Health and well being is intimately connected with our ability to open up to what is necessary for life and development: food, air, light, impressions, love;

      Health and well being is intimately connected with our ability to participate in and fully embody our present moment through the actions of “sensing,” “feeling,” “seeing,” and “direct contact”;

      Health and well being is intimately connected with our ability to let go of what is no longer useful for life and development: waste matter or unassimilated substances, polarized energy, chronic stress, fear, negativity, worry, and so on.

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Here’s Our Situation

       From fetus to elder, we depend on a body that is able to eat, drink, breathe, expel waste, and be merry. An apparent instinctive “aim” of our body is to survive, grow, discover, interact, learn, make babies, be merry, and die. The business of being born is both miraculous and mysterious. It is a true beginning of the process of opening up (to life on planet earth/mother earth) and a true beginning of the process of letting go (of attachment and dependence on another/mother.) Midwife, as coach, really does, for a brief moment, have the “whole world in her hands.” As above so below.

Being Born

       At the moment of birth and shortly thereafter, many “shocks” await baby.

       First breath! Air pushes its way into her lungs and two “genetically engineered” systems of complex groups of organs (the respiratory and circulatory systems) begin their work in the exchange of substances so necessary for life. To be alive is to breath air in. To breath air in is to feed something to the blood, which in turns feeds that something to every cell in the body. (Many other body systems are at work here in the first moments of life. But for the purposes of this article, we are looking only at two of the principle ones that influence life and are most obvious to the attention.)

       Momma's work here (for the moment, for the birth event) comes to a close, the placenta dries up, the cord detaches — baby begins the “path of separation.” JG Bennett sees an infinite compassion in air's ableness to give itself freely to all life. [ cf. JG Bennett. Talk on The Sermon on the Mount.]

      First sip! Having verified baby is breathing, the midwife puts baby to momma's belly for another mystery, bonding, to take place, and then a little while later, while delivering the placenta, baby goes to papa's arms (“here, bond with your son” she commands.) then after the placenta is delivered, papa returns baby to mama's breast, where baby's instinct-to-suck immediately introduces her to her first “martini,” colostrum — which will open-up, clean-out, and prepare the digestive tract for a bigger treat yet to come — momma's milk. Ritual complete. Benvenuto/a.

       First pee and first poop! Instructing the parents to pay attention to the practical side of the miracle at hand, we are asked to confirm baby's first pee and first poop; and, in the days to come, to watch for the onset of eye tracking — further evidence that baby is on track to “normal.” When our second son, Jonah, was born, to the joyful surprise of our midwife, he began tracking within minutes, some hours before even his first pee and first poop. Bright kid? Time will tell.

       Life is generally “downhill” from birth. Growing up gives way to growing old; childhood to adolescence to adulthood to making babies to parenthood to old age. However, as Bob Dylan reminds us, “He not busy being born is busy dying.” This business of “being born” is really what these workshops are all about: the business of becoming grown up and taking responsibility for not just who you are but to learn how to become who you wish to be and to take responsibility for that embryonic “him” or “her.” No small thing. A “master game” if ever there was one.

       So, enough words. Here's the chase. These workshops are open to all who wish to research their own existence for the purpose of intentionally transforming “what is” into “what can be.” Feed your aim.

       Both experienced transformers of life's challenges, regardless of so-called “spiritual tradition,” and those new to the work of “I wish, I am, I can” are welcome and will be challenged by the work we do. Guaranteed.

      The methods we use — in particular, the dance work and the mind-body exercises of GI Gurdjieff — all acknowledge a real possibility of an intentional return to a post-natal pre-verbal state of being-experiencing (back to newborn/reborn) from which work can proceed. Taste what it can feel like to surf (even briefly) on the crest of the wave of the present moment, even maybe get in front of it!

      No belief in anything is a requirement. Knowing the joy of struggling with oneself and only with oneself is helpful. Be like a child learning to walk.

      Most of the body-mind methodologies we will use, including Gurdjieff Dance and associated “active attention” practices, were developed and transmitted by GI Gurdjieff, have been further researched, developed, and transmitted by Gurdjieff's student, JG Bennett, and are being further researched, developed and transmitted by Bennett's students worldwide, and will at the workshops be further researched, with you, by Tomarelli — in an ongoing transmission of a living legacy. Other techniques from the Buddhist and Sufi traditions may be introduced.

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In Germany, guest teachers from other modalities of mind-body development will introduce complementary practices that support awakening to what is.
In Italy, some of James’ Italian friends-in-the-work from “Gruppo If Italia” will assist.

As always, accomplished pianists will support our work with live music.

Welcome
Willkommen
Benvenuto

James
Bennett Books Seminars
www.gurdjieffdance.com