TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
A DuVersity Programme
October 2 – 4, 2009, West Virginia
What is transformation?
To be more what you are and lessen the pretence of being something or someone else.
Transformation is not magically reaching an ideal state but more the opening of doors to new challenges
What is our purpose in offering this programme?
Our aim is to help people derive practices they can bring into their daily lives.
The course is about assimilating material within yourself that has been neglected or is even largely unknown to you even though most truly yours. The practices and work with other people can help you renew, rejuventate and reconnect with your purpose and deepest sense of values
As children we may have played in mysteries, now a faint memory. In this workshop you are invited to bring together sophisticated thought with child-like innocence and learn how they may be closer together than most people imagine; and bring all stages of life together.
What is transformation? To be more what and who you are and lessen the pretence of being something or someone else. There are levels within levels within us and some of the deeper ones can connect with forces that can ‘wake us up’ from entrapping delusions, help sustain us and be of more benefit to our neighbours. Transformation is not magically reaching an ideal state but more the opening of doors to other perceptions of new challenges. This is not just a private affair. Perhaps more people are needed who can avoid being sucked into the mindless activities of the modern world and can keep on discovering new ‘facts’ about themselves and humanity. Because transformation is needed it can work!
How does it work in our event? We enter into being with ourselves and coming to know ourselves while engaging in various practices. These include methods of moving, talking, creating, stillness and thinking that have evolved particularly from the ‘fourth way’ canon of Gurdjieff but include new insights from group psychology and neurophysiology. These we have developed from our previous workshops on ‘psyche integration’ conducted in many cultures from China to the USA.
Who is in charge? Really, you are. The facilitators serve you in your explorations. Their authority is only to enable the methods to be applied in safety and transparency. For the duration of the workshop, we aim for the condition known as koinoniaor ‘impersonal fellowship’. We operate as far as possible on the level. We do not consider it right to tell other people ‘how to find God’.
How is it structured? There will be a series of explorations over the three days, taking us through different ways of working designed to activate specific areas of our brains, minds and hearts. The three main axes are: to Know, to Be and to Act. We do not practice anything blindly but enquire into and question what we are doing. Though theoretical explanation is kept to a mimimum a dialogue of meaning is maintained. One of our aims is to enable people to derive practices they can bring into their lives.
What do you have to bring? Essentially this is a question, an aim, or a puzzle or quest. However elusive and hard to express this may be, it is the necessary condition of making progress. A major part of the process of the workshop is helping each other tune into our inherent purpose and we do not expect you to have your aim clearly defined – maybe it will be more like a story or image or even just ‘felt-sense’ than any concept.
We are two facilitators with long experience of transformative methods in various domains and, sometimes, many years of working with key figures in such methods. We participate in the event with you.
Anthony Blake studied physics and philosophy of science at Bristol and Cambridge and worked on educational research with John Bennett, a major pupil of Gurdjieff. He is the author of many books including: A Seminar on Time, The Intelligent Enneagram and The Supreme Art of Dialogue as well as many others on systematics and fourth way ideas. He has been working with groups for forty years exploring dialogue and opening to trans-egoic intelligence.
Karen Stefano, Ed. M., M. A., L. P. C., is an artist and practicing psychotherapist. A trained sculptor and painter, she has worked extensively with stone, clay, watercolors, and pastels. Karen has studied various applications of spirit and psychology, including Gurdjieff/Fourth Way , bioenergetics, Median Group Process, psychodynamic therapy/depth psychology and Social Dreaming Matrix. She is co-founder of DuVersity, an educational non-profit. Studying with many great teachers along the way, she has synthesized a creative and effective way of working with clients both individually and in-group. Karen trained with Dr. Edith Wallace, a world-renowned Jungian analyst who developed The Tissue Paper Collage Method more than 30 years ago. Karen is one of the few individuals qualified to continue the work developed by Dr. Wallace. She currently holds a private practice in Charles Town, West Virginia.
COSTS: $250 room and board, $225 tuition
DATE: October 2-4, 2009
VENUE: Priestfield Pastoral Center, Kearneysville, West Virgina
DIRECTIONS: PriestField Pastoral Center is conveniently located
just 75 miles from Washington, DC and Baltimore on
State Route 51 between I-81 and Charles Town, WV
