I believe that at the root of our current societal challenges lies an illusory separation between humanity and nature.
This same separation splits off mind from body, and that is where we can start healing this wound.
'Nature' (actually our idealised imagination of it) is so attractive to us, because the built environment we created for ourselves to keep out from our lives the unwanted parts of it, keeps out the desirable part of it, too. Of course we want to enjoy the natural environment, when we live in cities, sit eight hours in front of a computer for work, and then go home and are online again some more time. However, those of us who are more exposed to natural phenomena – farmers, sailors, citizens of less developed countries, our ancestors 200 years ago, healthcare workers under the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless people – know from their lived experience why we tried to separate ourselves from nature (the unwanted aspects of it) in the first place.
We want to move towards nature if we have too little of it and we have the choice not to be exposed to all of it. We want to move away from it if we don’t have a shelter and our integrity is threatened by its forces. Whether any aspect of our world is good or bad for us, depends on our outer circumstances and our own inner state. Fire – good if I want to cook something or I am cold, bad if it's already 50°C outside.
I am inviting you…
…to embark on a journey where we use movement and mindfulness to make peace with more and more parts of our external environment, as well as our internal world. To deeply understand through embodied experiences that the boundary between inside and outside, nature and human, body and mind, the social and the physical, is at least porous (mostly constructed through our history and culture of dualistic thinking). To find a middle ground between the good extreme we long so much for, and the bad on the opposite end that we are trying so hard to avoid. To take with us this knowledge from the dance floor and move through our everyday lives with a clearer perception of the complex reality we are embedded in.
Let's embody nature together –
we are already part of it, we are Nature anyways!
About Bence
Open Floor Teacher, Biologist (PhD)
“Many people ask me how evolutionary biology and dance meditation could be connected. For me the short answer is: through my deep love for life. I am fascinated and inspired by all life forms around us, and I am fascinated by experiencing my own thread of life unfurling every single day.
Following a childhood full of movement and music, I gradually shifted to dancing and hatha yoga practice in my teen years, and to meditation and embodiment practices later in my twenties. With Open Floor, I found a practice where I don't need to believe in anything: my own experience is enough. I am looking forward to sharing the wonder of waking up to our own life while having fun with everyone who is interested in my work.”
