a note from Carl:
Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a retreat with Will Johnson in Santa Fe. Will is a unique character- kind of a modern mystic, a Rolfer, embodiment teacher, long-time meditator and author of many wonderful books, including two that I love, The Posture of Meditation and Breathing Through The Whole Body.
Will says his teaching model is “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski, and like the Dude, Will abides.
The retreat was exploring the practice of meditation through an embodied perspective, and in particular how Dr. Ida Rolf’s notion of “the line,” a kind of effortless, dynamic uprightness, can affect the practice of sitting meditation. I was there as part of group of 8 Rolfing / Structural Integration practitioners who gave a series of 3 hands-on sessions focused on sitting to each of the participants over the week of the retreat.
When you have sitting practice, embodiment explorations, and Structural work all happening in the same room, I am in a very happy place.
It was amazing to witness the transformation in the room over the course of the week. At the end of the first day, people were schlumped forward, antsy, clearly in great discomfort after the day of sitting, and by the 7th day, after a week of bodywork sessions and practice, people were naturally upright, and most people comfortable sitting 7-10 hours through the day. Pretty cool, right?
One of the things that Will brought up a couple times during the retreat was the difficulty that Ida Rolf had, toward the end of her life, in seeing that her work had become a kind of highly effective physical therapy. The work could help so much in terms of alignment, injury, getting out of pain, and moving more easily – which are wonderful – but to her were not the central point of her method. She was interested in human transformation and freedom.
I’ve heard the same sentiment was expressed by Moshe Feldenkrais. He felt his method was not just about getting out of pain, learning to move more easily, increasing coordination, and etc., but about learning how to learn, and becoming healthy, mature, free human beings. I love that his definition of health is the ability to live one’s unavowed dreams. And in describing a mature human being he speaks of one who has removed outer authority from one’s inner experience. It goes a little beyond free hip joints and having creative ways of working with that neck tweak.
I am so grateful for the contributions of Ida Rolf and Moshe Feldenkrais, and the way that these methods have helped me work with my own pain and injuries, and those of my clients and students over many years. And I deeply appreciate that the teachers and mentors that I have chosen to work with in those traditions hold to the view that the awareness, the learning, the integration and transformation are primary, and all the other good stuff is a side effect, though a much more enjoyable version of side effects than those that are read quickly during pharmaceutical commercials.
“Can you imagine your feelings when you discover that you are an ever-changing live organism, capable of self-correction and advancement for as long as you live? The optimism which accompanies the learning process, people’s enthusiasm when they discover it, as well as their appreciation, are what make this method so attractive and inspire commitment in both students and teachers.” -Ruthy Alon
As we enter into the early hints of fall, this wonderful John O’Donohue poem captures what I imagine Moshe and Ida would want carried on with their methods:
For Freedom
by John O’Donohue
As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.
As the ocean absolves itself
Of the expectation of land,
Approaching only
In the form of waves
That fill and pleat and fall
With such gradual elegance
As to make of the limit
A sonorous threshold
Whose music echoes back among
The give and strain of memory,
Thus may your heart know the patience
That can draw infinity from limitation.
As the embrace of the earth
Welcomes all we call death,
Taking deep into itself
The right solitude of a seed,
Allowing it time
To shed the grip of former form
And give way to a deeper generosity
That will one day send it forth,
A tree into springtime,
May all that holds you
Fall from its hungry ledge
Into the fecund surge of your heart.
Wishing you well in the fecund surge of your heart,
Carl
1. If you are interested in experiencing the liberation of Structural Integration sessions around sitting, next week Carl will be offering a 3-series program working specifically with sitting (whether for meditators, or for the rest of us who sit in chairs in our daily life.) You can sign up next week and the sessions can be used anytime in the next year. More details coming next week!
2. It’s been a long time since we’ve offered a full weekend of immersion into Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons and we are psyched! Registration is now open for our Fall Feldenkrais Immersion Retreat: Mindful Spontaneity, Oct 1-2. We’re thrilled to spend a whole weekend diving into gentle and powerful Feldy lessons – it’s amazing what can unfold when you spend this kind of time and intimacy with yourself in a bodily way! Read more below.
3. Would you like to join Erin and Nan Seymour in Santa Fe for an amazing Embodied Life Retreat this fall? The theme is Walk In Beauty, and will feature brilliant Feldenkrais lessons to support walking with grace and pleasure, morning meditation (sitting and walking), powerful Embodied Life practices, and afternoon River Writing sessions, along with plenty of free time to stroll the gorgeous and inspiring streets of Santa Fe? Spaces are filling! We have a wonderful group of people gathering for this one-of-a-kind Embodied Life retreat in Santa Fe. The discounted room block at our boutique hotel in Santa Fe is available– so please sign up and book your room very soon! We’d love to have you join us. Men and women are warmly welcomed. It is going to be aaahhhmazing! We can hardly wait! We have TWO SPOTS left.
4. You’re always warmly welcome to join us for Thursday morning meditation from 7-8am at our home studio. Email for location in the Avenues of SLC. Two 25-minute sits punctuated by a short embodied movement practice between. Come for the first sit only or stay for it all. Come as you are. You are enough.
5. We have just one spot left for our fall class! Contact us if you are interested.
Lastly – Thank you for reading!! We are so grateful for you.
