Inspiration for 2010? Uk's great examples on transition

Being back in London, back from India, the mountains and Tibetan refuge in Dharamsala, the inspiring organic learning community and probably the accumulated time of 8 months with various communities and life styles, I felt like coming off a roller coaster with many intense spinning loops that make you feel all dizzy when you are back on the ground. That kind where you knees get all wabbly and it takes some moments of deep breath and a firm grip to the handrail to reorient yourself to your environment and go back to carry on doing what you were doing before you went onto the ride in the first place.

It became very clear to me, that moving back into urban life - well pretty much London's fast paced metropolitan life - where things are very different, it will be rather difficult for me to carry on doing things the way I was doing them before I left and also really I don't want to.

Manish's term of 'Home Activism' stuck with me, where the way you life your life - not on the streets, in the public but for yourself and with your family and friends, can make a huge difference. I think the film below on transition towns in the UK and in the world (there are 256 transition towns in the world) is a good reminder at the end of 2009, of all the great energy and great stories of people and communities moving into more wholesome living across the country in the UK and inspiring more and more places in the world to follow the initial move of Totnes.

(The film is about 45 min long and worthwhile seeing in one go)

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.'

- Margaret Mead

In Transition 1.0 from Transition Towns on Vimeo.

Visiting the UK: Storytelling, Dancing, Social Transformation and wonderful Nature

End of June I returned to the UK to visit friends and a couple of interesting events, such as the story telling weekend in Embercombe which I wrote about earlier, a 5 day retreat in East Sussex called Bodysong: Dance, Bodywork and reunion with the Feminine and a weekend with Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics in Action to create a vision for an Integral Brittannia.
I also took the chance to take some time off from London, visiting a friend in Shropshire and going camping in Wales' stunning Nature.


View Part II: UK in a larger map

Exploring ShinSomatics in East-Sussex
A friend of mine introduced me to various somatic practises who are coming from performing dances and bring a more feminine approach to body work, e.g. Sondra Fraleigh's work in Somatic Movement Tharapy and Education and ShinSomatics (in contrary to other somatic practises coming from the more masculine traits of martial arts - mainly Aikido).

I got hooked very quickly. The promise of the retreat, to tune in to my intrinsic creativity, connecting with powerful femal energy, deepen my mindbody wisdom through an embodied experience of the natural world, healing dances and an experience of transformation through gentle hands-on bodywork was definitly something I didn't want to say no to...Having been there, I am now considering to pursue this work further to become a certified practitioner myself.

Coming straight from the beautiful spot in Devon, I arrived at the rolling hills of the South Downs in Firle, East Sussex. The old house we gathered in, was right next to the famous Charleston Farm, which used to be a meeting place for artists and intellectuals such as Virginia Wolf and known as the Bloomsbury Group. Our Georgian country house called Tilton House, had its own very fitting story to tell. During the time of the Bloomsbury group gathering, it was inhabited by a famous balley dancer Lydia Lopokova from Russia, who was said to sometime be watched dancing naked on the loan during full moon.

The week was in particular special as it gave me a new experience of sensing and comprehending through the body which is rather hard to conecptualise or articulate in words. We didn't move or exercise a lot but it seems the subtle movements and hands-on work had quite an effect on all of us - organising and reorganising the body. Early evenings we were exhausted and to bed early every night. Coming out of the week I did feel I got a lot more sensitised to different people's body presence and energy, allowing myself to be more intuitive with others and more present.

Being back in London, at Don Becks grand seminar, I found it rather tiring to only operate from the head again, looking at theories, discussing big issues and sitting back to back in a room facing a lot of monologues. Shropshire and Wales were a welcoming change and seeing Snowdonia's National Park totally exceeded my expectations! The pic below with the lake is at Tal-Y-Llyn and the camp I stayed at was called CWMRHWYDDFOR Farm Camp!!! Any ideas how to pronounce that?

Moko in Wales from mokoflip on Vimeo.