Enfolding, Møn / Photo: Lisa Bregneager

I HAVE LONG BOWED MY HEAD TO REASON

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Recently, I was asked to participate in a sound art piece about faith and prayer. I do not pray, and I am not religious, so I really had to think about it for a while.

A priest once said in a sermon I attended a long time ago that the gesture of folding your hands and praying is like creating an intimate space for yourself and your longings, a boundary between your body and the outer world and thus a container for your deepest reflections. You enfold yourself.

I like this image. So, I decided to participate in the sound piece and spoke about enfolding myself and listening in and how I practice an equivalent to praying in my own non-religious setting.

I start most of my mornings with a cup of coffee, my journal, a poem (right now Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke in Anita Barrow’s and Joanna Macy’s translation), and a short meditation. Yoga to me is also a dynamic form of prayer. Or enfolding, tuning in. I anchor myself this way and I try to carry this sensation with me throughout the day. When the day unfolds, and I unfold with it.

I have long bowed my head to Reason. Reason is a strict Master that really doesn’t want to share His power with others. By turning my attention to Reason, the Sensuous, the Poetic, the Beautiful, the Imaginary, and the Playful have become distant ghosts, vague childhood memories of a specific way of being. After quitting my job last summer, I turn to these Mistresses more and more and I deeply appreciate the wondrousness that they exude. Like a vast openness and unfolding of something, I never can fully grasp.

Sisters Hope, Inhabitation Air

Sisters Hope Home / Photo: I diana lindhardt

A SENSUOUS SOCIETY

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II checked in at Sisters Hope Home this weekend, spending 22 hours in the performance group’s Inhabitation Infinity. Blindfolded at times and stripped off digital gadgets, I immersed myself in caring, sensuous, and transformative encounters. I recommend going. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced. If you prefer control over trust and worry about letting go, you may not enjoy it (but you may need it). I let go of a lot of stuff.

Sisters Hope explore different aspects of what they call a Sensuous Society – a potential new world arising from the post-economical and ecological crisis. I have the pleasure of meeting Gry Worre Hallberg, the Sister herself, later today June 9th at NORDIC STREET (part of Passage Festival) in Helsingør in a talk about art and sustainable practices.

GROW THE FUTURE YOU LONG FOR

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The course, I have designed, on Art & Personal Leadership ended this past week, and I already miss our meetings and the participants. Our final two guest teachers were visual artist Rune Bosse and film instructor Phie Ambo.

We visited Rune and walked in a forest where several of his gentle collaborations and interventions with trees take place. He spoke about time, having planted (what will become) a red forest, albeit not for him to enjoy in this lifetime. They are slow growers. We forest bathed amongst gigantic old trees.

Phie talked about rocking the ground below you to create change. You are the only one to know what feels unsteady for you and precisely where you should rock that ground. Phie engages in many activities and offers her attention to what she longs to see grow. Besides her films, the activities range from creating a fundamentally new type of school and curriculum, Den Grønne Friskole, to the co-operative regenerative agriculture movement, Andelsgaarde that buys conventional farms one by one. Andelsgaarde is great – and by paying a small monthly amount, you become a farm owner, a game changer, and a soil activist at the same time. Transforming agriculture is of outmost importance to fight the loss of biodiversity.

The course ended with a magical gathering at my place with sharings, reflections, and some of the participants presented projects and texts, fueled by the course. I already long for these reflections and will offer the course again.

Stay tuned!

Warm summer wishes,

Birgitte