Bruna Blandino and Rosa Catoio Are Being Themselves. These Italian Wholebody focusers, met to discuss how Wholebody focusing and Heartfelt Conversation has changed their lives. Rather than being who society and their families want them to be, Wholebody Focusing and Heartfelt Conversation has given them a mechanism to live more fully in their own truth. Watch their video to hear how this has come about.
Maybe it has happened to you, too, that small secret moment of intimacy with a non-human creature. It’s a powerful experience yet easily dismissed by the mind. The one I want to tell you about happened on a trail in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in northern California. It is a rocky, spare place, steep and windswept and intensely alive. High on a ridge above a mountain lake, the trail weaves among pines and Douglas Fir growing singly or in small groups, huddled around granite boulders. On a hot late September afternoon, their combined scent rose like incense; the air was charged with it. I walked briskly, enjoying the vigorous motion and the give of the trail surface, changing from rock to needles to bare earth to patches of coarse grasses. I became keenly aware of an added dimension, the arrangement of bodies in the middle distance, so often lost in our habitual focus on panoramic views. I mean by that the sense of my body mass relative to trees and boulders, the way trees stood in twos or threes or alone; a pine and boulder together; or the way the boughs formed a screen so that only slivers of blue were visible, and then suddenly parted to allow a full view of distant peaks. My steps slowed to a walk as I absorbed this new pleasure. My hand reached to touch the furry patch of lichen on a granite boulder, the deep furrow of Douglas Fir bark. I put my arms around a Jeffrey Pine, maybe my age in pine years, glowing deep red in the late afternoon light. I laid my cheek against the bark and was enveloped in a light, sweet aroma, like vanilla, very different from the more pungent “conifer” fragrance that rose from the forest as a whole. (I read later that pines, and especially Jeffrey Pines, are unique among North American conifers in distilling this vanilla-like scent.) There we stood for a long while, the pine and I, in a timeless embrace of arms and branches, skin and bark, one breath.
In her book, “The Legacy of Luna”, activist Julia Butterfly Hill describes her relationship with the giant redwood in whose canopy she lived for more than two years in order to save it from being logged. Hill is positive that Luna knew Hill was there to save it, and gave her support in its tree-ish way. Similarly, with my arms around the pine, I felt very strongly, from the tree, a wave of – encouragement? Support? Was the pine hugging me back? These are human terms and they don’t quite fit. I felt that the pine and the land it sprang from were holding me up, wanted me to continue my work to save the Peace Valley in my home province of British Columbia from being dammed. I was being offered a gift – an experience of joy and unity, and something more: confirmation, confidence and strength to persevere in my work. Joy and gratitude buoyed me as I walked back to the cabin.
Looking back, a year and a half later, I see how this moment marked a turn in my work on the Peace River campaign. I felt invigorated, emboldened and supported. My health and energy improved and I was able to take on tasks that would have daunted me before. At the same time, I remained very much aware that the ultimate outcome is beyond my control. I was not “saving” the Peace – not by myself, not even all of us together. We cannot save anyone or anything. The Peace river has its own path. That path, like the path of other beings, may include wounding and suffering. All any of us can do is allow the land to become alive in us, and then act from that place.
In a culture less rigidly dualistic than the one that dominates our time, I believe experiences like this would be accepted by the society at large as valid and true. I feel gratitude that moments like these are still able to shine through the cultural conditioning that has been instilled in western peoples over generations, dividing nature from spirit and denying spirit to other creatures. What an impoverishment! Experiences like these bring incredible abundance and depth to our lives. They are our true birthright.
@Ana Simeon
To read or leave a comment please click on the word Comments next to or under the photo at top left-hand-side of this page.
That was the awakening: My prayer hears your prayer. Perhaps for you, too. And then something in me said that’s enough! That’s all I need to do—holding a sense of me and being aware of a sense of you. And you’re different!
Painting; Riverdale Park in Cabbagetown by Kevin McEvenue
This is in response to Elizabeth’s “It Is for This.” It is the power of her voice, the tone of the sound that is so healing to my soul. My body instantly awakens to her tone of voice even before the words are felt.
I am just allowing Elizabeth’s prayer to be heard and to be felt inside of me. And the words that seem to awaken something deeper in me is this expression that she keeps repeating: it is for this. It is for this. It is for this.
And each time I hear that repetition, it touches me even more deeply because I know that sound. I can feel that sound and I can feel me.
That is what Elizabeth has awakened in me too—that sense of me that knows who I am. What I am.
And I love the feel of it. I love being awakened when I hear someone else is there too. It gives me a sense of myself that feels totally satisfying. It is a feeling of love.
I am Love.
I live love in my body as a whole.
It is me.
This is who I am.
Amen.
Something more came for me listening to Elizabeth saying what was there for her and how deeply that awakened something in myself about me. It is as though her sound, her voice, her expression, awakened a sense of myself from inside–like awakening a tuning fork of who I am.
These Audio Guiding Suggestions/Intunements are here for your free use and enjoyment. Our greatest wish is that they bring healing into the lives the people who listen to them.
For those who would like to use the Audio Guiding Suggestions/Intunements that Kevin has provided to the blog for their practice, here is an easy way to find them on the blog. Below you will find an index of the three albums of intunements that are available. The three albums have different themes:
First Intunementsis for anyone who wants to start or become more proficient at Wholebody Focusing;
Coming Home is for anyone who has some basic understanding of Wholebody Focusing and wants to deepen their practice; and
Exploring the Unexplored is for anyone who wants to extend their practice in ways that they may not have yet experienced.
These Audio Guiding Suggestions/Intunements are here for your free use and enjoyment. Our greatest wish is that they bring healing into the lives the people who listen to them.
Please find the Audio Guiding Suggestion/Intunement you are interested in below. This list will be on the home page for three days.
After a new blog appears on the home page, you will be able to:
Use the “Search by Theme” menu and click on “Audio Guiding Suggestions/Intunements.” This index will be the first page that comes up. Just click on the links on this page and it will get you to the intunement for which you are searching.
You can also access this list on the Home Page menu option “Audio Guiding Suggestions/Intunements Index.” Once again, click on the name of the intunement, it will take you to the page where you will find it.
We agreed to sense into our bodies separately and then asked our bodies to move how they needed to move. While we sensed into our bodies and gave them time and space to move, we also sensed into each other to connect to the other’s movement.
How would it look to have a conversation without words? Is it possible? What might two people share this way? How can Wholebody Focusing be the medium through which this happens?
Cristina Griggio and I were curious about what connecting via videoconferencing in grounded presence without words would bring. We agreed to sense into our bodies separately and then asked our bodies to move how they needed to move. While we sensed into our bodies and gave them time and space to move, we also sensed into each other to connect to the other’s movement. We became at once the actor and observer.
The video below is but a small slice at the end of that conversation. We were interested in the experience of the communication itself rather than any meaning it might have held. Sometimes we were thoroughly connected to self, and other times were aware of the other and sensing into what is coming for her.
It was fun, surprising, and felt like playing. It also helped us know each other more profoundly. Cristina’s natural ability to express herself through movement at one point filled me with awe.
We offer this video as a suggestion to others–that you too can have a non-verbal conversation between two bodies communicating using the concepts of holding space for what is present, asking your body to move in its own way while holding all that comes with equal regard. We also offer this video as a companion to you so that you have company if you would like to allow your body to communicate with you and move in any way it wants.
Let us know what happens.
Heartfelt Conversation Senza Parole (Google Translate)
Come sarebbe una conversazione senza parole? È possibile? Cosa potrebbero condividere due persone in questo modo? In che modo Wholebody Focusing può essere il mezzo attraverso il quale ciò accade?
Cristina Griggio e io eravamo curiosi di sapere cosa avrebbe portato il collegamento via videoconferenza in presenza radicata senza parole. Abbiamo concordato di percepire i nostri corpi separatamente e quindi abbiamo chiesto ai nostri corpi di spostare il modo in cui avevano bisogno di muoversi. Mentre abbiamo percepito i nostri corpi e abbiamo dato loro il tempo e lo spazio per muoversi, abbiamo anche percepito l’uno nell’altro per connetterci al movimento dell’altro. Siamo diventati subito l’attore e l’osservatore.
Il video qui sotto è solo una piccola parte alla fine di quella conversazione. Eravamo interessati all’esperienza della comunicazione stessa piuttosto che a qualsiasi significato potesse avere. A volte eravamo completamente collegati a se stessi, altre volte eravamo consapevoli dell’altro e percepivamo ciò che le stava accadendo.
È stato divertente, sorprendente e mi è sembrato di giocare. Ci ha anche aiutato a conoscerci più profondamente. La naturale capacità di Cristina di esprimersi attraverso il movimento ad un certo punto mi ha riempito di soggezione.
Offriamo questo video come suggerimento per gli altri – che anche tu puoi avere una conversazione non verbale tra due corpi che comunicano usando i concetti di spazio per ciò che è presente, chiedendo al tuo corpo di muoversi a modo suo mentre trattieni tutto ciò che viene con uguale riguardo. Ti offriamo anche questo video come compagno per farti compagnia se desideri consentire al tuo corpo di comunicare con te e di muoverti nel modo che desidera.
These are the skis
that will take me
—not down
—not up
but out
into that Greater Place
that-holds-us-all-
in-Its-loving-embrace
I want to know.
To experience
It
directly.
Not just to know about
It.
To sit in the
silent hum of my being
To sit in the
silent hum of that
Transcendent Being
The One I choose to call
God
Father
That’s what’s needed
that’s what’s important
to me
I don’t want to settle for less
for writing a beautiful piece
for creating an amazing painting
or sculpture
or for giving something needed to another
All those are Good
But not enough—for me
In the first 12 intunements, Kevin helps us strengthen our sense of Me Here. Something in Me Hurts is the beginning of a new phase of this this work–a phase that guides us to being with the parts of ourselves that need our attention and love. This new group of intunements helps us hold both Me Here and something else. The first intunement of this group works with a painful part.
Something in Me Hurts! is an intunement that supports us when we need loving kindness for a part of us that has pain or is suffering. Kevin walks us through, in real time, what happens to him when he awakes to a painful shoulder. He connects to himself and to the part that hurts which allows both to become more aware of themselves and each other. Through this process something new emerges.
Feel what happens when you share this experience with Kevin.
As a reader and a contributor to this blog, I’m very touched to hear this audio from Kevin, “Something is Happening That is Good For Me.”
And it turns out that he’s talking about his response to recent contributions and comments on this cyber-gathering place. It’s as though I’m hearing it for the first time—that we are “…participating in something not of our own making…” in these recent writings.
He reminds us that we’re participating—we’re not passive carriers for inspired ideas—instead we‘re active participants in what comes through each of us; something that is uniquely helpful to the writer, and uniquely helpful—in yet another way—to the reader.
And he adds something else that I feel is new: that we are experiencing “…a felt-sense, person-to-person.” And he says “YES” to that, adding, “.that’s why I’m here in this moment, to say YES.”
Lucky us—to have the opportunity to sense into this new-knowing.
Painting by Kevin McEvenue
