Offering from the Conscious Body by Janet Adler

Author:Janet Adler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions
Published: 2011-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

A hummingbird, gorgeously green and suspended among the rosemary flowers, appears just as the six people come along the path. We marvel at her capacity to drink while suspended in midair. Once inside, we share a pot of tea and begin the work. I speak about a new format emerging from an individual readiness to move and witness without designated dyads. We begin with everyone sitting in the witness circle. As the teacher, I will remain a constant witness.

This new circle feels long and open, spacious in welcoming each of you to follow your inner timing, directly choosing from moment to moment to become a mover or to become a witness. The voice of the witness/teacher, the bell ringing, the format itself no longer determine when it is time to be a mover or to be a witness. In this long circle, for what can be an extended period of time, people are constantly changing roles, following a call to move or a call to witness.

Spontaneously changing roles invites a wakefulness, a possibility of moving at any second, requiring attention toward a continuous flow between movement and stillness. You can move for five minutes, witness for twenty, move for one minute, witness for ten, move in and out and in and out within seconds, embodying the question of right timing, or you can move the whole time. To ensure a strong and safe enough witness circle for such a dynamic moving body, a new guideline is introduced for witnesses becoming movers. Including the teacher, there must always be a certain number of witnesses, the number decided upon by the collective before beginning the round. A mover’s practice of discernment in consciously choosing how long to move is strengthened by this guideline, reminding him that at any time a witness might be waiting to become a mover.

One reason a witness chooses to move can be because of his experiences directly related to witnessing a specific mover or movers. If there are enough outer witnesses he can choose to close his eyes and take these experiences immediately into his moving practice, expressing them rather than containing them within a witness perspective.

If you are witnessing and a mover is working behind you, even turning to look can disturb the concentration of the witness circle. Witnesses on the other side of the circle can see behind you and you can see what is happening behind them. We need the other half to see the whole. When the witness circle continues to be a consistently embodied shape, movers are free to work not only inside the circle but on the edge between two witnesses or outside the circle. Though every witness tries to welcome each mover with eye contact whenever he returns to his cushion, now movers give themselves permission to choose not to look at a witness if they are feeling too vulnerable or not ready.

With no designated witness for each mover and with many moving at the same time, the presence of the

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