This Work
How to describe this work? Is it even work? I would say it is an exploration, an enquiry into what it is to be alive…an open ended re-discovery of what is most precious, in good company..
In the groups I hold, I provide a structure in which each participant is invited and supported to come to rest just as they are.
Simple. Astoundingly simple. But not necessarily easy! This is because we have so many ways to avoid, grasp, compare, judge, bypass what is actually happening – and by sidestepping the present we also sidestep who we most deeply are. We settle for an idea, a memory, a hope, and we are constantly missing ourselves; and with this comes a sense of futility, depletion, a sense of not being quite true to ourselves, of not being good enough, and always seeking something more, or less or different. Seeking love, approval, success, peace, aliveness…
The seeking is in some way evolutionary: it is a profound calling to something we intuit is possible. But it is also taking us out of what we are longing for, and in a constant search which is seldom satisfying.
So we stop. Here. Now. Like this.
We meet what we meet. We feel it.
We connect to our own bodies, to the space, to one another.
We move, we dance, we rest.
We hear and see each other.
We start to feel the possibility which life offers us.
We taste what it is to let go of the search and land where we are.
We feel ourselves coming back to our true nature.
To Love. Trust. Simplicity. Aliveness. Not our ideas of these qualities, but the felt sense of them.
Magic happens.
And magic happens because we are co-creating a field where the potential can come through – because when two or more are gathered with a commitment to what is real and precious; with curiosity, humour, honesty, willingness… something happens which is beyond words and we are all transformed by that.
And slowly, slowly (or sometimes suddenly) the habits of a lifetime which have kept our life force, our love, our creativity and our honesty down, begin to be felt directly, painfully, shockingly. And that very pain, or shock, wakes us up from our unconsciousness and is the fuel which we need to live from another ground; to let old outmoded habits drop away, to rediscover a more creative, beautiful, truthful way of being and acting in the world.
This is a very individual process, different for everyone, and yet it is a collective process too and one in which we need one another for transformation to occur. Some of the work is about relating to our aloneness and is necessarily a solitary enquiry. But the many wounds we carry which have kept us out of our own fully lived existence have happened in relationship – and must be healed in relationship.
Until there is some recognition - and somatic and energetic integration – of our wounds, we will necessarily continue to perpetuate those difficulties in our interactions, our thought processes and our choices in life, most often unconsciously. And this affects not only our lives but all those we come into contact with – for better and for worse – and therefore effects the world.
Some people worry that engaging in this kind of process is self-indulgent navel gazing while the world around us is turning to shit. But how can real change happen – and I am talking about a paradigm shift – unless we are able to come from a deeper ground in our responses to the massive changes which are occurring in our world?
I don’t have any answers, but I do feel a passion for the revelation which is possible.
Welcome!
Movement of Being was started 25 years ago by Colin and Fanny and their work has mostly been held in a small retreat centre which was part of their home in South Devon. Following Colin’s recent death, Fanny continues the work herself, offering open workshops and retreats as well as several ongoing groups which meet for 2 or more retreats a year, and sometimes collaborating with colleagues who work in similar ways.
Photography : Amy Clark