Field Report on Alethic Integral Retreat

7/29/2019 Field Report on Alethic Integral Retreat

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Alethic Integral Retreat

18th 20th May at Overmoigne, Dorset.

Report Created by Tessa Martin.

Im almost reluctant to attempt to write a review of the weekend that 14 integral lovers (8 Men,6 Women) experienced with Gary at a beautiful venue in the Dorset countryside, from 2:00 PM

Friday to 4:00 PM Sunday, Im reluctant, as I dont think my mind awareness can recall enough or

my heart awareness express enough or my physical awareness put in place enough of what

happened!

The Friday afternoon session was bewildering for myself, Gary attempted to introduce us to

Advanced Integral theory, and The Philosophy of metaReality, suffice it to say, it was a like he

was speaking a foreign language at times. So up in my head came my objections whats the

point of all this? Why?

Is it truly necessary to try and get our heads around so much theory and academia? I cant cope

with this! But I did, as did the rest of the group and slowly little drips of understanding began to

penetrate, questions and thoughts and feelings were expressed and Gary patiently kept going.

Friday Evening, Opening Circle

We started by finding our safe space in the retreat room; we were encouraged to return to the

safe space any time we needed to accentuate that we need attention. Gary then instructed us to

complete a room health and safety check, pointing to any potential hazards. He also pointed out

the need to maintain physical wellbeing. This instilled the motivation to be responsible to the

group as well as to our own self.

What followed was an exercise in placing people differently in the room in order to feel safe, this

lead to Gary being able to lead the contributing participants into a process of bringing up some

occlusions, for one participant this centred around their like/hate of intimacy and for anotheraround their fullness/potentiality.

Next we were lead to a partner exercise, taking turns to talk about ourselves, the listeningpartner had to either accept our statements or state I dont believe you thus bringing to light

the difference between core truths, core false beliefs, is this statement real or demi-reality, demi-

reality being formed around our idealised self, so that a belief is what structures our reality, is

this belief actually truth, and if not how are we then enslaved to that demi-reality. This then

being the master/slave relationship which consistently occludes or blocks reality.

A practice of entering the room in a ceremonial fashion was instructed which was a lovely way to

greet each other at the beginning of each session. Gary invited volunteers to be the circle

guardian for each session, this involved ensuring the session started on time reciting the Alethic

prayer, managing the circle sharing, a different person for each session volunteered.

To close two songs were played, one depicting human hurt, and the other freedom, we were

asked which we identified more with. We ended standing in a circle, reorienting ourselves to our

awareness in each of the 8 zones of the integral quadrants.

Saturday

7.00 a.m. Meditations

Watchful of our thoughts, are we holding them or letting them go followed by a partner practice

in deep presence (eye to eye) of thankfulness, one person representing God and the other

completing the sentence I thank you for We then came to circle, rocking the body in the

seated position and chanting Abwun quietly inwards, then to the whole group, and then to the

universe.


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A.M. 1st Session

First the morning circle, we then settled in for 3 exercises:

In pairs making eye contact taking turns to verbalise what we noticed about our partner, what

we imagined from that noticing, what we felt and what we wanted. What a rich and beautifulexercise in connecting. We swapped partners 3 times.

The group was then split in men and the women; taking turns to lie down in the middle of the

circle contracting into a tight ball, the group reinforced the contraction by pushing into the

person. This was to help us feel our normal state of internal contraction, that under stress we

probably all live with, and also then to feel the external pressure.

The contracted person was supported in unwind and offered a massaged, allowing a

surrendering finally helping them to come back up to standing. During the exercise debrief, it was

surprising how comfortable some people felt within the contracted state and how the external

pressure once surrendered to was not uncomfortable, or even soothing.

A 5 Rhythms based dance was then offered with the encouragement to reach our own edges, not

anybody elses, emphasizing that this was a movement practice, so not to judge our ability or lack

of dancing skills.

In discussion afterwards one participant shared his view of actually in the end being amused by

his frustration and inability to let go into the movement.

P.M. 2nd Session

After the group circle, we had two main exercises in the afternoon.

First standing breathing through our 3 centres bringing more focused awareness to each, first

Mind, then Heart and then Physical centre at the Hara and down to earth.

Then in pairs, holding left hands we repeated the process, placing our right hand on our partners

forehead, breathing through our partners 3 centres as if they were our own centres and

breathing out through our own centres thus creating a circle of breath and ultimately breathing

as one being.

We released the right hand and using our left hands, releasing the physical connection we

maintained a subtle body connection holding an energy ball, rising to standing, maintaining the

ball and starting to move around the room, maintaining the connection, moving further apart

whilst expanding the size of the ball, and wordlessly guiding each other to avoid other couples

in the room.

This was a fairly long exercise and I dont know if it was for this reason, or not but I foundbreaking away from this connection quite difficult, I didnt want to break it, although in all

honesty Im not sure that I got the feeling of the subtle body energies.

With our partners we then discussed the exercise.

What followed and Im not sure how this came about, is 2 participants uncovering an occlusion

in regards to one having difficulty being seen as a beautiful woman and the other using the termyounger beautiful woman.

In order to help in this process we ended up in a Greek chorus of repetition you are a beautiful

woman which was clearly a deeply moving process for the participant, and indeed all of us.

Then we were invited in pairs to into the gardens with one person being the photographer, and

the other with, eyes closed, the camera. The photographer lead the camera to an image they


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wanted to capture placed their hands in front of the camera lens to create a frame and then said

1,2,3 and click at which point the camera took a picture.

Back in the room we were given a sheet of paper and various pencils, crayons and felt tips and

asked to draw our snapshots in one picture or using just the one sheet of paper represent our

snapshots in an abstract way. This obviously brought up the occlusion of not being able to draw

for some people and comparing ourselves to each other.

In the closing circle that followed there seemed to be a drop energy and Gary encouraged us tokeep up with him and not to disappear from the group in sleepiness. We then broke for the

evening meal.

Evening 3rd Session

The first exercise of the evening session was an extremely challenging experience of the Naikan

process.

In pairs, turns were take to complete the three Naikan, sentences, the first two being positive

aspects:

You gave me..

I gave you.

The third addressed

The trouble/pain I gave you was.

Partners took the role of representing someone of our choice who has cared for us the most in

our life, in most cases a parent or life long caregiver.

This was an emotive exercise, to put it mildly!

We then broke into 2 groups to talk about the exercise, in our group we engaged in a process to

help someone who felt extremely disconnected.

The session ended with the group forming an inner circle facing out and instructed to move

clockwise and an outer circle facing in and instructed to move anticlockwise.

As a series of songs were played we turned, and met the gaze of a new partner remaining

connected with the gaze feeling into the rhythm of our own mind/heart/body until the song

ended and we moved on to the next gaze.

Sunday

7.00 a.m. Morning Meditations

30 minutes in stillness followed by chanting Abwun, inside self, to a partner, then to the whole

group.

A.M. 4th Session

Opening circle, prayer and sharing;

After which Gary went into some detail of an experience he had the previous evening when he

felt he a deep contraction way from the group and how the process of MELD had brought him

through this.

MELD Movement, Edge, Love, Doing.


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He explained more about occlusion being the absence of something and the necessity to find

what the absence is to bring us to alethic truth of any event/occurrence.

He also explained the difference between hard gaze and soft gaze of the eyes before going in to

the next exercise.

With partner seated, holding presence, we completed circles of I give you the gift of .. theother person speaking I receive your gift of . And I give you the gift of.

I now actually see how this exercise was to truly get us into centeredness for the following:

We stood and firstly connected with the awareness of mind, heart, and physical, ensuring that we

were fully grounded.

Then our partner stood behind us with hands on our shoulders and deliberately rocked us to try

and knock us off of our centre. The level of rocking and rolling become, as we requested, more

intense added to which our partner shouting a word that would normally throw us off centre eg.

Loser! We then faced each other and again in turns we thoroughly embodied the aggressor and

embodied our centred response in a dramatized confrontation raising the roof!

To slow down we were invited to wander the gardens for 20 minutes and use our 3 awarenesses

to feel into nature and collect an object that held resonance for us and consider the questions

What does what we see mean from

Our perspective of mind?

Our perspective of heart?

Our perspective of the physical?

After the closing circle, we were reminded to stay present and mindful as we prepared our lastmeal together. Everyone was to participate in creating the meal, and we were encouraged to

resist our normal role taking.

So continuing the practice as we moved into the social time. The lunch was wonderful, patched

together from all the food left over from our individual stocks from the weekend, the table set

beautifully, and it was a shared experience of genuine pleasure.

P.M. Closing Circle.

Gary called a circle and invited each person to offer their object from nature, expressing the

significance of the objects to the 3 awarenesses and to relate it to their experience of the

weekend.

You needed to be there to genuinely appreciate the depth of feeling resonating around the room,

the gratitude, the heartfelt thanks from participant to all participants for their openness and

willingness to participate in the laboratory of this retreat, the feelings of transformation and

growth and most of all the LOVE.

Purely and simply the depth of connectedness and group bonding that allows that love to shine

through when we are all willing to go beyond ego, to be without a head.

Garys parting question to us all was What are we going to do now? What are we going to do? I

took this to be a question of responsibility how can I take this weekend and let it have an

impact on my life and thus an impact on the world.

We finished by inviting Gary into a circle and chanting Abwun around him as a way of saying the

biggest thank you possible.


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My eyes fill with tears as I type this; such is my feeling of sincere elation at the privilege of being

a part of this unique retreat.

I would like to finish this review with the Alethic Prayer that was read to us by the guardian

during the opening and closing circles of the sessions.

Beloved, Inmost Heart of every heart,do not Let our human hearts be broken

by our merely mortal suffering here

but Make our mortal human hearts break-Free

to an unconditional love of You,

that we may, Thus, love all living beings

with Love's own alethic, and unbounded, Heart.

Documents

Field Report on Alethic Integral Retreat