Feedback from the Tensegrity workshop held in Amsterdam, October, 2008:

Is There Anybody Out There Who Really Loves Me?

Newcomers' Feedback
General Feedback

From Newcomers

Some years ago I questioned myself, as many others do: “But is it real?”

All of this, Don Juan, the spirit, allies, the second and third attention, the endless inconceivable worlds that are right here, in front of me... is it all real?

I don't have this question any more, but the answer seem to coming back to me again and again.

When started practicing tensegrity, the very first 'twelve movements for good health and wellbeing', I tried to take 2-3 deep breaths between passes, as advised, and found that sometimes during these short seconds my mind manage to go who knows where, mostly self-indulging itself with the usual inner dialog. However, one day during one of these short pauses I found myself in a strange pose: the knees are deeply bend, the arms are spread all way back and up and the face toward the horizon. This pose, that was so awkward from my mind's point of view, was unbelievably comfortable and calming. But after a short confusion I just ignored it.

Shortly after it happened again. This time I thought: “Well, it's not exactly tensegrity, but maybe my body found something beneficial for itself”, and started trying to adapt this pose consciously from time to time. I called it 'the bird' and tried to find 'a good closure' for it as it felt like it needed one. It looks like the decision to accept it 'opened the door', as a few weeks later a couple of other strange poses emerged and they also wanted 'a closure'.

And here I am, at my first ever Cleargreen workshop in Amsterdam. We're doing the magical passes, and just started to learn “The Wings of Affection”. The arms go back and up, the face goes forward, and suddenly I know this is my 'bird', only the knees are bend less deeply. I want to be surprised, but for some reason I am not. It just feels right.

I knew it’s real from the moment I tried to do the 'sun breath' for the first time in my life and it worked immediately.

I knew it is real when the very first breath of the very first recapitulation attempt relieved my pain, and later, when I finished and found that I was truly free from that particular memory.

I know it is all real every time I manage to shut down the inner dialog and, unlike in the rest of my life, feel calm and present.

The German philosopher Karl Marx said: “Practice is the best criterion for the truth”. Carlos's books gave me the hope. And direction. And tools. There are no words in this world that could describe what I feel about his books and what they mean to me.

But it's not the books, it's practice that gave me the result.

I would like to thank you for this wonderful workshop. It surprised me beyond any limit. My intent for this workshop was to be able to love without expecting love in return, and I've got to experience it right away. Thank you!

Thank you. I had a great time to learn to look within and explore the idea of 'What is love'.

I want to thank you for the wonderful time during the workshop in Amsterdam (it was my first one). I really enjoyed practicing with you and with people from all over the world.

I could feel the stream of energy practicing the new forms, especially “stalking the dreaming attention” and “the wings of affection”. I like the new forms a lot, thank you for sharing these with us!

During the workshop and shortly afterwards I was full of energy and very in love with myself and my body (energetically and physically) and I felt in peace with myself and the people around me. I enjoyed every breath I took and enjoyed to be good to myself, for example with eating only healthy food.

I really looked forward to see my boyfriend after the workshop; I felt the real love for him and could see (for the first time) that he really loves me and his way to show me his love. I also saw what I did wrong in the past. I was full of energy to correct my behavior and to be nice to him.

I recognized that I am the only one who is in position to change my life for living in happiness. I understood I am the only one who is able to control that I am feeling good and balanced and that my relationship is going well.

Then, a few days after the workshop, everything went the other way around. I really felt sad and unenergetic and my behavior against others was rude. I did not understand this and I did not know how to break out of this mood. There also was a feeling that I did not want to change this and that I have not the energy to change it. I was eating heaps of fatty food and did not go to the gym and had very bad arguments with my boyfriend that the relationship almost ended. All went the wrong way…

I went to the weekly practicing group, I did my homework for the first and second week and I practiced the new forms. I let myself stuck in the lazy and unhealthy way for almost two weeks.

Now I feel that I am on my way back to ME. I think I had to go through this; I was not energetic enough to avoid it. I feel that a new part of my life is going to start now. I feel that my behavior and my thoughts have changed and with these my life and my relationship to others, especially to my boyfriend.

What do you think of this story I have been through? What should I do when there will come again an unenergetic awful time? Do you know experiences like these from others or maybe from you?

I really am looking forward to get an answer from you and I am also looking forward to visit the second part of the workshop in Amsterdam.

Cheers

Note from instructors: Yes, this is something that happens often! The assemblage point shifts during the workshop, and we feel fully present, or even “high,” and then we go home—and after a few days, old habits and patterns and inner dialogue return, it seems as if the assemblage point snaps back into its old position. Only now there is a difference—you’ve been to another place, and you are aware of that—and you have some new tools to shift your assemblage point. “We get a taste of heaven,” Carol Tiggs said, “and then we earn our way back.”

So our teachers have told us, we cultivate a new position of the assemblage point through daily practice; it may be a practice of checking in with ourselves every ten minutes, or five minutes or so, so that we are not drifting back onto the freeway of “Me-Me-Me”!

You practice so that you can get back to your completeness, and it takes discipline—Only you can call on you!

Each of us has the tools—some of us may sit quietly to reconnect, or breathe, or practice magical passes, or write in a journal, or check in with a witness or friend—there are many ways, and each of us can find his or her predilections.

As Carlos Castaneda said and wrote, there are both advantages and disadvantages to practicing in groups—we get a boost of energy and awareness, yet group interaction does not directly develop our individual practice. So we can enjoy the interplay, and let the experience of practicing with a group, and the shared intent, inspire and support our day-to-day practice!

General Feedback