Our workshop took place in the gardens of the Père Lachaise cemetery. A fitting location for exploring Samhain, the Celtic new year, a harvest festival preparing the arrival of deadly winter while celebrating the crop yield that will keep us alive. Samhain is also the time for commemorating the links between the living and the…Read more Visage -Contre Visage
Balancing Act
Balance is about weight distribution. However we tend to forget that balance may be a form of equilibrium that does not rely on an "equal" distribution of weight. There may be symmetrical balancing acts but there are also assymetrical ones. Indeed, as a corrective to the idea of balance, I prefer to speak of balancing…Read more Balancing Act
Seasonal Stress
Back to school. Often a mess. A tangle of things to do. With the difficulty of trying to find the beginning or the end. A long thread of "to dos". And in France, "to don't s". Why not take a moment to just look at the tangles. Admire the complexity. Admire even how this banal…Read more Seasonal Stress
Summertime
And the living is easy. So what is this ease. How might I locate an expression of ease and stay with it, observing it. In high summer when the grass is dried and the ground firm, the sun calls us to doze off in a quiet spot. Back against a tree or laying down. Resting.…Read more Summertime
Communicating Vessels
What can we learn by observing others communicate or relate, leaving the trace of a story arch as testament to something having happened. And what "Others" are good to observe? A group of workshop participants recently appropriated the invitation to observe and explore the question in both verbal and non verbal ways. The Other in…Read more Communicating Vessels
Tree Portraits
I recently had the opportunity to work with a doctor who admitted to being overwhelmed. Much like a tree sheltering so many various species, she is solid, supportive, caring, --whole ecosystems were drawing inspiration from doctor F. Indeed, in Life, at work, family, friends, patients ...everyone else seemed to be generously nurtured by this woman…Read more Tree Portraits
In the Labyrinth of the Senses
Sometimes it takes an absence to discover an omnipresence. For this recent workshop, the inner ear was honoured as eyes were bandaged and participants invited to centre on their sense of balance and movement through space. Momentarily deprived of vision and partially of hearing --body orientation, head position, sensation of muscles and joints in body,…Read more In the Labyrinth of the Senses
Give Receive
The Rainy months of Spring are a reminder that the elements are in constant négociation. The Earth absorbing the water, the water finding its way down into the water table. While the sky breaks open and torrential rains fall, the earth yields, receiving. And soon from the earth against all odds, the seed that has…Read more Give Receive
Pop up Gardens
An opportunity to share Nature the Arts within's working approach came my way recently at an unusual Parisian spot dedicated to creative self exploration. Seymour+, a sprawling loft studio space located in the 10th arrondissement, and its director Melissa Unger, graciously accommodated me as I invested the 5 interactive rooms to facilitate a playful workshop…Read more Pop up Gardens