Session 2: Journey to Now

Once the group is assembled (or at least a majority of the group) invite them to settle in their seats and lead them in the practice of dropping the balloon and Grounding.

Invite participants to share how they have got on with the home practice in the week. Whether they have -

1. tried the guided meditation or

2. remembered to drop the balloon at any point or

3. noticed anything since we last met relating to the course

You will most likely be presented with a litany of obstacles to regular practice but also many occasions when they have made use of dropping the balloon - as mitigating evidence of continued commitment!

Bring to attention, with humour, how the handout predicted some of these obstacles or 'excuses' and how they are 'stress' responses to just stopping and being with ourselves.

• I can’t do it

• I’m too busy

• I don’t feel anything

• I’m too sleepy

• It’s not important/I’ll do it tomorrow

While the above is a guide to the dialogue allow the space for the group to share their experience without there being a sense that there is some expected outcome. It's just a non-judgmental open sharing space.

The bottle metaphor is illustrated using a half-filled transparent plastic bottle.

The body is like a clenched or contorted bottle. It feels as though it’s the vessel of our consciousness. We definitely feel as if we’re inside it, right? As though we’re looking out from somewhere between our ears, behind our eyes, with the rest of our body dangling from that center.

In the womb, and for some time after birth, we don’t have a clear sense of where we end and the world begins. Slowly, through touch, we start to sense boundaries. Over time, these boundaries are given a name. This named boundary—the body—points, grasps, pulls things in, and spits things out, including information about its environment and what’s expected of it.

As we grow, vulnerable and dependent, we have to contort ourselves into various shapes to survive in this world.

Then, suddenly, we’re adults, and those contorted, clenched parts become stuck in the body, continuing to play out in our adult lives.

[Here, you squeeze the plastic bottle of water with the lid off, then close the lid to show how the bottle gets stuck in that shape.]

What we’re doing in this course is simply opening the bottle a little. Notice what happens when I do that.

[When you take off the bottle’s lid, the water level drops, creating more space, and the clenched shape releases slightly—there’s some movement.]

This is all we’re doing here: creating a bit of space, a bit of movement in the stuckness. And when that happens, we start to feel our edges.

But because we’ve held these positions for so long, we’ve numbed ourselves to them. When we suddenly feel them again, it can feel like mild discomfort, or even like a mortal threat. This discomfort often makes us clench even more. When you notice that happening, just like when we dropped the balloon, unclench and breathe!

“Time is nature’s way to keep everything from happening all at once.”

 John Wheeler Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information, 1990

Journey to Now was first performed in 2004 at a youth exchange in Porto, Portugal. The venue had no space large enough for the group to practice so we settled on a playground that had a sandpit. At one point during the workshop the group sat in a circle and I placed a stick in the middle. I explained that this stick represented this very moment in time and right in front of where they were sitting marked the moment of their birth. They were then invited to sculpt in the sand the terrain that they had to traverse to get to here now. The mountain ranges and deep valleys, the twisting paths and periods that they felt ‘lost in the desert’.

Since then the ritual has developed through experimentation to use different objects to represent the ‘now’ point at the centre, a variety of media to create the terrain and added dynamic elements to the sequence of the ritual.

In this version the centre of the circle is represented by the clenched bottle.

The facilitator, continuing on from the explanation of the metaphor, places the bottle in the centre of the group circle.

This bottle, in this position represent this moment now. It does so because the body is always in the present. It doesn't have a choice. And yet it also keeps a score of the journey travelled to get to this point, through it's patterns of clenchedness.

How did we get here: to this island of time in this place with these people? We are a narrative hungry species. The stories we tell ourselves and others are how we make meaning from the chaos of life. It is like a landscape shaped by the perpetual flow of experience.

But the past is the terrain we have crossed not the person we really are:though the body might beg to differ.

So if this bottle is the now then where you are sitting is when you were born. Using these materials and challenging yourself to be as creative as possible, make a model or a map of the terrain you have crossed to get to be here and now. You can cut up the the coloured paper, draw or write on it, tape things together...do whatever you like. Even use personal belongings you have brought with you! If you run out of ideas you can even copy what other people are doing. You have permission to copy, as long as the path reflects what has happened to you up to this point in your life.

When explaining the exercise it’s important to state that participants choose what to include and what not to include in the path. They are encouraged to depict the terrain crossed in whichever creative way they can with the materials provided.

The more abstract the design the better. Why? Because then we get an impression of a life journey without the detail. Participants not in touch with their creativity will often sit down and write a long list of events, perhaps divulging more than they intended to do. Though they will not be asked about any of the details, people will witness them in the next stage

A time for the exercise is given - usually 30 minutes; the request is made to do the exercise in silence and as a meditation and meditative music can also be played.

Care should be taken as the paths converge towards the middle, as space becomes a premium. Respect should be given to all the other paths making their way to now.

The facilitator announces 10 minutes and 5 minutes to go. Participants are asked to remove all unused materials and to stand at the beginning of their path.

At this point it is explained that each time when you say ‘step’ the participants all step to their left and so witness the path of their neighbour, and so on around the circle so that every participant witnesses each others journey to now.

When each participant has returned to their own path they are invited to review their journey to now. Does it seem different?

Then they are asked to close their eyes and imagine that they are standing in the place where they were before they were born. Before they were even conceived. Before all of this journey before them happened.

Feeling in their body what this place might be like. Dropping into this feeling, they are invited to listen to this question, and notice how the body feels in response to some of the suggestions you make as answers to the question -

What are you meant for?

...is it to remember to put out the rubbish on the right day in the appropriate recycling container?

...is it to be a good citizen?

...is it to propagate the species?

OR is what you are meant for, is it

...peace and joy.

How does it feel if this is the answer as to what you are meant for?

Returning to their seats, the group are invited to reflect on this exercise.

It's no surprise that people are moved by the exercise and might be crying. Remind them the motto for today is - unclench and breathe.

What is often the most powerful effect of this exercise is to notice that you are not alone on the struggles of life. That there are ups and downs for all of us, and an appreciation of this can bring a sense of deep compassion.

There's no need to articulate this as a facilitator, only to appreciate and hold the space for this to unfold. Unclenching and breathing yourself!

A recording of the practice is below.