Belly: Holotropic Breath Work

Heading to a Harbin workshop on holotropic breath work, which can take one places... It was explored a lot more in the 1960s and 70s, I think, than it is today.

...

I didn't get to the workshop.


But I did Holotropic breath work about a month ago at Harbin - :)

~ Right out of the 1960s?


Holotropic Breath Work was Wild

Lovely Dree with a faux European accent, comes to Fern kitchen – where I'm cooking some eggs with tomatoes, onions, pepper, and parsley, with a little Vollkorn Brot - 5 grain bread - for dinner. I've seen her around for a few days. She has lovely, long, blond hair, and a smiling, warm, open face. A number of men have been paying attention to her over the week, and cooking with her. We've only said hi in passing. I asked her where's she's from? She's a little mysterious. Sweden, I wonder? She's spent some 2 years in Austria, - in Graz. We speak a little German together. She's not from Germany, so I say "Hungary?," the "Czech Republic?" "Poland?" "No." I don't find out. (Is she from Slovenia? - this raises a series of other questions in my mind vis-a-vis CE, who had a lovely Polish girlfriend, and who no longer comes to Harbin).

Dree is wearing a short pink dress, and looks a little bit like a flower-child from the 1960s. She offers me a little bit of her tea, with half-and-half cream and honey. I decide to go to the event. She says she's often late to things, so she heads to the Temple at 6:50 pm and I finish cooking my dinner quickly, and walk with bowl in hand down to the Harbin Temple in the garden to the Holotropic Breath Workshop.


N is setting up his drums in the Temple. Things are a little chaotic. He mentions a workshop he took in 1981 with Stanislov Grof MD at Esalen on Holotropic breath work. He engages Indian rituals. He's originally from Europe, has long white hair and wore a red bandana around his hair, mentioned living in the Middle East for many years, is a Harbin resident, and has come and gone from Harbin a number of times.

He offers us little structure. He seems like he hasn't done this too much before. Do we want to have an assistant? Or not? I walk across the room to where Dree is lying down and ask if she wants to work together. There are probably 15 people in the workshop. She says yes. Assistants have been used in the past in Holotropic Breath Work, which some, who have had some experience at this, are familiar with. We're instructed to make ourselves comfortable - very comfortable - with cushions. We put a lot of cushions under us, in slightly uneven ways. They are comfortable. The cushions in the Temple are perfect for this.

Dree starts on her back, and I'm her assistant. There's little direction, except to start breathing. Breathe deeper. Breathe actively and vigorously. Dree begins to go numb and says so to me. She mentions something about an injury she's had. Having taught yoga with attention to alignment, I wonder if it's her assymetrical body position on the pillows, possibly pinching a nerve along her spine. She wonders if it's her breathing. She continues to breathe deeply. N circles the room getting people to breathe actively, - he is pushing quite firmly on their chests, and creating a cacophony in the air. Music plays in the background, which is also 'energizing.' The music becomes somewhat discordant. The atmosphere is chaotic and people are vigorously pumping their breath through their bodies. Dree is still going numb – in her face, hands, she says, and I worry a little. I suggest she does some yoga twists, thinking in terms of symmetrical yoga positions as a possible solution.

I invite her to my blankets and area across the room, and fold them with care symmetrically and align them for a restorative yoga breathing position. Then she lays down. At first I think she is free of the numbness. But it hasn't stopped, - it's part of the breath work.

We change partners, and she becomes my assistant, but mainly sits by me as I deepen my breath, and absorb the music and N's words. "Breathe deeply ... More deeply," he exorts. He sings some Indian chants and continues to play his drums.

Then I do start to breathe deeply, - and do go a little numb . . . and the process does become wild – almost psychedelic – and wildly freeing, as I tune into the music, and continue to breathe deeply. You kind of learn what your belly wants while doing this. The music itself is transporting, and since I'm somewhat experienced at letting go, and going with what comes up, this helps me explore freedom and rich, almost trippy, imagination. The process offers fascinating avenues into the mind, if done repeatedly. And despite its wildness, and slightly too much chaos at first, I did open avenues to freedom and release, that were new for me, and great.


***

Angela and Victor's yoga, much more gentle, also can get into some of these uniquely 'psychedelic' or trippy places, and many other subtle states of being, using rich language and remarkable vision.

To explore these processes further... :)


It was very nice to return to the pools today, ~ to return 'home,' in a way.

:)

Cherry Blossoms: Yoga Ideas, Neurophysiology and Loving Bliss

Simply doing yoga asana (poses) regularly over long periods of time is salutary, and has multiple benefits, some of which are unexpected. How to do this yourself? How to explore this deliciously and without injury? And how to engage yoga to elicit the neurophysiology of loving bliss? Explore, practice and play :)


I enjoy Angela & Victor's Yoga, but they come only very occasionally to the the U.S.A. - angela-victor.com/work.html.

Visit my yoga web page - scottmacleod.com/yoga.htm - for helpful ideas, as well, including links to the following media, and others too. I've enjoyed Rodney Yee's gentle "AM Yoga for Beginners" available for .01 cent, plus shipping, on video (VCR) at amazon.com here, and done this many times. If I could find 3-6 gentle, as well-conceived, well-rounded yoga practices on DVD to complement Rodney Yee's "AM Yoga," I would engage them serially.

I've also found the Mehta's "Yoga: The Iyengar Way" helpful for yoga postures.

Finding a fun social context in which to do and learn yoga makes sense, too. Angela and Victor's courses are fun. :)

Finding very experienced and caring teachers in any yoga group can have benefits.

I enjoy primarily restorative, regenerative and gentle yoga; vigorous yoga has merit. :)

It's particularly the deliciousness of the relaxation response in resting-related poses, and the bodymind chemistry that emerges from good health due to asana-practice overall, as well as while in the poses, and through creative breathing explorations, that I find sweet about yoga.

Let me know what you find in your exploration of yoga, by commenting below on this blog. Yoga can help give rise to beneficial neurophysiology.

I'd like to create a web site with lots of free yoga, especially of Angela and Victor's yoga. :)

I'm still exploring how to engage yoga to elicit loving bliss, but I've found that envisioning this, as well as releasing into loving bliss when it emerges, is part of the process.


Heading to a free yoga class {Harbin generally offers three, free yoga classes a day} at Harbin Hot Springs soon . . . ~ and then into the pools :)

Bodyminds: Brains, Philosophy, Freeing Possibilities

Human brains are meat which can talk and think, among many things. They are also integral to bodyminds. I looked at and handled some animal brains today, and saw for the first time the real, gross anatomy of real brains. None of the brains I looked at could have talked, - we were told that they were pig, sheep, and cat brains. These brains were very similar to one another in size, shape, anatomy, lay out, appearance, - an interesting pattern that evolution by natural selection gives rise to.

In thinking about consciousness and to understand thinking, starting from the brain first - brain anatomy itself - makes most sense to me.

Brains can also dream, love, imagine, trip, think philosophically {think about thinking, for one}, and create extraordinary music, among many other things. Cultivating these aspects of what brains do fascinates me.


What happens to people's brains in warm water, for example, at Harbin Hot Springs, vis-a-vis the eliciting the relaxation response? and its milieu~ethos. And what happens to hippopotamuses's brains in water - {click on title link above:}?


the Harbin pools . . . :)

Chimpanzees: Freedoms, Philosophy, Primate Narratives

How to grow freedoms, building on the freedom-seeking movements of the 1960s and 1970s, that are viable, ethical, delightful, and lead to a lot of loving bliss, in Modernity, Post-Modernity, the Network Society {Castells}, or 2008 in the U.S.?

Talking philosophically via thematic unities or shared code with friends is one way to engage already well-conceived, sophisticated, philosophical thought, with which to conceive of freedoms, particularly vis-a-vis loving bliss.

Singing may be another. {Choral Music} ... {Songs of the 1960s?} ... {"Rise Up Singing"?}


Contemporary narratives of Bonobo chimpanzees are fascinating vis-a-vis Common Chimpanzees. Although the data are still coming in and Bonobo have conflict, they are apparently peaceful, without violence or homicide, egalitarian, very sexual in all possible combinations, and matriarchal. Common chimpanzees, by contrast, engage in war and killing, and are hierarchical.

Are the Human Awareness Institute's {HAI} "Love, Intimacy and Sexuality" workshops a kind of countercultural exploration which parallels Bonobo-like behavior?

Genes: Labs, Loving Bliss, Hippies & World University

Genes

Labs - labrador retrievers - have such a consistently loving temperament. This seems to be an example of genes giving expression to a range of 'complex scripts' {'algorithms' in communicative species?} in this breed of dog. They are an exceptionally affable, gentle, intelligent, energetic and good-natured kind of dog. They are also good with little children, as well as loyal. Humans are more complex, and societies seem to alter possibly some of these aspects of humanness, but these characteristics may also be something humans can cultivate with language.


Love in the 'Hippie-Imaginary'

What are examples of love from the hippie-imaginary?

The Rainbow Gathering? {but this is real, although annual}

Ovid's characterization of the Greek myth of "Baucis and Philemon"?

Free love in communal and collective houses and at festivals, in the 1960s and 1970s {this happened}, and in the ongoing generation of counterculture?

Bonobos loving bliss experiments? Where could such explorations take place? How would successful experimentation bear fruit?


World University

How might people give rise to it so that it runs itself, freely, effortlessly, somehow naturally, and easily, and is very beneficial for people, like Wikipedia and MIT Open Course Ware?

How might a virtual World University explore loving bliss? Here are some ways I see Information Technology giving rise to loving bliss - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com/May+21+2008+Soc+and+Info+Tech+class+transcript?SearchFor=loving+bliss&sp=1 - from a course I taught on Berkman Island (not on Harvard's faculty) in the 3-D virtual world of Second Life this spring.

Black Cherry: The Hippie-Imaginary & Counterculture

The hippie-imaginary is rich, influenced as it is by psychedelics, and a wide variety of modern ideas, literature and film, understood counterculturally.

From Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" to Rock & Roll to the hippie trail and travel all over the globe, hippies explored and created ways of thinking and being that saw things differently. This could involve transforming crazy situations into beneficial ones, through shifts in thinking.

The hippie-imaginary drew on Beat poetry and literature, Victoriana in the San Francisco Bay Area, science fiction, the earth, as well as back to the land movements, and a variety of ways of expanding minds. The anti-war movement {make love, not war}, flower children, power to the people, and utopianism all arose in new forms. And the Rainbow Gathering - here's the intro to the Rainbow Gathering's web page today:


"Rainbow Family of Living Light Unofficial Home Page
welcomehome.org/

Some say we're the largest non-organization of non-members in the world. We have no leaders, and no organization. To be honest, the Rainbow Family means different things to different people. I think it's safe to say we're into intentional community building, nonviolence, and alternative lifestyles. We also believe that Peace and Love are a great thing, and there isn't enough of that in this world. Many of our traditions are based on Native American traditions, and we have a strong orientation to take care of the the Earth. We gather in the National Forests yearly to pray for peace on this planet."

Lemon: Alternative Places in Europe, World Wide & the Harbin Dressing Room

Talking with a Harbin resident in the Harbin dressing room this morning from western Europe, I asked her what alternative places or organizations, like Harbin Hot Springs or the Rainbow Gathering, are around today in Europe. She mentioned ZEST and said that there are others, but didn't give me any other names of these. She recalled how in the 1980s, people would form human chains to protest the nuclear industry, for example. This is the alternative movement she knows in Europe. She doesn't know of many places like Harbin in Europe.

Here are a list of intentional communities world wide from Wikipedia.


The Harbin dressing room is fascinating for a variety of reasons. Men and women undress and dress here before and after going in the pools, especially when it's cool outside. In warm weather, many people disrobe on the sundeck or around the pool area. People new to Harbin, and who carry with them concerns about their bodies, encounter something new with the dressing room. The context normalizes, and transforms, ways of men and women being together. It's part of the Harbin experience which can surprise people new to Harbin. E, who came on Friday and Saturday to Harbin for the first time, was surprised. There isn't really any place to undress and dress in private at Harbin. While there are a few toilets with lockable doors, most people don't use these for the purpose of changing. And there really isn't any point, because almost everyone is naked in the pools and in the pool area. So most people open to what is normal at Harbin, to body affirmation - nudity - or they don't return. Many take to it normally, especially vis-a-vis Harbin's hippie-mindedness. A few people do wear bathing suits, like E, but, in my experience, this doesn't last very long. This dressing and undressing in the dressing room can sometimes be erotic in interesting ways, but the norm that everybody is naked at Harbin changes aspects of eroticism. The woman in a young couple who spoke Russian last week seemed . . .

Cloud: Dancers, Pool Inspiration, Loving Bliss New Form

Cloud

Blue green tree
In late orange light ~
From heart shaped pool ~
Glows on the ridge
Cloud hides sun ~ :)


*

The rain last night freshened and made green a lot at Harbin Hot Springs. In its fall coolness, many people were there. {Much of California gets 6-10 months of pretty rain-free, temperate, lovely weather.}

I met some dancers (modern & ballet) who came together to visit Harbin from San Francisco. In the heart shaped pool, they were creating, innovating, and internalizing free-movement which they might bring back to the city. Some were playing with contact improvisation in the heart pool ~ delightfully. Others were exploring movement in the hot pool from its beautiful railings, and with the heat of the water.

Bodymind~water~brainstorming in new, warm dimensions. Good energy. Most people are nude.

How to explore this to elicit loving bliss - neurophysiological - and create a new form? {It's a brain process that emerges readily for me at Harbin, and is delightful, having to do, in part, with the water in the baths, releasing, noticing the inner neurophysiological joy, and then cultivating it. And bringing in my imagination opens many possibilities, that go much in the direction of trippiness. This is fascinating. Try it:}.

As I envision this new form, it's a kind of chamber music, choral music, contact improvisation & dance exploration, with good will, intimacy, an emergent language, and delightful, expanding communication.

Start with a mission, and a group of creative dancers open to this, and explore?

*

...

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/10/cloud-dancers-pool-inspiration-loving.html - October 4, 2008)

Dandelion Seeds: Wandering, Solar Vehicles, World University

Dandelion Seeds

Traveling north
toward Harbin Hot Springs
from Berkeley today
via San Francisco.

~ Into the moment,
and out of the mind
of the city.

Seeds in the wind ~
Wandering is freeing.

Ah . . . how easing,
and heading to loveliness.



*

Where are the very low cost, solar {energy autonomous concept} vehicles so everyone might wander when we want?


**

World University is developing and looking for funding.


***

Into the Harbin pools soon . . . :)

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/10/dandelion-seed-wandering-solar-vehicles.html - October 3, 2008)

La pomme - Czardas: Virtuosic Gypsy Music and Dance

Csárdás(Czardas) - Monti [feat. Vengerov and Patkoló]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeNKiilwpdk



Roby Lakatos - Csárdás
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIZtcIn58H4&feature=related



Romafest Gypsy Dance Theater - Verbunk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYgl6qfPdd4&feature=related



Cigánycsárdás (Gypsy Csárdás)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4c__IeE5w&feature=related



Pre-counterculture comes on stage - wild freedom in music.