Hi Huy
I thought the forum would be interested in how I set
up and facilitated the 1st London Integral Life Practice Group in
July of last year, since I started the
group we have been meeting once a month and have held a day long practice, with
another to be held in July and a full weekend/night time practice to be held in
September.
I will write from the IT, this will distance from the
emotions and feelings developed within the group but it will give you an idea
as how the group was set up and run.
I am a Health Professions Counsel register Drama-psychotherapist
trained using a ritual theatre model. This really means that when working
therapeutically I use ritual as away of providing a safe space in which people
can feel free to express their intention (I).
The first thing I did was to send out to everyone a
breakdown of how I felt the group would run. I tired to ensure that within the
breakdown I had touched in on the I. WE, and IT.
On the day of the group I arrived early and set up an
altar, connecting with Terry’s ILP dedication, the altar was set within the
four directions using colours to define the four elements.
The altar helped the group to leave behind the outside
world they had come from and make a personal dedication to practice.
The group met within a circle and we began by
introducing ourselves, I did not want people to introduce from the IT, (saying
their name, what sort of work they did, etc). So I invited the group to offer
their name and drum on the floor with their hand their internal vibration. This
is a lovely exercise that allows people to show their interior, without naming
feelings.
Once we had all introduced ourselves I explained the
basic plan of ILP, concentrating on the four gold practices, of Body, Mind,
Shadow and Spirit, the intention was to touch in with all four of the
practices.
We began with 3 body workout and meditation; I had
made an audio of the 35 min KATA to which I had added a 20 min formless
meditation. It was important to ensure that the group felt that they understood
each process of the 3 body practice, so I made sure that I explained the
approach, model anything that the group might find a challenge, and then went
over “how to keep yourself physically safe”. I also pointed out the people in
the group that had worked with the 3 body before and suggested to people to
keep an eye on what they were doing if they needed a visual demonstration of an
exercise.
It was also important to allow people to find their
own way through the 3 body, I explained that it was not about getting the
exercise right, it was about the I intention within the exercise, I also
cautioned the group to make sure that they did not practice from their Shadow,
(he is much fitter than me, she can really do the exercise much better then
me)
Once the 3 body ended we went straight into meditation
I had chosen a formless meditation so that the group was free to express their
meditation in away that was meaningful for them. This lead to Terry’s
dedication, all together the introduction, 3 body and meditation took about 1
hour.
(I should say that I had set the 3 body and meditation
up in a particular way. We began with the audio of the 3 body, to which I had
included two mins of preparation for meditation, then a chime followed by 20
mins of silence which ended with a chime, followed by two mins for re-focus
back into the group, before the final dedication.).
As soon as the dedication was over I invited the group
to split into two small groups, the groups I divided by a line of cushions. One
group were dragons and the other group were gods/goddesses. The two groups then
were invited to express their dragon or gods/goddesses, then the groups went to
war with dragon and gods/goddesses fighting, I then invited the group to swap
over and run through the exercise again. Once everyone had had a chance of
express their dragon and gods/goddesses, I invited the group to pick one of the
energies and work with that energy.
As soon as the group was offered this they went back
to being themselves. The shadow would not easily allow them to connect with
that that was normal repressed.
I explained how the dragon and gods/goddesses game can
help to connect with that which the shadow does not what us to have, a sense of
our own power to achieve and fight for what we believe to be right, to use our
strength to help in the healing of the world, through AQAL.
We finally touched in with the Mind, back in the circle,
I invited people to share their understanding of practice, to ensure that we
stayed in the I, I invited people to use Buber’s genuine dialogue approach. To
help people make the right connection I explained that within the middle of the
circle was a large well that we could look into, connecting with “what is
practice “as the group look into the well if anything came up from the well,
they were free to name it. To help people focus we had a reading from One
Taste, in which Ken describe an ILP.
This part of the group was extremely moving as people
expressed their I whilst at the same time remaining connected to the other I’s
within the group. I really felt that we created an I-Thou.
We ended the group with the same drumming but this
time one person began and others added their vibration until all the group was
sharing a vibration. And slowly we found a group vibration, we stayed with the
group vibration for a few moments and gently I brought the group to an end.
Within two hours we had gone from strangers to
intimate human being who for a short while shared an I-I relationship.
I really do believe that AQAL can make a difference;
within an ILP we can really get a feel for AQAL, not just as a model but as a
way of being, as Ken would say AQAL
gives a simple feeling of being.
I originally wrote this at 5.30 in the morning (14th
of July 2024) the sun was just coming up, it was a beautiful blue clear day,
which as I remember was is a little misty as I had tears in my eye remembering the events of the
night of the 14th of July.
Love and light
Gary
www.confluentliving.co.uk