Sensory Awareness: Embracing Your True Nature
May 13 – 15, 2016
Schedule
The whole community will attend the opening session with Lee Klinger Lesser and the closing session with Stefan Laeng Gilliatt. The rest of the sessions are offered two at a time. Participants choose one or the other.
Both silent (Leader TBA) and guided meditation (Eugene Tashima) sessions are offered on Saturday and Sunday mornings 7 a.m. – 7:45 a.m. During lunch on Saturday, there is a special opportunity to explore Sensory Awareness and eating with Sara Bragin.
7 – 7:45 a.m.
Eugene Tashima
Guided Meditation
Silent Meditation (Leader TBA)
Friday, May 13, 2016: Check in 4 – 6 p.m., Dinner 6 – 7 p.m.
Beginning Right Where We Are, Right Now
Opening 7:15 – 9:00 p.m.
Lee Klinger Lesser, MA
As we begin, let’s slow down and open to the natural responsiveness waiting right here for us. We don’t have to do anything, or be any certain way. Just offer our attention and curiosity to our experience and discover how we meet what is needed within ourselves and in connection to those around us.
Saturday, May 14, 2016
7 – 7:45 a.m.
Eugene Tashima
Guided Meditation
Silent Meditation (Leader TBA)
Our Natural Responsiveness
9:15 – 11:15 a.m.
Richard Lowe, MA, LMFT
What is it to be moved or touched or relieved by something? In this experiential session we’ll explore sensing the inner flow of changes in ourselves as we encounter the world around us. We may discover old habits of resistance in ourselves. How might we then meet such habits with acceptance and love?
Jill Harris, MA, CMT
In the process of “growing up”, the sensory nature of direct experience is often overshadowed by the effects of training, expectations and habit. We will explore aspects of sensory experience individually and in relation to another, including a sense of oneself as a whole.
Break: 12:00 – 3:00 Lunch: a special opportunity to explore Sensory Awareness and eating with Sara Bragin.
Time on to explore Sensing on your own.
The Art of Pausing
3:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
Connie Smith-Siegel, MFA
Through a combination of Sensory Awareness, drawing, and movement we can discover the rich diversity of our inner nature as it changes, moment to moment. Through spontaneous improvisations with shape, line and color we can connect more deeply with what we see and feel around us.
Penny Smith
Allowing time between one activity and another gives us the space to experience what is happening within, deepening our inner sense of when we are ready to meet the next activity. Being aware of our breathing and how we are connected to the support of the earth renews our ability to meet the experiences of living. Exploring standing, walking and lying through various experiments with weight and gravity awakens possibilities for new awareness.
Saturday Night
7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Wondering Together
Discussion and questions about Sensory Awareness with members of the Leaders’ Guild.
Sensory Awareness and Psychotherapy
Richard Lowe, LMFT
An exploration of the practice of Sensory Awareness as it relates to psychotherapy and wellness.
8:15 – 10:00 p.m.
Leader TBA
In the Library, sensing movement exploration to music. Art materials will also be available. A ‘café’’ (or should we say SAFé) will be available for socializing in the dining hall.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
7 – 7:45 a.m.
Eugene Tashima
Guided Meditation
Silent Meditation (Leader TBA)
9:45 – 11:45 a.m.
Finding Support in Our Own Nature
Ray Fowler, MS
While exploring the nature of breath, you may begin to notice how habitual conditioning affects this fundamental life function. Breathing provides a powerful link to hidden ways in which we control behavior. You will begin to feel how breathing has its own path. Noticing breath’s own way will gradually allow you to let go of behaviors and habits which no longer serve you. Embracing your own nature comes simply by itself, since it is already there!
Patricia Baxter, MA, CMT
In listening to breath and our natural responses to life’s demands we come to know ourselves. We will explore concepts of inspiration, enthusiasm, response-ability and the tendency to “should” ourselves. These concepts will be explored through Sensing experiments that help distinguish between what we sense and what we emote and how the two lead us through life.
Closing: Stepping Into Life
Stefan Laeng Gilliatt
When we leave the supportive atmosphere of the workshop to step back into everyday life, we quickly realize that life’s fast pace and unpredictability challenges our newly gained insights. How can we integrate Sensory Awareness into our lives so that the practice supports us in our many activities and encounters? We’ll explore this question in playful and in quiet ways, interacting with other people and with everyday things to rediscover the new and fresh in the ordinary.