Lynn Fuller, MA, MFCC and Lee Fuller, MA, ADTR

When spirit and matter are separated the soul becomes homeless. By remembering ourselves in and through the body, fundamental insights and changes can be integrated. This allows our strength and deep feminine wisdom to become a living, breathing part of ourselves and collective society. The practice of Authentic Movement and Witnessing is a vessel to contain the reweaving of spirit and matter.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines authentic as “…worthy of trust, reliance or belief.” This definition invites the question of trust which is at the core of this discipline. Authentic Movement invites an individual to be present in the body - with eyes closed - to the myriad impulses that are part of the individual’s experience in the moment. This practice of listening to the impulses that are part of each of us at any moment and choosing to say “yes” to a particular ipulse and “no” to another begins a process of deep listening. At the same time the mover is being seen by a witness without judgement, projection or interpretation. This atmosphere of compassion that is practiced and cultivated by the witness is central to the container or sacred temenos that allows the mover to deepen in the embodied listening of the impulses within. The mover risks stepping into the not-knowing with eyes closed and risks following a particular impulse. The willingness to be in relationship to the personal self and the larger sense of Self while not knowing where it will lead requires trust and an acceptance of the greater Mystery.

The discipline offers safety for the deepening of trust. The practice of being seen by a compassionate witness allows the mover to see themselves more compassionately and then new and deeper layers of the psyche unfold. Carl Jung said “psyche and soma are two differing aspects of one and the same thing.” Authentic Movement invites the mover to embody, to move and to breathe the psyche into beingness while being safely contained by the witness’s compassionate seeing and presence. As the practice of movement and witnessing deepens over time and the mover becomes a witness to another and then returns to moving again, this cycle invites not only listening deeply to self and other, it also leads to a deeper listening of the collective body and the earth body. We begin to directly experience our sacred connection to the whole. Another way of saying this is that an internal matrix develops through the process of being witnessed compassionately while embodying and moving our direct experience. This leads to the discovery of our relationship with the greater matrix which in turn ofers us a sense of belonging, being part of the whole, being part of self, family, community and the earth body. Jung also said “When the great swing has taken an individual into the world of symbolic mysteries, nothing comes of it, nothing can come of it, unless it has been associated with the earth, unless it has happened when that individual was in the body…and so individuation can only take place if you first return to the body, to your earth, only then does it become true.”

The discipline of Authentic Movement and Witnessing is practiced in group settings in which there is a circle of witnesses and movers. This form is also used in individual psychotherapeutic work as an access and integration of the unconscious, similar to dream work.

As we each embody ourselves in the presence of compassionate witnessing we are able to resource innate creativity and experience healing phenomenologically. Healing can occur organically and in the moment by simply being seen by another without judgement, projection, or interpretation. We are also able to resource our direct relationship with the sacred and the sensual. In our culture the sacred and the sensual are often separated. Authentic Movement and Witnessing allows a direct knowing of these aspects of the Self and their deep interconnection.

Ultimately this form is about self-knowledge and our relationship to other and to the whole whether witnessing or moving. As projections, judgements and interpretations emerge the task is to allow these processes to inform us about ourselves. This is part of the moment to moment practice of this discipline. In owning projection we are able to see ourselves and others more clearly and compassionately. This can lead to the direct experience of “seeing the me in you and the you in me.” Paradoxically this practice that is exquisitely and simply about self-knowledge leads us to the direct experience of our interconnectedness with the whole.

As we continue to practice and teach this discipline we are curious about the embodied wisdom that is surfacing in each of us and the collective at this time and the relationship this embodied knowing has to our individual and collective relationships with the earthbody. Each of us has a unique expression to offer in and through the bodymindspirit. The discipline of Authentic Movement and Witnessing is an elegant vessel to contain and carry these offerings into consciousness.

I pray for deep listening in the new century - listening alone - listening together - listening to oneself - listening to the earth - listening to the universe - listening to the abundance that is - awakening to and feeling sound and silence as all there is - helping to create an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing. Deep listening in all its variations is infinite. Deep listening is love.

-Pauline Oliveros