Winter Wild workshop at Wildlife Wonders
Eco-somatica is an embodied, sensory experience. It involves audio immersion, guided movement meditation, bio-mechanics and the use of story and narrative. The movement explorations come from the Feldenkrais Method ® Awareness Through Movement ® system of mind/body education with a focus on how we make contact with, respond and adjust to the ground beneath our feet.
It is a creative multi-media, multi-disciplinary journey, designed to be a transformative undertaking for the mind, body, and nervous system.
Using the Wildlife Wonders sanctuary this special edition of Eco-Somatica will launch from the visitor centre, incorporate the use of amplified sound, and extend into the sanctuary along the winding path into the gully.
The workshop will close with a complimentary drink and time for reflection in the Emu Café at Wildlife Wonders visitor centre.
Book your place.
Background provocation
Our sense of place in the world grows ever more tenuous. The age of Anthropocene, an age defined by human impact could be the age that ends us. The predictions ever more dire and with ever growing consensus. We live amidst tipping points teetering around us like gigantic existential spinning plates on sticks. And everywhere the noise is deafening and unceasing. We race against time, competing needs and an insatiable demand for our attention.
In this tension our senses are heightened and we are frightened, we protect ourselves with distraction and downtime but are never far from the clamour and roar. We are more connected than ever and simultaneously more alone. We live in a paradox.
This is the eco-crisis in which we find ourselves. If ever there was a time for us to re-connect to the ground beneath our feet it is now.
Premise
If we feel a connection to the ground, we are able to soften. We know when we touch down and we are quick to adjust. Once we find this softness our central nervous system will spread it through our entire selves. Connection and differentiation are available to us in equal measure. And with them, comes a sense of safety and trust.
The world inexplicably becomes a softer place and our place in it less frightening. With this burgeoning sense of connection our creative potential is restored.
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- Our connection to the ground is what gives us a sense of ‘groundedness’.
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- This connection is what grants us freedom to move.
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- The more grounded we are the more liberated from the ground we become.
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- The less grounded we are the more threatening the ground.
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- The more threatened we are the more rigid we become.
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- This is not limited to our bodies and movement it extends to our thinking, our perceiving and our very way of being.
About Simon Slieker
Simon is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, somatic educator and DJ. He’s passionate about the experience of connection between: self, other and earth. His work uses movement, touch and sound to create the conditions for improving self-awareness. Find out more at: www.simonslieker.com
