The sessions explored the question: How do we return to the natural intelligence of our bodies to sense into the social field, in order to cultivate our relationships and our creativity to their true potential? 

The first session took us through a collective sensing experience and practice, led by Arawana and facilitator Manish Srivastava. The second session focused on the book launch of Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making a True Move, and looked at how SPT has been used around the world. In both sessions, participants had their own experience of an SPT practice.

 

Landing in the Moment

Antoinette Klatzky welcomed the community to the GAIA (Global Activation of Intention and Action) event by diving into a landing practice. Antoinette reflected on her own experience with Social Presencing Theater, as she followed its development over the last decade and experienced its impact on her work with the clothing company Eileen Fisher.

“Really getting to see our own organization, and what was happening in the present moment, and get a glimpse of what might be happening in the months and years… and years later, I still hold some of those images in my mind of what is needed in the company, what is needed in the organization, and what I can do personally to help those things come into fruition.” 

The overall map of the GAIA Journey for 2021 was also shared as Antoinette walked through the upcoming sessions, the next of which, in April, will be centered on Soil and Food: from Industrial to Regenerative Agriculture. 

 

The Revolutionary Force of Art

Otto Scharmer shared: “It is a beautiful day, and such a celebration that brings us together here.” He then opened the space with two quotes: “We have art in order to not die from the truth,” an English translation of a Nietzsche quote, which Otto further explained as: “we have art in order to not vanish and die from a reality that only knows objects, but no interiority.” Otto continued with a quote from Joseph Bueys, who spoke of the revolutionary force of human creativity and art. 

In applying this to the systems perspective, Otto highlighted the disconnect between the head and the hand on the level of the collective. “From a systems perspective, to bridge this gap, we need to activate the intelligence of the heart.” One way to do this is by activating the revolutionary force of human creativity and art. 

In reflecting on how SPT came about, Otto remembers upon meeting Arawana: “I sort of could sense it, I could think it, but I couldn’t do it. And it was such a profound experience to meet you [Arawana] 17 years ago for the first time. In the moment we met, I felt, she’s the one who can do it.” Since then, SPT has advanced the traditional tools of systems thinking from disembodied to embodied, toward a “systems sensing.”

 

Our Human Care for One Another

Arawana Hayashi reflects on the evolution of both SPT and the Presencing Institute as a container for the practices. She felt guided by the sense of: “how do we bring in more of a feeling quality, more sense of our human connectedness, our human care for one another… our own wisdom.” 

Arawana then led the GAIA community through a groundedness practice, guiding into a sense of feeling and belonging with their connection to mother earth and the ancestors before us. She also acknowledged “the sadness and sorrow we all hold,” for the suffering of others and the earth.

 

Toward Action Confidence and Compassionate Action

The session continued with the current work and future potential for Social Presencing Theater in teaching and education, learning by looking at challenges facing youth and schools in the US and Norway. “A different kind of knowledge,” one teacher called it. 

Arawana introduced Manish Srivastava, a Mumbai-based coach, facilitator and artist who has used Social Presencing Theater in India and Latin-America. Manish shared his experience over the past year and how SPT and embodied learning helped him return to the body and respond to the collective trauma events during the Covid-19 pandemic. Manish noted the divides made clear by the pandemic in India, especially the mass trauma event of millions of migrant workers who lost their job and shelter. Noting two responses to trauma in stakeholders during this crisis -- that of hyper-activism or numbness -- Manish used SPT during this time to help turn “angst and struggles into action confidence.” Manish wrote and shared a poem following the SPT exercises he did with colleagues, which he remembers as an opening.

 

The SPT Stuck Exercise

Arawana invited the GAIA community into an SPT practice with the Stuck exercise to experience feeling the body and the feeling of the experience around the last year and the pandemic, and to see where the body yearns to go. The “Stuck is not us; it is a temporary experience of some forces -- external forces or inner forces -- that hold us from moving forward,” said Arawana. “All of us are creative; all of us are innovative.” 

Arawana noted: “Stuck is not sustainable. The collective body has a yearning for health.” With Manish and practitioner Laura Pastorini, Arawana demonstrated the Stuck Exercise, before the GAIA community did their own in breakouts.

 

From Blame and Shame to Curiosity

After some plenary sharing around the breakouts, Manish reflected on what had happened after doing Stuck with his colleagues:  “Shifting conversation from blame and shame to curiosity. Embodiment practices led to, for example, feeling into the resilience and the strength of the migrant worker, and the vulnerability of the policy maker.” Manish described the concrete initiatives this led to.

“The divides the pandemic has surfaced are huge and intergenerational. This practice has given me a humility and courage to walk and stay at the edge of this divide: to neither disappear nor get consumed,” Manish reflects. “But to stay at the edge and not give up. And maybe someday it will change.”  

 

From Empathy to Action

In the second session, the celebration of Arawana’s book took center stage as the community congratulated the author on fifteen years of Social Presencing Theater and the publication of the book “Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making a New Move” (PI Press, 2021).

SPT practitioners Heather Huggins and Geovanny Guzman shared their experiences with SPT at Queensborough CUNY, a community college in New York City. Their practice group led to a performance on borders and migration and SPT formed a prominent part of workshops on moving from empathy to action. Heather reflected on the powerful experience of generative listening and generative action she found through SPT, and Geovanny, her former student, connected SPT with authenticity and getting in better touch with ourselves and our communities. 

Claudia Madrazo and Laura Pastorini joined Arawana to reflect on the social arts residencies that they held in the Yucatan, working with the Mayan community of Izamal. In speaking about social arts, Claudia noted a guiding question that she shared with her co-creators: “how could we bring closer together social change processes that we were already part of and the aesthetic qualities.”  Laura and Claudia reflected on the powerful pieces and insights brought forth by the Mayan youth and the generative experience of the practices.

 

The Duet Practice

“We all live a life, we all engage in living, and that is enough. Everyone has a story,” said Arawana, before introducing the Japanese concept of Ma and inviting the GAIA community into the SPT Duet practice, allowing us to tap into an embodied conversation. 

Participants returned to plenary to share their experiences, noting the role authenticity had played in the conversation. They reported on the feeling of the embodied presence of another person, communicating with a language not dependent on speaking the same language. “I felt that my heart went through the screen,” one GAIA community member said.  

“Interdependency means that we are always connected," Arawana reflected. “This work reminds us of that. (...) The heart of the work is seeing the wisdom that is already there, seeing its basic goodness", said Arawana, “and articulating this through SPT, poetry, visual art."

 

Sharing and Visual Resonance

At the end of each session, Antoinette invited participants to engage in a visual resonance practice. Scribe Olaf Baldini shared his visual from the session, realizing his placement of "human care" with the "revolutionary force". In the visual resonance practice, GAIA community members commented in the chat: “I see sharp lines, moving into flowing bodies,” one participant wrote. “How do we occupy our humanity,” said another. 

 

Watch the replay videos of Session 1 and Session 2.

 

And here you can click the buttons to the side of the frame to scroll through other scribed images from the live session by our community of GAIA Scribes.