Continuum
Discover the body’s fluid intelligence
“Your sensory perception is extraordinary.”
Brugh Joy, M.D.
“I feel whole again.”
Christine Jaroszewki, dancer
“I touched the realm of the unconscious which I didn't know.”
Taibun Terumoto, Zen monk
In CONTINUUM - a practice developed by Emilie Conrad over forty years - we understand the body as a process in constant motion. We use breath, sound, awareness and movements to tap into deeper layers of our origin and history. By cultivating inward attention, we learn to track sensation, develop felt sense and listen to subtle impulse as guide to knowing ourselves and to feel at home in our bodies.
Coming into sync with the MOVEMENT that we ARE is deeply pleasurable and rejuvenating. By engaging with the body's fluid intelligence, we come to open to the confluence of inner and outer, of soul, soma and world, settling into a sense of wholeness.
Continuum based movement nurtures creativity and fosters perceptual shifts.
Benefits
Improves flexibility and opens perception
Builds and restores vitality
Awakens to somatic richness, knowing the body from within
Strengthens ability to track sensation
Deepens connection to the societal body
Embodiment and the Field
What does deepening body engagement have to do with receiving information from the non-local intelligence field? The body is the instrument with which we fulfill our desires on this earthly plane. With technology and information spreading vast and fast, it is bombarded by unprecedented influences (like increased electromagnetic radiation). Often we do not pay attention to our body’s needs until discomfort and pain manifest. Yet if we start listening to this organism and its inherent wisdom, we discover a field of well-being.
Breathing as if I had an internal shower
For the benefit of linking the above question, I will draw on my experience with Continuum Movement as One way to engage deeper with our biological system. It combines the use of breath, sound and movement and stimulates the fluids in our bodies. By starting with a breath and introducing a sound, we prepare our physical terrain for movement that is arching, spiraling or curving. The resulting movement becomes almost effortless and often has an undulating quality; it feels delicious. The thinking “I” yields, as we allow the experience to take us where bio intelligence moves us. In the process we discover a field of resonance with the vaster, planetary organism. Surrendering in this way is deeply nourishing - “as if I had an internal shower “, a workshop participant said.
Sensing below the surface
Movement happens 24/7 below our skin. Blood flow, tissue glides, lymphatic system pumps; most of it goes unnoticed. When we engage consciously with our movement experience, we become participants in our own unfolding; we develop language to describe what we sense. We come to trust our way of sensing and recognize felt sense. The pleasure of inhabiting the body has an effect on our surroundings. We become spacious. A spacious presence in stressful environments can have a calming influence. We become discerning with incoming information. We sense what is good for us, and what is better left out there.
Sounding and feeling
With sound or singing, our waters – circa 70 percent of our body depending on age - connect to our emotional body. Feelings can wash through us without drowning in emotion... aaah! There is room for the witness and compassion becomes more possible. If our mind body is clear of emotional turmoil, it is easier to recognize synchronistic events or ‘for the universe to show us the way’. A sensing body receives information that overrides the intellect. When we can be present enough to respond to its suggestions, the resulting action is always liberating and joyful. A woman student was nursing her dying cat, when she received a business email from her estranged brother. “...I will be in Greece...” it said. Without thinking, she hit the reply button. “Can I come along?” 10 days later they met up on the island of Corfu. All disturbance in their relationship had vanished. Embodied living is an adventure - you may want to start by directing your attention from the electronic screen to your breath and begin exploring.