MINDING YOUR LIFE NEWSLETTER
Number
25
In this issue…
Association for
Contemplative Mind in Higher Education Conference
Pendle Hill
Workshop
2011 Mindfulness in Education Conference
Ensemble
Learning
Two heads are better than one,
especially when the other head brings experiences very different from my
own. My new friend, Beth, has a
background in theatre. When Beth told me
about her work, I could see how it might add a valuable dimension to a new
weekend workshop where participants would look at their lives, working
contemplatively with stories and poems. The
weekend of reading, meditation, journaling, mindful sharing, and deep listening
might well lead participants to new insights.
However, as I thought about the structure of the workshop, it seemed too
sedentary. I asked Beth if she saw ways
in which some of the exercises might be embodied. Here are two of Beth’s ideas we used in the
workshop.
The first one involved dramatization. After reading a story, Beth divided the
participants into two groups. First one
group cast the members of the other in roles of the characters of the story,
arranged the set, and got the performance underway by reading the
introduction. After the members of the
first group finished their performance, they cast the second group into roles,
and this group performed the story.
Finally, all participants wrote about their experiences in their
journals. .
Beth’s second approach involved gesture. Beforehand, Beth divided a poem into parts,
one for each participant. She numbered
the parts, cut them into separate strips, and placed them around a small table. To begin the exercise, the poem was read
twice by different people. Then each participant
selected one part of the poem from the table and had a short time to develop a
gesture to illustrate that part. Sitting
in a circle, the participants rose in order, read their part of the poem and
remained standing, offering their gestures.
In the end, the whole poem had come to life, made visible by the
group. All that remained was for the participants
to individually process their experience.
Mindful learning is often an
individual experience. Here, the whole
group recreates the material, and its embodied form comes alive and lives in
each person in a unique way.
Beth and I will repeat our workshop
at Pendle Hill next January.
UPCOMING EVENTS CALENDAR
Friday to
Sunday, September 24 - 26, 2010
2nd Annual Conference of the
Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education
Tuesday,
November 9, 2010
9th
Grade Stress Reduction Workshops
Friday to Sunday, January 14 - 16, 2011
Minding our Lives: Looking Deeply
at the Present Moment
This
workshop will be of general interest.
Friday to Sunday, March 18 - 20, 2011
2011
Mindfulness in Education Conference
More
information will follow