Dance of Consciousness

Description

It moves and moves not; It is far and likewise near. It is inside all this and It is outside all this. –Isa Upanishad

The “it” that defies definition in this 2nd century BCE sacred text has become an equally perplexing focus of study—a “question that towers above all others” according to Scientific American—in the contemporary life sciences. What is consciousness? Our inquiry will hold open this question within an intentional learning community for nine months as we explore dance as metaphor and practice for how mystics, as well as scholars, artists and scientists, experience the movement of consciousness.

If you want answers, especially answers that someone else can provide, this program isn’t for you. "If you want to think about consciousness, perplexity is necessary—mind-boggling, brain-hurting, I can't bear to think about this stupid problem any more perplexity...” advises Susan Blackmore. Furthermore, she says, “if you do not wish your brain to hurt (though of course strictly speaking brains cannot hurt because they do not have any pain receptors—and, come to think of it, if your toe, which does have pain receptors, hurts, is it really your toe that is hurting?), stop reading now or choose a more tractable problem to study."

This program is an invitation to explore the movement of consciousness in relationship to Indian and Greek wisdom traditions. We’ll practice Orissi dance, study our dreams as science and science as dream, and read postcolonial Indian English literature as manifestations of the dance of consciousness. Our work will include lectures, book seminars, films, workshops (dance and yoga), introspective journaling (dreams), and what an Evergreen faculty elder named “autobiomythography” in order to explore the multidimensional movements of consciousness. We'll consider anew mythic texts that bridge beliefs about East and West, mysticism and science, such as Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu-Li Masters and Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics, that have formed consciousness studies from such fields of inquiry as transpersonal psychology, ecofeminism, somatics, ecopsychology, neurobiology and quantum physics.

Students should expect to work 40 hours per week and will benefit most from a full-year commitment. During spring quarter students will have the opportunity to focus more intensely on specific program themes and practices by developing research projects, workshops, in-program internships, and individual studies. All students should expect to use intensely experiential methods to explore the dance of consciousness in a collaborative manner that creates and sustains a yearlong intentional learning community.