DOWN TO EARTH
The philosopher Philip Shepherd calls this 'whole blindness': the mind body gap we have been taught, since Descartes, to accept as simply how things are, an almighty mind housed inside an unthinking body.
John O'Donohue wrote something that has stayed with me for years: 'Most of us are moving through such an undergrowth of excess that we cannot sense the shape of ourselves anymore.' A post modern culture built on more, more, more has divorced many of us from ourselves, and from each other. He speaks of an uprootedness that keeps us from feeling any real thread of continuity, between mind and body, and between our own sense of individuation and the whole we belong to. It goes some way to explaining the loneliness so many of us are living inside.
BACK TO BODY
This series is an invitation into the body itself: not a problem to solve or a stepping stone toward a more spiritual life, but the ground the whole practice stands on. Your body is also part of the way you live a rich, full, human life, not something waiting on the other side of enlightenment for you to finally arrive back into.
Over five Wednesday evenings we will explore the earth of your own body, the fascial matrix that holds and connects every part of you, and our reciprocity with the actual earth beneath our feet, the give and take between the ground we stand on and the ground we are made of.
We will sit with what it means to let things drop away, the difference between surrender and collapse, and how a rooted, centred self becomes possible once that ground has actually been felt rather than only imagined. And as autumn turns toward winter outside, we will let the body turn inward too, moving with the season rather than against it.
- Heads on a stickWEEK ONE : 7 OCTOBER
We begin with the disconnection itself, the felt experience of living from the neck up, and what it costs to keep meeting the day that way. No fixing anything yet, just noticing where the body has gone quiet from disuse, and letting sensation return in its own time. - The earth withinWEEK TWO : 14 OCTOBER
We turn toward the fascial matrix, the connective web that runs through every part of the body, holding and linking everything, not a mechanism to correct but a living structure with its own intelligence. Practice moves slowly into texture and connection, unwinding patterns that have been held for a long time without our noticing. - The ground beneathWEEK THREE : 21 OCTOBER
Having found the earth inside the body, we extend that outward: the literal ground beneath our feet, and what it means to actually meet it rather than simply stand on it. Practice leans into standing and rooting, weight and contact felt rather than thought about. - What falls awayWEEK FOUR : 28 OCTOBER
This is the week of surrender, and the difference between surrender and collapse. Rootedness isn't rigidity, and letting go isn't giving up: the ground we've been building across the first three weeks is what makes this kind of release possible rather than frightening. Practice slows further still, longer holds, more time on the floor. - Rooted despite everythingWEEK FIVE : 4 NOVEMBER
We close where we began, with the question of how much we're truly inhabiting our bodies. Autumn has turned toward winter outside, and the body has had five weeks to turn inward too. A steady centre that holds, not because the world outside has become any less loud, but because the ground has finally been felt.
Every session is held live, and I'd love for you to join us there if you can, there's something different about moving through this together in real time rather than alone later. If life gets in the way on the night, a recording is there for you, and it's yours to download and keep forever.
The whole series is €60.