Reviews Connect in Heart & Spirit with Movement and Resonance
A transformative event:
In August a special event took place. The teacher Angela Köhnlein shared her experiences and this was summerised in the following remark:
"The idea of moving within SIWEB and Asha and simultaneously being SIWEB and Asha suggests a strong connection with nature and the environment. These kinds of experiences can be truly transformative".
Angela's reflections, the full text:
In Nâm,
Yoginâm has written so many beautiful texts and books and given interviews that the merging of his language and what LivingNâm is has become inseparably connected to the non-verbal for me.
My own lessons and work also partly consist of the use of language and story. Even though the essence is not aimed at being conveyed solely through language, language also provides direction. Every language and everyone's language is different. Just as every movement differs from the next or the previous one. Just as every sound and every feeling and every drawing or touch, smell or sight are actually continuously new.
I have learned that paying attention to something that is about to present itself in "I/World and Experience," just before it begins and after it has ended, is not something I can ignore. The event 'Connect in Heart & Spirit with Movement and Resonance' that I was allowed to give in Amonines in August, far exceeded my expectations in a positive way. Therefore, just as I started, I want to conclude with writing something. This time as a blog. Here, with a description and some sentences as direct quotations from Yoginâm from SIWEB Chapter 8, 'The Spheres of Awareness,' and a reflection with Chapter 8 in mind:
Yoginâm has created a model of concentric circles to demonstrate the Spheres of Awareness in a way that is understandable to many. SIWEB is located in the center of the smallest circle. In the center of SIWEB is HEART (AWARENESS). SIWEB IS Experience. During the event, everyone moves in SIWEB AND is SIWEB. In Asha and is Asha.
"Ultimately, the outer circle is infinite and has no circumference. (…). The first concentric circle, which is directly around that representing Experience, represents the Sphere of Creative Imagination. This Sphere expresses itself as a bridge between Awareness and Experience. It opens itself only as a consequence of Attunement in the bigger subsequent concentric circles. (…). 'It' is the first sphere as in resonance it is closest to Experience. Imagination is a natural element of SIWEB. It is an important motor in the course of life. (…). In a gradual openness to the Spheres of Sovereignty and Guidance, Resonance of Awareness becomes actively involved in Experience in 'I/World', imagination becomes Creative. It starts expressing deeper layers of living. (…) The Nâm perspective is a kind of phenomenological radicalization with which one arrives at a skeleton. (…). In order to have a universal appeal, not distinguished by a particular culture or tradition, in Nâm and in SIWEB a very fundamental vocabulary is used."
For myself, the universal character of the connection of us as humans with the 'urban' with the transition to the 'natural' and vice versa, is like the transition between alert and tension-oriented feeling and discovering with opening up to what presents itself from the silence and the Certainty of choosing connections from Heart. Awareness 'then presents itself'. It is difficult to put into words.
With the accumulation of the connection with harmony and joy in our expressions together. With knowledge of what is positively absent. Not suppressed, but literally not present. Suppression spells aggression. Swallows fly low when it is about to rain because the mosquitoes also fly low. Not because someone takes away their space from above.
For me, a basis for this is also getting to know one's own body and body sensations related to the deepest muscle layers and connections. The connections between the skeleton (the bones) and the bones as a structure for (all) moving particles and matter in the body. We need opposites to feel safe. Also in structure. So my exercises are always also experience-, movement-, and body-oriented. Also in playing an instrument, whether it is one's own voice or another sound body/musical instrument.
Our conclusion was therefore a communal celebration of the coming together of all the experiences gained during the last 2.5 days with each other and our voices, sound and music sounds, with our movements through the space of the air and on earth in the large meditation room of the Asharum. And that on a Sunday morning!
We did exercises where we approached death or fear. We explored horizontal movements that bring our whole body close to the ground and refresh all cells through slow-motion and non-doing. We worked in and with water. There was drawing and writing. Also for each other. As mirrors in resonance. We did clearly structured movement exercises from Tibetan Yoga and from the Dynamic Anatomy of Nancy Topf, who was my teacher for many years when I lived in New York. And I read from texts by Yoginâm or tried to approach answers from his transmission that go beyond the everyday and lift us up from the soul. I talked about my understanding of Adab. We practiced the Oh-Abbah dance. Discussed the Feasts. Discussed history.
Participants sometimes sought me out individually, for which I am grateful. This has given me many insights. After we made the movement excursions on Friday afternoon to the forest and the river and on the night from Friday to Saturday at 4 am to the misty forest edges on the hills, they further deepened their own nature experiences alongside the program, either together or alone, and animals frequently crossed their paths.
In the setup of this program, I could never replace the Asharum. There are no better places than the Asharum Amonines and Nijar to give such an event. At least for me, it is impossible elsewhere in this form.
In conclusion, I want to end this piece of text within this blog with another quote. Abbah sometimes resembles the Dao. This quote, which certainly emerged as a kind of truth for me during the preparation and in the course and conclusion of this event that began as a quest for harmony and expression of gratitude, comes from Lao Tsu. From the Tao Te Ching. Number 64:
"Peace is easy to maintain;
Problems are easy to overcome before they begin.
The fragile is easy to break.
The small is easy to scatter.
Tackle it before it happens.
Bring order before confusion arises.
A tree as big as a man's embrace springs from a small shoot;
A terrace nine stories high begins with a heap of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles begins under one's feet."
Angela
In Nâm
Also the participants where enthusiastic and shared there experiences:
Beyond words
There are things related to spirit, soul, and heart that I cannot put into language. I feel this strongly about the workshop.
There are also experiences connected to the physical body, which I can describe a bit, but even within those, there was something spiritual, something beyond words.
I had a special experience with the beautiful group and with my physical body: discovering new ways of moving, awakening different sensations, and exploring new ways of giving and receiving with others. It felt as if the body is a temple, and I make contact with different parts of the temple.
Beyond that, I felt a warmth in joining the workshop in the Asharum, a spiritual place where I come closer to myself, to my world.
Samieh, participant ‘Connect in Heart & Spirit with Movement and Resonance’
A special and valuable weekend!
I had never been to a retreat centre before, so it was a new experience for me. My first encounter with Asharum Amonines was a positive one. It is a beautiful, pleasant and peaceful place where I was welcomed with warmth. The sun shining on the beautiful garden and the sound of the birds will stay with me.
I found the workshop: Connect in Heart & Spirit, given by Angela, to be very beautiful, insightful, challenging, but above all inspiring. Angela is a lovely person full of compassion, who radiates trust, openness, and safety.
The workshop consisted of a morning and afternoon programme, both inside the centre and outside in the beautiful natural surroundings, with plenty of breaks that you could fill in as you wished. The workshop focused on movement and resonance, with music, instruments, vocal sounds, creativity and connecting with yourself and others as important additional elements.
I was able to be in the here and now, experience strength and meet lovely people. I look back on a valuable weekend in which I was able to experience a great deal of inner peace and harmony. And, not to forget, I returned home with a lot of positive energy.
Noortje, participant ‘Connect in Heart & Spirit with Movement and Resonance’
