1. Letting Gd In

Brainstorm


In our initial thinking about our theme for this semester we wanted to revisit something we had already done. Following the advice of Ebn, we sought to see what it felt like to engage with a theme more than once to help ourselves grow as facilitators and to see how a theme changes over time, with new people, at a different moment in history. We have also been thinking more about how to bring our work with the Minyan out into other communities. How does the same theme respond to a new setting, or to people with diverse backgrounds? After reflecting on past themes (Shema to Ge'ulah: the move from oneness to redemption, Modes of Leadership, and "Baruch Atah YHVH": the move from orientation to disorientation) we decided to play with Modes of Leadership a second time.

Simultaneously, Adam and I were processing a powerful movement experience
that we shared a few weeks prior. On Adam's encouragement we signed up for "The Art of Listening," a weekend-long Contact Improv workshop with renowned movement teacher Kirstie Simmons (view an amazing documentary about Kirstie here). While Adam has had some years of experience with Contact Improv I only knew what I had learned from him through our work together on the Minyan.

This workshop exploded open new doorways in my relationship to movement, to other human beings, and to myself. While I have been practicing yoga for the past twelve years and teaching for the past five or six, I had never before experienced movement so focused on touch, spontaneity, and curiosity. While I love providing hands-on assists in yoga and try to bring a playful consciousness to my movement on the mat, I am also reassured by the structure, the set format, and the predictability of yoga class.

Throughout the weekend I was asked to drop my notions of self and my notions of others. I was challenged to push my own boundaries of comfort by touching and moving with people I did not know. I had to expand my idea of touch to move beyond my immediate reaction that intimate touch is sexual and that intimate touch that isn't with your partner is inappropriate. Kirstie had us doing exercises where we walked around the room and randomly hugged people in the room, sometimes so enthusiastically that we lifted each other off the ground. Acknowledging the common experience that touch with strangers is thought of as inappropriate and often sketchy, Kirstie offered us the phrase "touching with hands that don't want." So often in our lives we are touched in a way that demands something from us. When framed in this way, touch became a natural mode of safe exploration.

While there was no explicit religious or spiritual framing to the workshop, both Adam and I felt opened, renewed, exposed, and connected to the Divine through the movement work we did. As we visioned this semester's work in the Minyan we knew that we wanted to build in much of what we did with Kirstie. We thought back to the theme we wanted to revisit and sat with what felt most live for us.

We decided that while past themes have been explicitly crafted around aspects of traditional prayer, this semester we wanted to explode open the notion of "prayer" to include all the ways we interact with Gd throughout our day. How do we practice being open to these chance encounters with the Divine? How do we prepare for the unexpected? Ultimately, how do we practice Letting Gd In.

This semester we will practice Letting Gd In by practicing tools of improvisation. This means increasing our awareness of the energies (emotions, sensations, intuitions, impulses, desires) that are constantly around and within us. It means expanding our capacity for playfulness, and it means cultivating a insatiable curiosity for the world around us and within us.


Outline
I. Introduction (7 min)
Welcome new people to Movement Minyan
- Safe space for moving and exploring
- Acknowledge wide range of backgrounds in the room

Explain the Minyan
- Exploring dynamics of prayer through the body
- Dynamics we have explored in the past: Move from oneness to redemption - Shema to Ge'ulah, Modes of Leadership that happen in prayer service (call and response, follow the leader, alone together, all together together), Exploring the formula of "Baruch Atah YHVH" and the move from orientation to disorientation.

This semester's theme:
Letting Gd In
- Building the tools of improvisation
-Increasing our awareness of the energies constantly around and within us (emotions, sensations, intuitions, impulses, desires)
- Expanding our capacity for playfulness
- Cultivating curiosity

II. Movement
* No music
Yoga flow on mats (20 min)
Personal flow on mats (2 min)
Push mats aside and engage in personal flow without mats (2)

Tefillah
Bring yourself from one side of the room to the other, any way you want, finding pleasure in your movements (10 min)

III. Discussion (10 min)


IV. Hand Closing (1 min)

Reflections