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The Collective Body Sometimes in group movement processes, magical things occur which show us without doubt that we are in some mysterious way all connected to each other, and to the world in which we live - that our personal stories, unfolding through movement and sound, interact and evolve in ways that support each person's developing consciousness and healing, whilst also embodying a greater story in which we all play a special part. The interweaving of personal stories in a spontaneous and synchronistic embodiment creates a larger story, when each mover honestly and courageously expresses her own direct and embodied experience of the moment. As movers in a group learn to witness each other and themselves, the power of the witness circles grows; it becomes strong enough to contain the energy of transpersonal and collective processes, as well as material from the personal unconscious. Consciousness of the collective body is the next evolutionary step which emerges, as each member of the group develops her conscious internal witness. Membership of a collective body becomes a possibility as personal stories are embodied and witnessed by the group. Adler talks about the great longing that exists within each of us to belong. During the last century, the quest to individuate has been dominant; we have quite rightly sought to liberate ourselves from the constraints and limitations on personal freedom, choice, and consciousness, which group ideology, mass psychology, and religious dogma have imposed upon us. We have sought to develop personal consciousness, but a tragic result of this has been loss of the sense of belonging, loss of the embodied experience of belonging to a tribalbody, and to the earthbody itself. Adler writes: 'Over emphasis on individual development encouraged outside of a sacred circle has contributed significantly to the creation of unbearable rage, isolation, and despair. In response, the desire to return to one's unquestioned place in the circle can be awakened. But we can easily romanticize possible membership in the collective without fully understanding the shadow aspects of belonging, why the circle has become absent ... Accepting one's place in the circle can threaten (the) process of the development of the self. If membership is unconscious, the loss of individual freedom results.' (24) Unconscious membership can thwart the process of individuation, and limit our choices and our capacity to take responsibility for our actions in the world. But when individual ego development and individualism is not in right relationship to the whole, conscious membership in the collective can also be threatened. Jung claimed that the way to participate responsibly as a conscious member of the collective is through rediscovery of soul. Our evolutionary task now is 'to bring the gifts of individuation into conscious membership in the whole, to find a way to be uniquely ourselves inside a sacred conscious circle.' (25) Adler states that this change in consciousness must be an embodied change: 'It is in our bodies where the phenomenon of life energy, a physical reality, is directly experienced. One by one, knowing, (and knowing implies consciousness), knowing in our bodies that we belong, creates a collective body in which life energy is shared. I imagine the collective body as the energetic consciousness of the earthbody, which includes all living beings. It is the body-felt connectedness among people, profoundly related to the source of our humanity. Becoming conscious of our part in the whole through direct experience of membership allows exploration of the relationship between the personal body and the collective body. When our individual bodies have been wounded because of our suffering, we often are opened toward embodied personal consciousness. Our earthbody is wounded. Can we, because of personal consciousness, become opened toward consciousness of the collective body? Can we create a sacred conscious circle that evolves organically from the knowing body of each member, from the direct experience of each member?' (26) The practice of authentic movement offers a form which can contain and support this evolution of embodied collective consciousness. Here, within the presence of the witness circle, the multi-layered expressions of conscious and unconscious, personal, transpersonal, and collective experience is embodied, made visible, seen, heard, felt, and acknowledged. We come to feel and know ourselves as both individual members of the group, and as unique expressions of the collective body. I would like to finish with a story of the collective body. This story is the creation of Janet Adler, in response to witnessing a 'long circle' (27) of authentic movement. Each mover's process is witnessed and responded to as her personal story, but the witness may also experience the creation of a collective story, in which each individual member plays a part. This long circle took place during a five-day authentic movement retreat in Italy, where 25 women from different countries gathered together to study and practice the form with Adler; I was privileged to be a member of this group. Adler has named this story 'The Call': 'Each time a voice called out, a particular archetypal aspect of the human psyche was acknowledged, accepted. In this story I saw how new energy repeatedly, cyclically accrues from life, how it is gathered, contained, dispersed back into the collective through one body, then another, then another. I saw an embodiment of my experience of our present state on this planet ..... 'I see a senior woman standing on the edge of the circle, facing out, her arms folded in front of her: a gatekeeper on the edge of the earth. At her feet, I see a woman wrapped in a blanket: a baby, new. I see innocence. A woman walks to the centre of the circle, her arms slowly lifting, calling. I see a woman pounding, yelling, pulling her hair: destruction, despair, hatred, pain. I see suffering. A woman suddenly stands, reaching her arms straight out to her side, calling. I see three movers on the other side of the circle laughing, playing, tumbling: joy, beauty, love. I see freedom. A woman begins turning, calling, a long steady call. I see a woman standing, holding her hands in front of her as if she holds a thick tube reaching from the floor to the ceiling. She moves very little but tension visibly builds in her body, her focus steady and strong: energy accruing in one body. She releases the tension, pounding her heel into the floor: a body as vessel shattering, birthing new agony, which is sent into the earth through her heel. I see transformation. A woman lies flat on the floor, calling into the earth. Women clap and sing in rhythm with the pounding heel, and come to their feet, one by one, stomping and chanting: new energy is dispersed, flowing into many bodies. I see one woman, crouched at the feet of the dancers, hiding her face: the one not ready. A woman suddenly moves backward to the wall, screaming: fear of the unknown manifest as the new energy escalates. Another woman, acknowledging fear, meets the screaming woman until the terror evaporates: fear of the unknown shared and thus contained. These two women - who is leading, who is following? - slowly re-enter the circle. Now a third woman walks with them. They walk so slowly. The second woman continues, out the other side of the circle, arriving at the open window, calling out into the hills: a call to the gods for help. A woman calls out from the other open window on the other side of the room: in response, in support, calling the gods for help. I see a woman lying near the edge of the circle, silent, unmoving: the one who does not know what to do. A woman sits on the floor with her legs open, breathing harder and harder: labor before a birth. A woman wraps her legs from behind around the birthing woman. She pushes her pelvis forward, into the back of the birthing woman. Now she reaches up, out of her efforts and calls, a call for new life. A woman is weaving shapes in the air with intense focus, directly in front of the woman who sits with her legs open: the cosmic mid-wife. I see a woman moving around the entire outside of the circle, stepping into long deep strides, droning: the cosmic shaman, containing it all. Again and again, I see a woman sitting on the floor with her legs open, breathing harder and harder: labor before a birth. Will new life occur? This birth is not about an individual who will save our earth. This is the birth of the collective body. Now I see a woman sitting in a corner, raging: anger, frustration, violence, hopelessness. A woman crawls towards her, waiting, listening at her feet. I see compassion.' The clock tells me to lift the bell and let it ring. It is time to rest. It is not time for the birth. How is readiness to be determined? For now, like children, we are in the process of remembering something we once knew long ago, and simultaneously, we are glimpsing our potential for discovering something completely new, something we have never before experienced. In the meantime, we are loving the best we can.' (28) References: 13. Annie Geissinger, “Toward the Unknown: An Interview with Janet Adler”. Adler describes her personal development of the discipline of Authentic Movement, and the influences which contributed to it. 14. Chodorow, “Dance Therapy and the Transcendent Function”. Page 6. 15. Whitehouse, “Physical Movement and Personality”. 16. The term witness was first introduced into Authentic Movement language by Janet Adler. She credits psychologist John Weir as first introducing her to the use of this term. See “Toward the Unknown: An Interview with Janet Adler”. Page 7. 17. Chodorow, “Dance Therapy and the Transcendent Function”. Page 10. 18. Adler, “The Collective Body”. Page 6. 19. Adler, “Body and Soul”, and “Who is The Witness?”. Pages 9 -10. 20. Adler, “The Collective Body”. Page 6. 21. Chodorow, Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology. Page 113. 22. Adler, “Who is The Witness?” Pages 6-7. 23. Tina Stromsted, “Re-Inhabiting the Female Body”, in Somatics. Pages 18-27. 24. Adler, “The Collective Body”. Page 4. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. Pages 4-5. 27. A 'long circle' is the name given to a form used in authentic movement, where each group member can move or witness, according to her own wish, need, or impulse. Members go in and out of the movement space as they choose, with a minimum number always maintaining the witness circle. These circles continue for extended periods of time, allowing a depth of work to emerge. 28. Adler, 'The Collective Body'. Pages 11-12. © Linda Hartley. 2004 |
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continued …The Practice and Discipline of Authentic Movement |
