i am inspired by a lecture we had today with Finn Bernholm from the The Academy of Untamed Creativity at the KaosPilots, it brings up some pieces of thoughts i’ve been chewing on a while ago…
last week in a day of improvisational theater with Zeev Sevik Perl we did an exercise of closing your eyes and walking towards a person through a big room – when you think you are there, stop and open your eyes for reality check. you can really see the “embodiment of doubt” (Luca) in peoples faces when they change their pace or direction and become unsure – as soon as the mind starts to analyze and adapt it gets messy. today with Finn we did it different in a way that the group was standing as a wall and then one person runs from a distance with closed eyes right into that human wall and get’s stopped through the people as buffer. very powerful how it makes the inside of people visible in the moment they are about to crash the wall. brilliant exercise for team-building.
now this running blind into a group i find a very appropriate embodied metaphor for how we relate to groups sometimes. i was especially shocked, reflecting on my own very fast and almost invasively trusting run into the group, by discovering those parts in me where i can just ‘dump’ stuff into a group and trust that they can hold it. when we relate to groups or project stuff on ‘them’ the individuals seem to blur together… especially with closed eyes (metaphorically or real) the complexity is fading and you relate to a synergetic group organism that has its own oneness to it. and then, similar to what i describe about the dance between highly individual and purely anonymous energies but on a ‘me and the group’ level, there are moments when it’s highly about this group and its individuals – and in other times it’s only about me relating to a group as a social field out there where i feel/am in or out. humans are such group-beings, we see those everywhere! the people on my side of the street vs. the people on the other side. the people in my bus vs. the people outside… wherever we are, we move in groups and are extremely good in charging them instantly with values and assumptions and how we are different than another group…
this branches in me into another field that’s about consciously anonymized safe-zones in groups. when it comes to voting or any other public parallel or serial procedure where it’s likely that other persons can influence me by what they choose through the eyes of the observer or the interplay of meta-dynamics – it can make sense to consciously design little anonymized interplay-free container to ensure an authentic voice. well, and this is what basically happens with paper-voting :) but i wouldn’t mind seeing much more practices where the group organism get’s to speak ‘unpolluted by interpersonal and observational dynamics of the moment’… and in other moments its all about those dynamics of course.
another exercise we did with Finn today was about steering someone by pure intention. so one leading person would just stand on one spot and send mental energies to another person in order to make this person move towards or backwards the leading person. so i worked with holding visualizations and imagine those as strongly as possible out into the space – such a powerful exercise that requires full concentration. for me it made sense to use simple but strong visualizations: just an energetic box in front of me, where the other person is either IN and i am pulling her to me or she is OUTside of the box and i am pushing her away. optional energy cords swirling around that can push or pull if i make them do that on my inner eye. i found it very much a dance though – if the person i am ‘steering’ is not doing what i ‘told her’ than i could either try harder and harder OR i go with it and change my visualization to support the movement she is doing! and i can come to a point where it doesn’t feel anymore as if she would have thereby changed my initial will, its more like i am offering ‘my will’ and thereby intention and energetic visualization and mental radiation TO the space between us to be co-created in magic but held by me!
whatever science we might want to use to explain this kind of magic… for me it is very clear that our intention and thoughts always have immediate effects. instead of going to talk with a person on the streets that looks like in need for holding i can also choose to consciously send blessings in form of warm glowing energy winds towards her… i do that very often, when my energy body feels nourished and strong i am radiating gifts of appreciation, love and support to all people i encounter – i catch subtle expressions of their mimic and prolong this pattern-gesture in myself to dive into the potential of this persons manifestation and i am sending blessings to that space… especially in environments where all people are constantly in process with something and have so much to do. we can’t hold everyone and ask what they have on their heart – but you can always send an inner signal of care and support while passing… or from far remote.
i remember a beautiful session in a Sacred Clowning workshop with Didier Danthois where we explored our auras/energy-fields in different exercises – one of them i carry with me since then; while i speak to a group i consciously hold the intention and the visualization of all the aura-bubbles present around the people in the room and i imagine how i fill them with light and energy. this is a beautiful way for me to be aware on the energetic/body message i am sending out while i send out a verbal message… ha, and we also practiced exhaling love-clouds that travel through the room and reach someone else :)
and then there is a whole library to be said and a whole life-time to be explored how intention can be the powerful core of what you are radiating through all you are and what you manifest…
Benjamin Aaron 