Being With It All

“…So that when beauty appears, I am not encased in a protective suit. Because it IS appearing. The trees are talking, the birds are slicing the air, and only a soft receptive body can share in their pleasure. Only a body willing to be continually and permanently wounded, and to stay wounded and not contracted and angry. It’s a slow slide and every day moves in a certain direction or other. What will my choice be today?” -rosalind lucy

Host: James Baker

Schedule: September 12, October 10, October 24, November 14, December 5 at 1pm Pacific Time for 90 minutes

Description: Being With It All is a simple radical practice of “turning toward” — of noticing and welcoming whatever is there to be with, sharing and exploring in the space between our open hearts.

Life is a lot sometimes, isn’t it? Everything happens so much — everything, everywhere, all at once. But there’s a secret to peace in the midst of everything: to turn towards whatever is arising. We’ve all learned to turn away, deflect, distract, disengage, to protect ourselves. To be with it all, we welcome the reality of what is, the is-ness of what is true — and we welcome our own experience, without pushing away or clinging. When we practice being, together, we find our capacity expanding. Fear recedes. Turbulence calms. Our hearts beat on, grounding our connection to life.

Being With It All is a peer-held practice: after ten minutes of instruction, we break out into groups of three for about sixty minutes, making for turns of about twenty minutes per person. Each session starts from zero and one may begin at any point in the hike, as the instructions are also our ritual for entering into the practice. This practice is a synthesis and distillation by James of many other practices including influences (some undetectably) from Circling, T-Group, Empathy Circling, Case Clinic, Collective Presencing, Social Noting, and contemplative wisdom traditions.