Bardos LAB 6 - 5/30/24
Final day. Felt like we did a real lab. So much has passed since we began. There was almost 5 or 6 weeks between - before our final two sessions. During that time was Antero's memorial and everythign that happened around that. Now I am planning a Ritual Songs lab in Ojai with Thia or trying to... I've put the film on hold. I just have too much to do. anyway... LAB
We started with warm up.
big focus on breath and relation to space and breath extending beyond the body and allowing ourselves to be breathed, to be moved. John later said that was helpful throughout the night.
Foundation Source: resistence as sacred. I'd done resistence as a resource before, but never resistence as sacred. it was strong, forceful, muscular in a lot of ways. but then also as I approached sacred it took on sacred force. strength. holding form against destruction. hard to describe.
Personal Trinity:
must start / must continue / must stop
ugh... very difficult. very personal. the must part made everything things I was resisting. or maybe things I didn't like or didn't want to be that way. perhaps that was residue of resistence.
Group Polarity: cowardice / courage - both, it became obvious, were layered on top of fear. I had a feeling that if I could get rid of the fear or undo it, that neither courage nor cowardice would be necessary. that courage was always in response to fear. not the absence. and that lack of fear might be more powerful than courage.
living self / dying self / new self
back to group polarity - resistance / surrender
three spaces leading from one side... dreaming / making / completing
final ritual:
realm of the self - find a sacrifice - enter realm of the god of bardos (or change)
hermes showed up here. I offered two faces - one in front of mine and another in front of that, with my two hands as masks. offered those, he threw me to the ground, dismembered me. put me back together as a puppet thing, made of wood not flesh, and gave me a bobble head and sent me back into the world as his instrument... to serve the god of bardos. the next time I entered, I offered a small and precious heart I took from my chest, held it like a precious baby and offered it... which was exploded into a thousand molecules... it reconstituted as a gigantic heart that subsumed everything. the sense was that my personal self kind of love was way too small and precious and was too small to handle constant change - the god of change made my heart so huge, when I returned to realm of self I started singing songs of pain and suffering that I had previously excluded. making a song of my arthritic food and painful ribs. it was blues and soul and dirges.
memory walk - no text. so many funny memories of things that used to be that are not now. funnily enough, I had that strong feeling of "this too shall pass" --- just the visceral experience of worlds of experience emerging and dissolving. things that used to dominate my experience are now nothing - just foggy memories.
Final day. Felt like we did a real lab. So much has passed since we began. There was almost 5 or 6 weeks between - before our final two sessions. During that time was Antero's memorial and everythign that happened around that. Now I am planning a Ritual Songs lab in Ojai with Thia or trying to... I've put the film on hold. I just have too much to do. anyway... LAB
We started with warm up.
big focus on breath and relation to space and breath extending beyond the body and allowing ourselves to be breathed, to be moved. John later said that was helpful throughout the night.
Foundation Source: resistence as sacred. I'd done resistence as a resource before, but never resistence as sacred. it was strong, forceful, muscular in a lot of ways. but then also as I approached sacred it took on sacred force. strength. holding form against destruction. hard to describe.
Personal Trinity:
must start / must continue / must stop
ugh... very difficult. very personal. the must part made everything things I was resisting. or maybe things I didn't like or didn't want to be that way. perhaps that was residue of resistence.
Group Polarity: cowardice / courage - both, it became obvious, were layered on top of fear. I had a feeling that if I could get rid of the fear or undo it, that neither courage nor cowardice would be necessary. that courage was always in response to fear. not the absence. and that lack of fear might be more powerful than courage.
living self / dying self / new self
back to group polarity - resistance / surrender
three spaces leading from one side... dreaming / making / completing
final ritual:
realm of the self - find a sacrifice - enter realm of the god of bardos (or change)
hermes showed up here. I offered two faces - one in front of mine and another in front of that, with my two hands as masks. offered those, he threw me to the ground, dismembered me. put me back together as a puppet thing, made of wood not flesh, and gave me a bobble head and sent me back into the world as his instrument... to serve the god of bardos. the next time I entered, I offered a small and precious heart I took from my chest, held it like a precious baby and offered it... which was exploded into a thousand molecules... it reconstituted as a gigantic heart that subsumed everything. the sense was that my personal self kind of love was way too small and precious and was too small to handle constant change - the god of change made my heart so huge, when I returned to realm of self I started singing songs of pain and suffering that I had previously excluded. making a song of my arthritic food and painful ribs. it was blues and soul and dirges.
memory walk - no text. so many funny memories of things that used to be that are not now. funnily enough, I had that strong feeling of "this too shall pass" --- just the visceral experience of worlds of experience emerging and dissolving. things that used to dominate my experience are now nothing - just foggy memories.
Bardos Lab 5 - 5/20/24
space relations
foundation source: authentic self?
polarity: ready / not ready
Group Polarity: white / black
Jog
Impersonal No-Form // Land of the Dead
Land of the Living // Land of the Dead
Memory Walk w/ Text
space relations
foundation source: authentic self?
polarity: ready / not ready
Group Polarity: white / black
Jog
Impersonal No-Form // Land of the Dead
Land of the Living // Land of the Dead
Memory Walk w/ Text
LAB 4 - after Antero's memorial. the next day
started with a focus on the breath.
then extending breath to relate to space itself.
then rises
and then river of impulses
then presence actions
Then foundation source: "sacred past" as foundation
warm up. 5 minute cycles
personal polarity: more / less
group polarity: loss and gain
then passes east to west - using "my past / my present / my future"
first pass was surrender, second was sustaining care, third was ritual actions.
Then final ritual was: land of the living - realm of the god of death.
started with a focus on the breath.
then extending breath to relate to space itself.
then rises
and then river of impulses
then presence actions
Then foundation source: "sacred past" as foundation
warm up. 5 minute cycles
personal polarity: more / less
group polarity: loss and gain
then passes east to west - using "my past / my present / my future"
first pass was surrender, second was sustaining care, third was ritual actions.
Then final ritual was: land of the living - realm of the god of death.
BARDOS LAB Session 3 - just John and I.
Warm Up- breath - extend into the space
relate to space - moving stretch
Foundation Source: Source Relations / Prayer Circle
resistance and anger eventually turned into exhaustion and pleading
Warm up:
self hate / self love - eventually a trinity added, sefl-forgetting - where something was coming through me for others over and over and over.
Group Trinity:
Creation / nourishment / destruction
destruction was hockey fights. punching through a window. punching a wall.
nourishment was very nice. massaging my feet. gentle gentle.
Trinity:
heat heart gut
gut was connected crouching and also something about food.
head voice
heart was ... can't read my notes.
approaching the God of Death: bringing text into that space, if possible.
'ferryman' word repeated related to god of death.
also, the whole section - "lord, lord method what pain it was to drown... " all through the end was so gentle and vulnerable and shook in the face of the god of death.
memory walk - memories that I needed to integrate specifically.
BARDOS LAB Session 2 - just John and I.
Space Awareness: used DIRECTIONS and LEVELS in the warm up. was interesting.
Foundation Source: that which our heart loves. - something about the ocean, different images of being in nature,
Personal Warm Up - was pretty gentle because of the heart loves foundation.
Personal Polarity: Chaos and Order - chaos was, well chaotic. I was flailing around. It had an enormous amount of energy. I am not normally a chaos person. It was wild and out of control. exciting and freeing. but also, surprisingly strong. didn't hurt myself somehow. actually felt good and freeing and empowering in the body. surprising in that way.
actual father - actual mother - holy father - holy mother
actual father: Vietnam rattled nervous system
actual mother: like a scared mouse, PTSD,
holy mother?
holy father?
quadrants:
living, dying, birthing, bardo in a cycle - dying I was some dying stag on the forest floor. living was being washed around by life, like being hurled by a turbulent ocean or tide, bardo was like a whisper of a cloud of a thing... a soul perhaps... back into birthing, and then reincarnating as living again - in living the second time it felt like my NEXT life as an opera singer.
The God of Death - passing through the narrow gate
found Christ as a god of death
found body being fed to the dessert in there... from Dune
some kind of barfing out darkness out of my heart, in order to then pick up a son a child and carry it back, it was about dying to myself in order to give birth to something I must serve entirely like a son. It was showing me what I must do, but I doubt that I will be able to. was the child i picked up or served, was it other or was it self-child?
Impersonal No-Form
Space Awareness: used DIRECTIONS and LEVELS in the warm up. was interesting.
Foundation Source: that which our heart loves. - something about the ocean, different images of being in nature,
Personal Warm Up - was pretty gentle because of the heart loves foundation.
Personal Polarity: Chaos and Order - chaos was, well chaotic. I was flailing around. It had an enormous amount of energy. I am not normally a chaos person. It was wild and out of control. exciting and freeing. but also, surprisingly strong. didn't hurt myself somehow. actually felt good and freeing and empowering in the body. surprising in that way.
actual father - actual mother - holy father - holy mother
actual father: Vietnam rattled nervous system
actual mother: like a scared mouse, PTSD,
holy mother?
holy father?
quadrants:
living, dying, birthing, bardo in a cycle - dying I was some dying stag on the forest floor. living was being washed around by life, like being hurled by a turbulent ocean or tide, bardo was like a whisper of a cloud of a thing... a soul perhaps... back into birthing, and then reincarnating as living again - in living the second time it felt like my NEXT life as an opera singer.
The God of Death - passing through the narrow gate
found Christ as a god of death
found body being fed to the dessert in there... from Dune
some kind of barfing out darkness out of my heart, in order to then pick up a son a child and carry it back, it was about dying to myself in order to give birth to something I must serve entirely like a son. It was showing me what I must do, but I doubt that I will be able to. was the child i picked up or served, was it other or was it self-child?
Impersonal No-Form
Bardos LAB - Session 1
Just me and John tonight
Started the evening and arranging the room - preparing.
Then we convened for a short chat about the work we were undertaking.
Sequence:
Space relations - focus on 360 degree feeling the space, which lead into a rive of impulses exercise starting with two feet on the floor, but that merged into having three limbs on the ground at all times, but that lead to four limbs on the ground - a version of the CAT.
Foundation Source: Reality - set up as stronger in the middle of the room, to enter and approach the center, make contact with it, then resonate it to fill and charge the space. This was difficult approaching. Groveling. crawling. groaning on the way to the center. Then right arm raised up and raised me up, like statue of liberty or something then I started to travel around the space held up and eventually led to moving around the room quite quickly.
Warm Up - 4 minute sections. mostly was good. feeling relatively strong due to the doing exercises with my nephew and brother for the last six months on and off. felt alive and natural and foot felt mostly good. Hard for me to generate heat these days. I'm not sweating much because I'm not doing much sweating activities these days. I need to work some of that into my routine if I can.
Personal Polarity: opening and closing - this was cool. the opening especially was like opening the different centers of energy in my body, one at a time as I traveled in and out of there. then closing, I don't recall much.
Group Polarity: Living / Dying - having a hard time recalling this as well. One time I felt I was a stag, laying on the ground, making dying noises like I'd been shot or injured. That I recall strongly. I did feel like a whale at one point. felt some resonance with the totems lab, animals being in my energy and field these days, and part of what I access in this work. Interesting.
Bodily Systems: respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine. - heartbeat being in/out/pause... the pause was occurring as a liminal/bardo state. then there was same thing with breath to some degree... in/pause/out/pause or in/out/pause is more real, I think. On first pass, we did 'surrender' and on the return we did 'service' to the bodily system, which led to a much gentler approach.
Labrythin or Spiral to the Self: going towards the self - there was a gesture of hiding or not wanting to look. There was also a moment of shedding the monster in the right side of my body, this demon that's on me. I made contact with the self - lifting up the light from the candle. the phrase "pearl beyond price" went through my head. I held the pearl. I drink it into my so it was in the center of my being - just above solar plexis or mixed with center of my chest. one hand held a lantern in my center the other extended it. I started to travel outwards through the process of becoming.... I don't recall. There was a song. and this gesture of radiating light from the center.
BARDO ritual: enter into the self and find a resource that might allow us to enter into the Bardo of the after life - the song became a dirge of some kind as I curled up on the floor and then on my back in a death bed. body was laid across the threshold. Then I was slowly inching up out of my body into the Bardo. It was SILENT. spacious. relatively cold in that there wasn't sensation in the same way. It seemed like a less populated space than I was expecting... or not populated in the same way at all. I was sort of floating through a labyrinth. I was thinking of the Bardo teachings I heard from Robert Thurman - I could hear some voices of some kind, but it wasn't hearing. I could sense something calling me in a direction, but it wasn't voice... This was a strong strong experience. shocking in the best sense of what Antero talks about. initiatory. meaning experiences that rock us and change us. many many ripples of resonance over the last few days since this experience. had to put into words, overall.
Final Ritual: MEMORY WALK - lots and lots and lots of memories to walk through. regular old memories just pooring through. of all different kinds. not sure why or how, just a stream of memories. pretty wild.
Just me and John tonight
Started the evening and arranging the room - preparing.
Then we convened for a short chat about the work we were undertaking.
Sequence:
Space relations - focus on 360 degree feeling the space, which lead into a rive of impulses exercise starting with two feet on the floor, but that merged into having three limbs on the ground at all times, but that lead to four limbs on the ground - a version of the CAT.
Foundation Source: Reality - set up as stronger in the middle of the room, to enter and approach the center, make contact with it, then resonate it to fill and charge the space. This was difficult approaching. Groveling. crawling. groaning on the way to the center. Then right arm raised up and raised me up, like statue of liberty or something then I started to travel around the space held up and eventually led to moving around the room quite quickly.
Warm Up - 4 minute sections. mostly was good. feeling relatively strong due to the doing exercises with my nephew and brother for the last six months on and off. felt alive and natural and foot felt mostly good. Hard for me to generate heat these days. I'm not sweating much because I'm not doing much sweating activities these days. I need to work some of that into my routine if I can.
Personal Polarity: opening and closing - this was cool. the opening especially was like opening the different centers of energy in my body, one at a time as I traveled in and out of there. then closing, I don't recall much.
Group Polarity: Living / Dying - having a hard time recalling this as well. One time I felt I was a stag, laying on the ground, making dying noises like I'd been shot or injured. That I recall strongly. I did feel like a whale at one point. felt some resonance with the totems lab, animals being in my energy and field these days, and part of what I access in this work. Interesting.
Bodily Systems: respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine. - heartbeat being in/out/pause... the pause was occurring as a liminal/bardo state. then there was same thing with breath to some degree... in/pause/out/pause or in/out/pause is more real, I think. On first pass, we did 'surrender' and on the return we did 'service' to the bodily system, which led to a much gentler approach.
Labrythin or Spiral to the Self: going towards the self - there was a gesture of hiding or not wanting to look. There was also a moment of shedding the monster in the right side of my body, this demon that's on me. I made contact with the self - lifting up the light from the candle. the phrase "pearl beyond price" went through my head. I held the pearl. I drink it into my so it was in the center of my being - just above solar plexis or mixed with center of my chest. one hand held a lantern in my center the other extended it. I started to travel outwards through the process of becoming.... I don't recall. There was a song. and this gesture of radiating light from the center.
BARDO ritual: enter into the self and find a resource that might allow us to enter into the Bardo of the after life - the song became a dirge of some kind as I curled up on the floor and then on my back in a death bed. body was laid across the threshold. Then I was slowly inching up out of my body into the Bardo. It was SILENT. spacious. relatively cold in that there wasn't sensation in the same way. It seemed like a less populated space than I was expecting... or not populated in the same way at all. I was sort of floating through a labyrinth. I was thinking of the Bardo teachings I heard from Robert Thurman - I could hear some voices of some kind, but it wasn't hearing. I could sense something calling me in a direction, but it wasn't voice... This was a strong strong experience. shocking in the best sense of what Antero talks about. initiatory. meaning experiences that rock us and change us. many many ripples of resonance over the last few days since this experience. had to put into words, overall.
Final Ritual: MEMORY WALK - lots and lots and lots of memories to walk through. regular old memories just pooring through. of all different kinds. not sure why or how, just a stream of memories. pretty wild.
TOTEMS LAB
session 4
had trouble with the space tonight. had the dates wrong. really need to stay focused and committed.
Warm Up:
Foundation Source as ACCEPTANCE. big wide open gesture - running through the space. also gesture of life zooming at me and I'm just taking it all in, digesting it quickly, zero resistance.
Polarity: PAST / FUTURE - what emerged was PRESENT as a trinity. Future was very forehead oriented, just driving myself crazy with overthinking. Past was falling to the ground and wallowing around in the the sewage of rumination over the past or constantly rehashing old stuff. PRESENT emerged as a need to have some relief from the other two.
GROUP POLARITY: Body of the Past - Body of the Future - this was a highly charged polarity. Body of the future was space-age spinning, like dervish but space stations and orbitals - really wild how clean and easy the spinning was. BODY OF THE PAST was falling backwards through portholes - falling into past lives. in Japan - dying as a samurai. In england dying with a male lover in the forest. as a meditator or guru - sitting in a cave either in japan or the himalayas/tibet. Body of the future had other stuff, but I can't recall.
Non-directional jog - no form jog - vertical jog throughout the night. I missed the transition jogs between rituals, I could really feel the lack of the transitions.
Then a ritual - POWER OF EVOLUTION on one side of the room as a resource to enter the other side "My TOTEMS" ... I found swirling DA helix movements in POWER OF EVOLUTION. somehow in My Totems, I found something like a shark or dolphin. It was unclear. either great white or dolphin or both... like they were their own polarity for life along the pacific ocean. I also found a return to the bear. and the eagle - but this time the eagle was clearly in Big Bear - I realized how bald eagles have been there and how americana my experience in Big Bear and how my connection to bald eagle is a very real thing... watching the eagle cam and such.
Final ritual
TOTEM POLL on the far side... approach and receive and ASSIGNMENT. on the other end the Jelly Beavers finally arrived. on the return I was given a baby to carry... I carried the baby like a Beaver, eventually I lifted the baby like lifting an infant but it became a chalice, a cup, being filled by or being a vertical pool itself. it gave me a sense of commitment and carrying on the cup that had been passed to me.
session 4
had trouble with the space tonight. had the dates wrong. really need to stay focused and committed.
Warm Up:
Foundation Source as ACCEPTANCE. big wide open gesture - running through the space. also gesture of life zooming at me and I'm just taking it all in, digesting it quickly, zero resistance.
Polarity: PAST / FUTURE - what emerged was PRESENT as a trinity. Future was very forehead oriented, just driving myself crazy with overthinking. Past was falling to the ground and wallowing around in the the sewage of rumination over the past or constantly rehashing old stuff. PRESENT emerged as a need to have some relief from the other two.
GROUP POLARITY: Body of the Past - Body of the Future - this was a highly charged polarity. Body of the future was space-age spinning, like dervish but space stations and orbitals - really wild how clean and easy the spinning was. BODY OF THE PAST was falling backwards through portholes - falling into past lives. in Japan - dying as a samurai. In england dying with a male lover in the forest. as a meditator or guru - sitting in a cave either in japan or the himalayas/tibet. Body of the future had other stuff, but I can't recall.
Non-directional jog - no form jog - vertical jog throughout the night. I missed the transition jogs between rituals, I could really feel the lack of the transitions.
Then a ritual - POWER OF EVOLUTION on one side of the room as a resource to enter the other side "My TOTEMS" ... I found swirling DA helix movements in POWER OF EVOLUTION. somehow in My Totems, I found something like a shark or dolphin. It was unclear. either great white or dolphin or both... like they were their own polarity for life along the pacific ocean. I also found a return to the bear. and the eagle - but this time the eagle was clearly in Big Bear - I realized how bald eagles have been there and how americana my experience in Big Bear and how my connection to bald eagle is a very real thing... watching the eagle cam and such.
Final ritual
TOTEM POLL on the far side... approach and receive and ASSIGNMENT. on the other end the Jelly Beavers finally arrived. on the return I was given a baby to carry... I carried the baby like a Beaver, eventually I lifted the baby like lifting an infant but it became a chalice, a cup, being filled by or being a vertical pool itself. it gave me a sense of commitment and carrying on the cup that had been passed to me.
TOTEMS LAB
session 3
11/6/23
brought some sort of totem item for personal alters. mine was just a sketch I've done of my inner totem pole - but with Sobek added poking out between my lets.
Breath Movements - extend breath into space and SPACE RELATIONS - then focus on BACK ... movement backwards with eyes closed - then MOVING STRETCH - leading into FOUNDATION SOURCE: Verticality
WARM UP - with a focus on feeling the body deeply and movement as nourishment.
POLARITY: choose your own adventure - I chose "lost/found" and that evolved into "CHAOS/ORDER"
JOG - No-Form backwards
GROUP POLARITY: EARTH BODY / DREAM BODY -
THEN BODILY SYSTEMS: skeletal, muscular, respiratory
then returning doing" circulatory, gustatory, nervous systems
first pass was surrender
second pass was "service" focus.
Then split room... start in "BODILY SYSTEMS" as an access point as you enter into "MY TOTEM/s"
muscular flex led to WOLF and eventually BEAR - Grizzly, I think.
gustatory was sniffing - lead to the beak of an eagle, eyes closed. realizing the eagles nose is sorta blind.
DEITY APPROACH with Variation - approaching totem pole pantheon of totems.
I approached crawling backwards, was possessed by grizzly bear - gave me a "bear voice" ... very powerful gift.
IMPERSONAL NO-FORM BATH
Closing Circle
session 3
11/6/23
brought some sort of totem item for personal alters. mine was just a sketch I've done of my inner totem pole - but with Sobek added poking out between my lets.
Breath Movements - extend breath into space and SPACE RELATIONS - then focus on BACK ... movement backwards with eyes closed - then MOVING STRETCH - leading into FOUNDATION SOURCE: Verticality
WARM UP - with a focus on feeling the body deeply and movement as nourishment.
POLARITY: choose your own adventure - I chose "lost/found" and that evolved into "CHAOS/ORDER"
JOG - No-Form backwards
GROUP POLARITY: EARTH BODY / DREAM BODY -
THEN BODILY SYSTEMS: skeletal, muscular, respiratory
then returning doing" circulatory, gustatory, nervous systems
first pass was surrender
second pass was "service" focus.
Then split room... start in "BODILY SYSTEMS" as an access point as you enter into "MY TOTEM/s"
muscular flex led to WOLF and eventually BEAR - Grizzly, I think.
gustatory was sniffing - lead to the beak of an eagle, eyes closed. realizing the eagles nose is sorta blind.
DEITY APPROACH with Variation - approaching totem pole pantheon of totems.
I approached crawling backwards, was possessed by grizzly bear - gave me a "bear voice" ... very powerful gift.
IMPERSONAL NO-FORM BATH
Closing Circle
TOTEMS LAB
Session 2 - 10/30/23
Move what feels good - relate to space - habitual movements - new movements
Foundation Source - Power of the Earth - embody and tone/move charge the space with what you find. very very very deep toning sounds coming out of me. trying to go deeper and deeper and lower in tone and deeper in resonance in the body - down my belly into legs and into the earth, that's what it felt like.
Warm up (5 mins each section)
Vertical Jog - with a tone
Personal Polarity (pick your own) - I did strength / weakness
Directional / Non-directional Jog
Somatic Questions / Gradations - What do I need, what do I want, what must I release
Jog of some kind - don't recall
Four Elements
Jog of some kind - don't recall
Animal as Self / Animal as Other Animal as self was bear walking, sniffing about - especially sniffing out trouble with the rats where I live. fighting in some way. animal as other was a lot of the experiences I've been having of animals outside me - turtles, geese, catfish, etc.
element jog - for me was air. needed more spaciousness in my body. could feel tightness and density.
Four Elements as offering / Animal as Deity - found earth, carried a massive stone into animal as deity again, which led me to egypt - pyramids, sculptures, temples to sobek and such. then found water as a jar or jug of water - turned into pools of water and people through history who have kept or cared for crocodiles. also turned into the water of the nile river - not sure why, but it never occured to me that those crocodiles were in the nile. Also the nile occured to me as sacred, like the ganges. what else- -- first turned into some sort of firebird / phoenix in the animal as deity side. Not sure the origins of the phoenix ... would be interesting to research a bit to see how it matches or informs my lab experience.
No form bath
What do I recall ... it didn't occur to me that it was the night before halloween. should have aligned with that somehow.
Session 2 - 10/30/23
Move what feels good - relate to space - habitual movements - new movements
Foundation Source - Power of the Earth - embody and tone/move charge the space with what you find. very very very deep toning sounds coming out of me. trying to go deeper and deeper and lower in tone and deeper in resonance in the body - down my belly into legs and into the earth, that's what it felt like.
Warm up (5 mins each section)
Vertical Jog - with a tone
Personal Polarity (pick your own) - I did strength / weakness
Directional / Non-directional Jog
Somatic Questions / Gradations - What do I need, what do I want, what must I release
Jog of some kind - don't recall
Four Elements
Jog of some kind - don't recall
Animal as Self / Animal as Other Animal as self was bear walking, sniffing about - especially sniffing out trouble with the rats where I live. fighting in some way. animal as other was a lot of the experiences I've been having of animals outside me - turtles, geese, catfish, etc.
element jog - for me was air. needed more spaciousness in my body. could feel tightness and density.
Four Elements as offering / Animal as Deity - found earth, carried a massive stone into animal as deity again, which led me to egypt - pyramids, sculptures, temples to sobek and such. then found water as a jar or jug of water - turned into pools of water and people through history who have kept or cared for crocodiles. also turned into the water of the nile river - not sure why, but it never occured to me that those crocodiles were in the nile. Also the nile occured to me as sacred, like the ganges. what else- -- first turned into some sort of firebird / phoenix in the animal as deity side. Not sure the origins of the phoenix ... would be interesting to research a bit to see how it matches or informs my lab experience.
No form bath
What do I recall ... it didn't occur to me that it was the night before halloween. should have aligned with that somehow.
TOTEMS LAB
Session 1: 10/23/23
Opening Circle: talked some logistics and reminded the group of some intentions or directions with the work.
Space relations: presence actions, breath movement
Personal warm-up. (stretching muscles occurred to me as relaxing the muscles through movement, tensing and releasing - like in acting classes, especially made me think of what I heard in " great acting teachers and their methods" this week about how Strasberg focused on the temples, the space between the eyes, the jaw and tongue, the base of the skull/spine) - also made me think this week about what I heard in that book about "relaxation and concentration" as being a sort of pair of opposites or having a balancing effect on each other.
Polarity: absence/presence - building on the presence actions we started with. for me I was very away first of the presence of pain in my right foot and body, excruciating pain. made me aware of how present that has been for me, unavoidable -and how much of a drag it has been. absence was absence of being in the water/ocean - pacific ocean, absence of kids, presence was presence of horses and birds in my world - due to central park. presence of mantis in the last few months.
No-form jog, I think, or was it a vertical jog transitions
Group Polarity: human / animal - human side was human conception and gestation through the reptile phase and growing different parts in the womb, then the shooting out, the fetal position as a baby, the attempting to stand up. on the animal side, I don't recall... a flamingo moment of standing on one leg - related to the pain in my foot, flying a few times on that side, I think... soaring, birds of prey again, falcon or eagle or hawk of some kind. looking up into the endless sky. soaring but looking upwards into the blue empty. human was straight lines, and building things, cities, straight roads, flat roads and walkways. but also zipping around on those grids... the human world of NY. and the jumpy animal like human experience of looking all around me, scanning and turning and jumping and moving out of the way constantly - a kind of animal like anxiety/jumpiness. looking behind me all the time. animal, experience of the mouse I found in the snap trap recently.
Transition jog
Human - transition - animal. space divided into three parts. human was a strong feeling of frontal lobe, like the plug in socked for a giant power chord from above... or like a tube to Alien spaceships or to a higher divine realm of some kind. anyway, the power went from there and through me like a Christmas tree, my whole body lit up and pouring out energy and information into the world around me, building massive complex cities... all coming from the frontal lobe. amazing and overwhelming. Then in the "transition" it was a kind of lobotomy - a movement of lopping off the frontal lobe - leading me to animal realm - much quieter. prowling like a big cat - maybe a lion. I was on a hunt, had a kill of some sort, eat my fill, and fell down for a nap. I do this... I nap after eating all the time. strong animal connection there for me.
Heat Jog
Animal Deity Passes - only two approaches. a crocodile entity showed up for me on the far end, It was harsh as I crossed to it with an offering. As I was plastered to the floor, crawling across to the foot of the crocodile god, I realized that my offering was my entire body as a vessel or for possession or use. On the second pass I came across with a question... it became obvious that my question had to do with all the bodily pain I was experiencing on the right side of my body... as if I was asking, "how do I deal with or overcome this pain and infirmity - this arthritic food or pain on the right side of my body. The answer was that the right side of my body flexed and tightened and seemed to me that my answer was to get stronger, to get fierce. the crocodile was teaching me to have some bite and ferocity. oh, on the return pass from the first one, I had a strong impression that the "reptilian' brain is not only not as BAD as pop psychology and self-help makes it out to be, but that it is a useful and necessary fierce survival and protective energy - a baseline force. more important and more powerful than a frontal lobe. got a clear sense that if my reptilian self is cut off or dead or disabled, that my frontal lobe won't last long. on the return from the second pass, one arm was cocked , well both were sorta of forming a crocodile mouth. strong, powerful, fierce. late that night I looked up crocodile god and the Egyptian god came up quickly. Sobek. turns out is often associated with PROTECTION and especially with protecting their young. they even carry their young INSIDE their jaws... that's how protective they are. that's how they became protector deities. so, my relationship with my own inner child, trauma from childhood, and my own need to protect the child part of myself back then and now - to establish that ferocious self-care or self protection... that's a really deep thread or theme for me. and makes a lot of sense that it came up or came up in this way, even though a crocodile was completely out of left field for me. not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting maybe a beaver or hippo or a bear or eagle or mantis or something else I've previously felt connected to or resonate with.
Closing Circle: just the two of us, so it was a short chat. but we shared a few impressions each and then cleaned the space and went home, I headed to a epsom salt bath and writing some of these notes.
Session 1: 10/23/23
Opening Circle: talked some logistics and reminded the group of some intentions or directions with the work.
Space relations: presence actions, breath movement
Personal warm-up. (stretching muscles occurred to me as relaxing the muscles through movement, tensing and releasing - like in acting classes, especially made me think of what I heard in " great acting teachers and their methods" this week about how Strasberg focused on the temples, the space between the eyes, the jaw and tongue, the base of the skull/spine) - also made me think this week about what I heard in that book about "relaxation and concentration" as being a sort of pair of opposites or having a balancing effect on each other.
Polarity: absence/presence - building on the presence actions we started with. for me I was very away first of the presence of pain in my right foot and body, excruciating pain. made me aware of how present that has been for me, unavoidable -and how much of a drag it has been. absence was absence of being in the water/ocean - pacific ocean, absence of kids, presence was presence of horses and birds in my world - due to central park. presence of mantis in the last few months.
No-form jog, I think, or was it a vertical jog transitions
Group Polarity: human / animal - human side was human conception and gestation through the reptile phase and growing different parts in the womb, then the shooting out, the fetal position as a baby, the attempting to stand up. on the animal side, I don't recall... a flamingo moment of standing on one leg - related to the pain in my foot, flying a few times on that side, I think... soaring, birds of prey again, falcon or eagle or hawk of some kind. looking up into the endless sky. soaring but looking upwards into the blue empty. human was straight lines, and building things, cities, straight roads, flat roads and walkways. but also zipping around on those grids... the human world of NY. and the jumpy animal like human experience of looking all around me, scanning and turning and jumping and moving out of the way constantly - a kind of animal like anxiety/jumpiness. looking behind me all the time. animal, experience of the mouse I found in the snap trap recently.
Transition jog
Human - transition - animal. space divided into three parts. human was a strong feeling of frontal lobe, like the plug in socked for a giant power chord from above... or like a tube to Alien spaceships or to a higher divine realm of some kind. anyway, the power went from there and through me like a Christmas tree, my whole body lit up and pouring out energy and information into the world around me, building massive complex cities... all coming from the frontal lobe. amazing and overwhelming. Then in the "transition" it was a kind of lobotomy - a movement of lopping off the frontal lobe - leading me to animal realm - much quieter. prowling like a big cat - maybe a lion. I was on a hunt, had a kill of some sort, eat my fill, and fell down for a nap. I do this... I nap after eating all the time. strong animal connection there for me.
Heat Jog
Animal Deity Passes - only two approaches. a crocodile entity showed up for me on the far end, It was harsh as I crossed to it with an offering. As I was plastered to the floor, crawling across to the foot of the crocodile god, I realized that my offering was my entire body as a vessel or for possession or use. On the second pass I came across with a question... it became obvious that my question had to do with all the bodily pain I was experiencing on the right side of my body... as if I was asking, "how do I deal with or overcome this pain and infirmity - this arthritic food or pain on the right side of my body. The answer was that the right side of my body flexed and tightened and seemed to me that my answer was to get stronger, to get fierce. the crocodile was teaching me to have some bite and ferocity. oh, on the return pass from the first one, I had a strong impression that the "reptilian' brain is not only not as BAD as pop psychology and self-help makes it out to be, but that it is a useful and necessary fierce survival and protective energy - a baseline force. more important and more powerful than a frontal lobe. got a clear sense that if my reptilian self is cut off or dead or disabled, that my frontal lobe won't last long. on the return from the second pass, one arm was cocked , well both were sorta of forming a crocodile mouth. strong, powerful, fierce. late that night I looked up crocodile god and the Egyptian god came up quickly. Sobek. turns out is often associated with PROTECTION and especially with protecting their young. they even carry their young INSIDE their jaws... that's how protective they are. that's how they became protector deities. so, my relationship with my own inner child, trauma from childhood, and my own need to protect the child part of myself back then and now - to establish that ferocious self-care or self protection... that's a really deep thread or theme for me. and makes a lot of sense that it came up or came up in this way, even though a crocodile was completely out of left field for me. not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting maybe a beaver or hippo or a bear or eagle or mantis or something else I've previously felt connected to or resonate with.
Closing Circle: just the two of us, so it was a short chat. but we shared a few impressions each and then cleaned the space and went home, I headed to a epsom salt bath and writing some of these notes.
Intro LAB NYC - #2
6/3/22
Space Relations - swarming - cliche' movements - taboo movements - x movements
Physical Warm Up
Polarity - NEW / OLD
Jog
3 Passes : lower, middle, upper - frontal/dorsal, lateral, vertical - skeletal, muscular, respiratory
Jog
Group Polarity - being born / dying
Jog
Trinity - birthing, dying, helping
Jog - no form
Memory Walk
NOTES:
Really hard to track at this point, three days later.
We started with a short talk about how hard this work is and how much commitment it takes. talked about autonomy, commitment, and the total act - to some degree.
The swarming in the warm up was good, interesting. so was the work with the cliché movements and the taboo and x movements... very fruitful. the polarity of old and new. I noticed my hair annoying me - it's old, this haircut. it's on it's way out. I can feel that. What else? I can't recall now, oddly that was the strongest impression to memory.
In the group polarity - birthing and dying, that was POWERFUL. for me. falling like a dead corpse into dying side. then pushing into the right shoulder... sounds of death opened up from that part of my body. it was like a gateway directly to sounds of the chambers of hell. wow!!! in birthing... being a channel. laying on the floor and feeling cosmic sized energies move through me.
"Systems work" and passes were great, always good.
In birthing dying helping... I started with helping. In dying, when I got close I froze in a sort of rigor mortis. When I went from birthing to helping I hit a major pocket of Jesus energy - that he was about helping people reconcile birth and death in some way, that he was freeing people from the fear of birth, living, and death... that was really strong and started to move in the direction of "asocial interplay" I think, though I was the only one registering it, I think.
In the closing circle, we go too philosophical and I tried to redirect it. one person can't seem to drop out of his thinking. He used the words cracking a shell. and could say a moment or two where he felt he actually went through something. but he also said he'd be back at the end of the month, so he must sense something in it for him. Another participant seems to be able to drop the overactive mind some sessions more than others. This time she said she rested before lab - I told her I thought that was a good idea, that it takes a lot of energy and focus to do this work effectively, it requires rest to be prepared probably.
6/3/22
Space Relations - swarming - cliche' movements - taboo movements - x movements
Physical Warm Up
Polarity - NEW / OLD
Jog
3 Passes : lower, middle, upper - frontal/dorsal, lateral, vertical - skeletal, muscular, respiratory
Jog
Group Polarity - being born / dying
Jog
Trinity - birthing, dying, helping
Jog - no form
Memory Walk
NOTES:
Really hard to track at this point, three days later.
We started with a short talk about how hard this work is and how much commitment it takes. talked about autonomy, commitment, and the total act - to some degree.
The swarming in the warm up was good, interesting. so was the work with the cliché movements and the taboo and x movements... very fruitful. the polarity of old and new. I noticed my hair annoying me - it's old, this haircut. it's on it's way out. I can feel that. What else? I can't recall now, oddly that was the strongest impression to memory.
In the group polarity - birthing and dying, that was POWERFUL. for me. falling like a dead corpse into dying side. then pushing into the right shoulder... sounds of death opened up from that part of my body. it was like a gateway directly to sounds of the chambers of hell. wow!!! in birthing... being a channel. laying on the floor and feeling cosmic sized energies move through me.
"Systems work" and passes were great, always good.
In birthing dying helping... I started with helping. In dying, when I got close I froze in a sort of rigor mortis. When I went from birthing to helping I hit a major pocket of Jesus energy - that he was about helping people reconcile birth and death in some way, that he was freeing people from the fear of birth, living, and death... that was really strong and started to move in the direction of "asocial interplay" I think, though I was the only one registering it, I think.
In the closing circle, we go too philosophical and I tried to redirect it. one person can't seem to drop out of his thinking. He used the words cracking a shell. and could say a moment or two where he felt he actually went through something. but he also said he'd be back at the end of the month, so he must sense something in it for him. Another participant seems to be able to drop the overactive mind some sessions more than others. This time she said she rested before lab - I told her I thought that was a good idea, that it takes a lot of energy and focus to do this work effectively, it requires rest to be prepared probably.
6/27/23
Second summer intro session.
Group of 5.
Started with space relations - presence actions - presence back - moving stretch
Rises - or river of impulses ... can't recall
Warm Up - 5 phases - 4-5 minutes per phase
Vertical Jog
Personal Polarity - true / false
No-Form jog
Somatic Questions / Gradations
Heat Jog
Group Polarity - honest / dishonest
No-Form jog
Group Ritual - Summer
Jog
Group Ritual - dreambody / earthbody
No-Form bath
Closing Circle
NOTES:
True false - several things came up. situatioins that are real or situations that are false - obviously. not much to say about that. Maggie came up in false. I know I'm being dishonest or propping it up, even thought it's not a true connection. connection with Destiny - the date with her last week, came up in true. may not last, but at least it's been honest - not misleading. honesty was also my foot pain. Dishonest was this trickster - enjoying faking things and getting away with it. sneaky. also turning a blind eye motions over and over again... as a way of lying. Summer felt like a burst of fun - like a nova at it's peak size and heat - about to turn to ash. images of my feet in the sand and water. joy. radiating it out was big ... a very big boistrous energy. def made sense that summer is fire element. explosion of energy, blast of the sun, sand. dreambody and earth body was images like avatar - being a whale, being a crazy illuminated bird, doing a shoulder stand but my legs became two heads of some sort of star wars like creature. earthbody was plodding in a grid lines... thumping, plodding, very rigid, formed, earthy.
Second summer intro session.
Group of 5.
Started with space relations - presence actions - presence back - moving stretch
Rises - or river of impulses ... can't recall
Warm Up - 5 phases - 4-5 minutes per phase
Vertical Jog
Personal Polarity - true / false
No-Form jog
Somatic Questions / Gradations
Heat Jog
Group Polarity - honest / dishonest
No-Form jog
Group Ritual - Summer
Jog
Group Ritual - dreambody / earthbody
No-Form bath
Closing Circle
NOTES:
True false - several things came up. situatioins that are real or situations that are false - obviously. not much to say about that. Maggie came up in false. I know I'm being dishonest or propping it up, even thought it's not a true connection. connection with Destiny - the date with her last week, came up in true. may not last, but at least it's been honest - not misleading. honesty was also my foot pain. Dishonest was this trickster - enjoying faking things and getting away with it. sneaky. also turning a blind eye motions over and over again... as a way of lying. Summer felt like a burst of fun - like a nova at it's peak size and heat - about to turn to ash. images of my feet in the sand and water. joy. radiating it out was big ... a very big boistrous energy. def made sense that summer is fire element. explosion of energy, blast of the sun, sand. dreambody and earth body was images like avatar - being a whale, being a crazy illuminated bird, doing a shoulder stand but my legs became two heads of some sort of star wars like creature. earthbody was plodding in a grid lines... thumping, plodding, very rigid, formed, earthy.
5/8/23
SEQUENCE:
space relations: using moving stretch, presence the back, breath union maybe?
personal warm-up:
personal polarities: judgement/compassion
group foundation source: origin of compassion
jog end then worked with river of impulses and rises
passes west to east: body systems - twice across - skeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory. second time across was body as unit.
then somatic questions w/gradations (this may have come a little earlier) why am I here? where do I come from? where am I going?
final ritual: my soul - transitioning - character soul
Notes:
my soul was reaching up for elders for spirits that were ahead of me and above me - but they were dead or passing on. they were beyond. So i started to have to turn and see the people below me that I was supposed to be reaching out to.
the first transition was very much full of "oh no" energy as I went backwards... I didn't know what was coming. I wasn't sure what was on the other side... what character... it was something to do with character of the director or a character from a film idea I'd had. these damn Jelly Beavers... they were these large entities toning white light of compassion on the Ojai valley for some reason... when I returned to transition that toning became like a horn, like an old Viking handheld horn that I held in my hand, and finally I put the horn like a knife into my own heart... that the film was somehow a way to express my own heart or tone a white blanket of compassion on the world the way the Jelly Beaver had.
The "why am I here" question was strongly vocal... touching voice box, and the sound I made was like a vivid scream at the other end of the gradation.
Source of compassion was that I put my arm through a column of white light in the middle of the room. I slowly rolled away and gave voice to the energy in some small way... the white light in the column filled my whole body so my body was all white light. then I was toning gently and rolling softly on the floor.
SEQUENCE:
space relations: using moving stretch, presence the back, breath union maybe?
personal warm-up:
personal polarities: judgement/compassion
group foundation source: origin of compassion
jog end then worked with river of impulses and rises
passes west to east: body systems - twice across - skeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory. second time across was body as unit.
then somatic questions w/gradations (this may have come a little earlier) why am I here? where do I come from? where am I going?
final ritual: my soul - transitioning - character soul
Notes:
my soul was reaching up for elders for spirits that were ahead of me and above me - but they were dead or passing on. they were beyond. So i started to have to turn and see the people below me that I was supposed to be reaching out to.
the first transition was very much full of "oh no" energy as I went backwards... I didn't know what was coming. I wasn't sure what was on the other side... what character... it was something to do with character of the director or a character from a film idea I'd had. these damn Jelly Beavers... they were these large entities toning white light of compassion on the Ojai valley for some reason... when I returned to transition that toning became like a horn, like an old Viking handheld horn that I held in my hand, and finally I put the horn like a knife into my own heart... that the film was somehow a way to express my own heart or tone a white blanket of compassion on the world the way the Jelly Beaver had.
The "why am I here" question was strongly vocal... touching voice box, and the sound I made was like a vivid scream at the other end of the gradation.
Source of compassion was that I put my arm through a column of white light in the middle of the room. I slowly rolled away and gave voice to the energy in some small way... the white light in the column filled my whole body so my body was all white light. then I was toning gently and rolling softly on the floor.
5/1/23
Small group - 3 people + me is 4 total. Sky Spallone, Christina Germaine, Lea DiMarchi. First night in Houghton Hall.
Started with space relations. moving stretch. presence actions.
Then personal warm-up space. Then polarity (mine / not mine)
Then introduce jogging. Then did we do a large group ritual of mine / not mine?
Then did passes - with upper/middle/lower and frontal/lateral/vertical - specifically doing cliché movements and new movements emphasis.
Then we did mix of mine/not mine - then enter the realm or space of the divine. facing north.
There was a full moon coming up in Taurus opposite Scorpio ? brought up a polarity of mine vs yours and also form and transformation I guess. I read an article. ha.
What did I experience?
In the realm of the divine - red wood trees (California for me, childhood visits and exposure to those trees) then grass in central park... rolling in the grass, lots of contact with the dirt and earth itself.
In the mine/not mine - I was Darth Vader. message: star wars is not mine. on the mine side, I saw jelly beavers of the film idea.
on the mine section group polarity - Japanese samurai swordsman as deeply mine actually - not from this body but from past lives. Christian praise hands, raising praise hands - not mine. monster/beast crawling on the floor or near it - Beast as mine. GMB and movement culture movements as 'halfway between mine and not mine'.
Small group - 3 people + me is 4 total. Sky Spallone, Christina Germaine, Lea DiMarchi. First night in Houghton Hall.
Started with space relations. moving stretch. presence actions.
Then personal warm-up space. Then polarity (mine / not mine)
Then introduce jogging. Then did we do a large group ritual of mine / not mine?
Then did passes - with upper/middle/lower and frontal/lateral/vertical - specifically doing cliché movements and new movements emphasis.
Then we did mix of mine/not mine - then enter the realm or space of the divine. facing north.
There was a full moon coming up in Taurus opposite Scorpio ? brought up a polarity of mine vs yours and also form and transformation I guess. I read an article. ha.
What did I experience?
In the realm of the divine - red wood trees (California for me, childhood visits and exposure to those trees) then grass in central park... rolling in the grass, lots of contact with the dirt and earth itself.
In the mine/not mine - I was Darth Vader. message: star wars is not mine. on the mine side, I saw jelly beavers of the film idea.
on the mine section group polarity - Japanese samurai swordsman as deeply mine actually - not from this body but from past lives. Christian praise hands, raising praise hands - not mine. monster/beast crawling on the floor or near it - Beast as mine. GMB and movement culture movements as 'halfway between mine and not mine'.