Power and the Sacred

I'm taking a class this weekend called Power and the Sacred. It's a fascinating class, a spiritual & cermonial class that takes a conflict resolution perspective. Our teachers use a variety of tools to introduce conflict so that our class can experience the actual process of resolution (or utilization). There have a been a couple of good experiences and a couple that I found a bit lukewarm. I took the class because I wanted to experience a radically different approach to CR and some ways to introduce a more spiritual aspect to the process and it's been both of those things. Here are some of the notes I made during the class:

We did some standing exercises (I think from Qi Kung or kung fu) that were interesting. The exercises start energy moving that people may not always move. That leads to potential unblocking and releasing that can trigger very emotional responses. It also brings an awareness of energetic flows and blocks. For example - limbs that have difficulty holding the posture for no apparent reason. People often block their awareness of these things.

How does physical exercise promote mindfulness? It can help in a couple of ways - by bringing our awareness to our physical being or by giving us practice experiencing something uncomfortable. Learning to recognize and stay with painful situations isn't easy. Our first instinct is to block it off, to disconnect from the situation. It's hard to disconnect from physical discomfort because it's so immediate.

Conflict is a struggle that we often try to disguise with peaceful, harmonious language. I didn't say that but I can't remember who did.

How you set yourself up physically has a direct and immediate impact on your energetic state.

People have to FEEL what is true for their OWN bodies. Even though we can use instructions and direction from other people, our responsibility to ourselves is to recognize what is best for our own physical being.

We had two good guest speakers, two of the men who spoke at the James Perez rally last weekend. Both were excellent speakers but I noticed their speaking styles both included statements designed to try & change people's minds about the Perez shooting. To convince others that they are right in their viewpoint. I realize that most speeches include this kind of rhetoric but I don't agree with it. I think that stating your own experience and your own views is enough.

There was an exchange between the younger speaker (about 18 yrs old) and one of the class members, a white woman who's related to Scott M (officer that shot Kendra James). I noticed a couple of interesting things - the young man got very defensive very quickly. Although my classmate didn't respond in kind, it was mainly because the young man wouldn't let her respond much at all. It was interesting to watch because he still has a lot to learn about interacting with people. Even if you totally disagree with someone's viewpoint & think they're a total idiot, the mature way to handle it is to let them speak their piece and respect that their opinion is different from yours.

It's interesting that white people (or many that I've listened to) seem to think that this issue is *not* about race. Black people that I've spoken with or heard seem to think race played a big part in it. Although I don't believe this issue was entirely race related, I feel strongly that race played a definite part. Trying to de-emphasize the racial aspect makes it worse. I think white people just don't want to go there. They don't want to admit that they may have racist beliefs and that those beliefs led, in part, to the killings.

Even more interesting - we didn't talk about this exchange at all after the speakers left. In a class designed to address power issues with relation to conflict resolution, I found this a letdown. Although, as one class member pointed out, there is value in simply witnessing the exchange, I would have liked to hear other thoughts and observations on the event.

I don't agree with some of the thoughts my instructors had about healing & a strong nervous system being the only way to heal. Their focus seems to be on strengthening the body to accept healing work but someone like a Carolyn Myss says the opposite - that the healing work must be addressed before the body can begin to heal. Maybe it's a case of the chicken or the egg. Perhaps both methodologies work equally well.

One thing Andrew's teachers taught him that I completely disagree with: They believe that we're totally alone, fundamentally alone, and that our only connection with others is through the line of ancestors stretching out behind us.

Andrew & John's experience is that you cannot bring anything innovative to Portland. They believe that people are very territorial and that their beliefs & methodologies threaten established practicioners. I say, you see and experience what you expect to see and experience. I don't feel that way - especially after having moved here from a city that *really* is reluctant to accept anything different.

For a class that focused on power, there was a lot of talk about power but from a seriously negative perspective. Most of the 'powerspeak' I heard from them was victim talk. I heard a lot of discussion around what they weren't allowed to do, how they weren't allowed to be what they want to be, how that's just the way things are, that things just 'happen that way', that we can expect a lot of resistance if we're going to pursue this work in an academic setting, etc.

I participated in a class exercise that involved each of us bringing in an item we considered sacred and then building an altar with all these pieces. This was a bit weird for me because I attach no significance to altars and had no emotional connection to the process at all. I participated because it was a group project and I did enjoy the initial sharing when we all talked about what our pieces meant to us. However, when the focus turned away from the sharing, the cohesion fell apart and the efforts became about 'doing' and not about 'being'. When a conflict did arise, the response was infinitely predictable, even in a class about conflict - everybody got silent and then someone changed the subject. I spoke with the person I'd conflicted with later and it turned out to be a great bonding experience for us but it was uncomfortable at the time.

So those are my thoughts. I have to write a syllabus for a class as the only assignment - how would I teach a class about power. It's due Friday sometime so I've got a couple of more days to mull it over. However, I will mention that although I found their approach novel, I wouldn't consider it radically different. They did include a variety of different exercises and I think taking a more spiritual and mindful approach is different than the current norm - extremely different. I just don't think they presented it coherently enough for me to judge whether it was radical or not.