Heroes of the Apocalypse
Nature will always have the final say, and plainly declares that connection, unity and reciprocity is how life thrives. We are being called to find a way to follow that divine law as a mandate for living, otherwise we are surely lost.
‘To be Heroic is to act with courage, to be willing to turn towards that which is feared and respond with bravery and integrity. The most feared territory for men is conceivably that of the wounded heart – and men so wounded, as many are, are a liability.’
The ‘wounded heart’ is a poetic reference to the theme of disconnection that underpins patriarchy and individualism. The rules and behavioural cues that we culturally impose on boys systematically stunts the capacity to feel the connection and humanity in themselves and the other.
The liability is this - that the less you feel, the easier it becomes to transgress and the more you transgress, the less you come to feel. It’s been mandatory under patriarchy, for men to close down the heart in order to do the necessary violence to achieve the aim of power and dominion. It’s a vicious cycle.
The workshop is framed as a laboratory space to explore together how the dynamics of belief and behaviour that maintain the system, also run deeply through us.
The hope is that understanding how we are bound into the system and how it conditions us, will allow us to loosen the knots and free ourselves.
THE WORKSHOP
The main theme of the workshop is given to the practice of sensing and listening to ourselves and others. We’ll touch into the traditionally male taboo subjects of intimacy and vulnerability.
We’ll use ideas and exercises drawn from several embodied and relational approaches to movement, awareness and self development in order to provide experiences that can be studied shared and discussed.
CIRCLING
Is an organic, present moment group conversation practice focused on connection, relational awareness, non - violence and mutual discovery.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION
Describes a way of moving, in physical contact with other people. There is no technique as such, but there are skills to learn. For example, balance, spatial awareness, trust, letting go of agenda and expectation, listening to self and other, presence, play and much more.
BIODYNAMIC CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY
Is a touch and presence based healing therapy with an emphasis on deep listening and energetic resonance. The training involves ever deepening and refining the capacity to sense and feel the energetic fields of physical and relational experience – past and present.
HAKOMI
Is a model of psychotherapy that focuses on the examination of unfolding present moment experience. Relational experiments are offered in a state of mindfulness so that the impact of experience can be clearly felt as a truth to be examined as it emerges into awareness. It has been described as assisted self discovery.
Context
The workshop is offered as part of a response to the realisation of the centrality of the system of patriarchy in maintaining the structures of belief and behaviours that are clearly no longer fit for the continued health and prosperity of our world.
The workshop is for men who are interested to explore how they can participate in moving away from the system that causes so much damage to the relationships we make with ourselves, women, other men and the world we are part of.
We are arguably in disarray because the structures that maintain the dynamics of domination and hierarchy are also obsessed with acquisition, division and status. These themes are mostly enacted through violence and are simply not conducive to the flourishing of life.