Session 8: The Space Beyond

The home practice in short form

Instructions for this activity are below, but it can be adapted to fit in to the time available. For instance, rather than reading out the questions they can be handed out and the participants can answer which ever they want. A print out of the questions fro printing can be found in the additional materials drop down.

Instructions

Take a piece of A3 paper and fold it across the middle twice to form an A5 size booklet or card.

Understand that this booklet is just for you, and you don’t need to share any of the answers to the questions you will write in it.

On the front of the card, trace your hand and draw in the ‘life-line’. Mark along the line where you think you are in your life at this point. If the starting point between your thumb and forefinger is when you were born and the end point is when you die, mark three significant moments you have already experienced and three moments in the future that you would like to experience. Write a short note about each to remind yourself which moments you chose.

Write the answers to the following questions on the hand:

1. What do you love to touch?

2. What have you touched that made you recoil?

3. What would you like to hold in your hand one day?

Opening the booklet, draw a picture of an eye on the left side and write next to it the answers to:

1. What sight fills you with delight?

2. What sight has been burnt on your retina?

3. What sight do you wish you could un-see?

Below this, draw an ear and next to it write the answers to:

1. What sound is like music to your ears?

2. What sound makes you cringe?

3. What is the sound you most fear to hear?

Draw a nose and write the answer to:

1. What smell makes you swoon?

2. What smell transports you to another place?

3. What smell makes you want to retch?

Now, draw a mouth and lips and write the answe tor:

1. What tastes divine?

2. What have you put in your mouth that you wish you hadn’t?

3. What has come out of your mouth that you wish you could take back?

Draw a thought bubble and write the answer to:

1. Which thought do you think the most?

2. Which thought fills you with dread?

3. What is your most secret thought?

Draw a heart and write:

1. What makes your heart skip a beat?

2. What breaks your heart?

3. What mends it?

Draw a lightbulb and write:

1. What was the best idea you ever had?

2. What was the worst idea you ever had?

3. What idea do you wish you had?

Finally, draw a question mark and write:

1. What question do you wish you had been asked?

2. What is the answer?

3. What is the question you most fear to ask?

4. What is the answer?

Compose a Poem

Once you have completed these steps, compose a poem on the back page or another page using the data you have accumulated from answering the questions. You can use as much or as little of your answers as you want to create a poem. But it should have no less than three sentences or lines.

The poem doesn’t need to rhyme, but it does need to mean something to you. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to be honest and from the heart.

If the teacher or facilitator believes the group is capable, they can explain that the aim of the poem is to create a feeling of synesthesia. So that people can taste the sights, smell the sounds, hear the touch…or whatever combination they can imagine.

Arrange chairs in neat rows facing front where there is either a small raised platform or an "X" marking a spot in front.

The audience are invited to take their seats and when they are ready, or even when they are not ready, to come and step onto the cross or raised platform, to face the audience and recite their poem.

There will be shock and horror at this announcement. Here is an opportunity to put into practice all that we have learned on the course. Unclench, breathe, lean into the discomfort.

No one will be forced to read the poem. And yet it is very important that everyone does read their poem.

The first rule is that once you stand on the cross, you can’t begin until the audience is quiet and listening respectfully with open hearts and minds.

The second rule is that you must make eye ontact with everyone in the audience as you are reading the poem.

The third rule is that you can’t leave the "X" until the audience has stopped applauding.

Notes:

Understand that the teacher or facilitator decides whether this exercise is viable for the class or group. It necessitates a high level of psychological safety.

The exercise can be done in two parts, with the writing of the poem set as homework.

It is often the case that receiving applause is the most difficult thing to tolerate, and participants will often try to leave the cross before the applause has finished.

Some participants might applaud excessively. If the teacher or facilitator is the most excessive applauder, this ‘subversion’ does not work and does not last.

The poem reading process must be facilitated with utmost sensitivity. The aim of the teacher or facilitator is to model someone who is open-hearted and attentive, aware of the bravery it takes to stand in front of peers but also challenging the group to be brave.

There should be no sense of this being a competition or of the poems being marked. This is simply about sharing, learning to listen deeply to others, and learning to stand in a difficult space, even though that difficulty is being caused by praise.

The exercise gives plenty of opportunities to utilize practices to calm the mind and breathe into difficult feelings such as fear and anxiety, which the facilitator can remind participants of throughout the activity.

This is a final round where people can share how they feel at the end of the course. It might be useful to record this with the participants permission.

If this is the case, then passing a mobile phone which is recording on Voice Recorder onranother app, can capture some very useful feedback.

We return to where we began with the meeting ritual. This time a ‘leaving ritual.’

People are asked to notice the difference between the first time they did this and how they are doing it now.