reflect on the element as it pres-endy exists within the body, and how it is nothing more than a temporary internalization of the external element. Each element is seen as physically flowing, and an appreciation of physiology helps us to see that ultimately there is no "internal" element or "external" element; there is simply the nondual element. Through deep reflection, the body comes to be seen not as a separate thing, but as an "eddy" within the greater flow of the elements. The sixth element, Consciousness, is seen through observation, as existing neither internally nor externally. Observing in the mind's eye these six elements inexorably flowing, we begin to realize that there is in fact nothing in our being that can form the basis of a separate and permanent self Grasping after self-identification begins to seem futile, and is increasingly relinquished. The ultimate goal is to abandon any identification, so that we live without reference to the concepts of self and other. This powerful tool for liberation helps us to have first, glimpses, and then an ongoing experience, of non-duality.
The Leadership Dance. Emmit Moulton Hancock. emmitmh@hotmaiLcom
Why is yoga a form of dance? Why is dance a form of yoga?
Our class will begin just like the old fashioned US Elementary School classroom, except this time we will recite a nondual pledge of allegiance to encourage Multiculturalism. Nondualism can be synonymous with Multicultural-ism. The Leadership Dance is an activity to build Human Trust, something that is lacking in most multicultural communities. (Putnam) The Leadership Dance can restore Our Trust in Humanity. Next we can form a circle to create a dancing group poem. We can take turns to share a word and/or sound with a movement for the rest of the class to repeat. We'll go through at least three rounds to emphasize how every person has an innate and wonderful idea about the leadership dance. This is an opportunity to define the dance in a personal and group community way! Then we get to dance to three different songs with a brief intro as to why these particular songs have been chosen while we practice favorite Yoga asanas. After each song we will have an opportunity to discuss in asana or movement our experience(s). The first song is Vogue by Madonna. The second song is Human Nature by Michael Jackson. And the third song is the Star Wars theme by John Williams (there will be plenty of light sabers for everyone to dance with). We will then practice group silence and stillness as a form of meditation and/or prayer. This is to join the supposed division of church and state. Multicultural dance education can only be provided in a place that allows the sacred. Here we get to claim the arts and sciences as sacred too. We will conclude by reading another poem about the Leadership Dance to experience the spirituality in poetry too.
Electronic Sama–An Exploratory Design Of Technosacred Space In Sufism–The AfTective Aesthetics Of The Electronic Spiritual Concert. AmirAziz Ghahary. amirazizz@gmail.com (Simon Fraser University), Dr. Diane Gromala dgromala@sju.ca (Canada Research Chair, School of Interactive Arts + Technology, Simon Fraser University)
In the culture of Persian Sufism, the spiritual musk concert of sama often represents an entry point into the consciousness of non-duality - a doorway to being liberated from the self. The ritual and aesthetic dimensions of the occasion have historically been an expression of a cultural interaction: a nuanced ritual within a spatial aesthetic and acoustic environment under the orienting guidance of the murshid, or Sufi master. Within many traditions, the breadth of outward observances is often less emphasized than the depth of mystical experience - the experience of non-duality being the essential Subject. To this end, spiritual cultures have always fashioned tools and instruments which were meant for affectation of the experiential state of practitioners, and just as the sacred musical instrument of the Kurdish 'Ahl-e Haqq' - the tanbur - was once intended as a contemporary technology, today electronic and digital media environments can potentially be designed and arranged to affect spiritual experiences of sincere seekers. By exploring the implications of ritual, aesthetics, and technology in the intersection of the spiritual and technological cultures, it will possible to propose the syncretic initiative of the electronic sama, or the electronic spiritual music concert. Through exploratory research in design, it will therefore be possible to discover how technologically-mediated aesthetics can be used within sacred space to create affect in sacred experience within Sufism. The design of affective technosacred space in this way will present a platform for sacred experience within Sufism, which can simultaneously express the ritual and aesthetics dimensions of the Sufi sama as well as the 'technophagic' repertoire of electronic music and interactive digital art. Ultimately by studying the phenomenological properties of the system, and their relationship to the aesthetic dimensions of design, it will be possible to contribute to the contemporary discourse pertaining to the implications of technology for spiritual practice, and specifically to an understanding of how modern technology can meaningfully augment the experiential access to religious states of non-duality, specifically within the Sufi practice of sama.
White Robed Monks of St. Benedict