Transcendent Practices Program Description                                                 F03/W04

Designed as a year long, interdisciplinary and experiential coordinated studies program, Transcendent Practices asks both theoretical and practical questions regarding the value and characteristics of transcendent practices.  Many of us remember transcendent moments in our lives, when we lost our sense of time and felt creatively connected with our environment, our bodies or our actions. Transcendent moments often favor the prepared.  The preparation is often a practice or craft, an individual way of being in the world that involves intentional commitment to some activity and a regular physical and mental recentering on it.  This program actively involved students in three creative studio practices that can prepare or open one to transcendent experiences: poetry, sculpture, and yoga. 

Fall  
The fall term program theme was “grounding.”  How is one “grounded,” physically, psychologically and spiritually?  Is grounding a precondition for transcendent experience? How is grounding related to one’s sense of place in the world?

In the sculpture studio, students gained basic experience with clay and plaster by making a series of press molds and cast plaster reliefs.  They worked with found objects and materials to create three sculptural works. They identified at least three personal themes and did at least ten drawings to explore each theme, presenting the drawings to the studio.  Each student worked with a partner to research the work of two sculptors, one of whom was addressed in our studio text, Sculpture in the Age of Doubt by Thomas McEvilley.  They made a poster presentation of their findings.  They documented their work in journals, sketchbooks and work logs.  Themes addressed in the studio included, material and process as drivers of sculptural form, the relationship of sculpture to grounding and gravity, figure/ground relationships in sculptural reliefs, frontality, scale and proportion relative to the human form, structure and anatomy, and controlling the context and presentation of one’s work.
 
In the poetry workshop students wrote poems each week with feedback from both the faculty and student peers.  The class began with the idea of criticism, and established guidelines for peer review.  Subsequent topics included the nature of metaphor, the grounding of poems with concrete details, and transcendence in poetry in a variety of historical and cultural contexts.  Students studied Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook for critical insights and vocabulary, and read David Kirby's The House of Blue Light, which provided insight into a singular style of contemporary American poetry. Students were given an option of performing their poetry in a large group setting at the end of the quarter.

The yoga studio component introduced students to the classical tradition of Patanjali’s  8-limbed yoga practice.  In addition, a particular focus of our practice was yoga nidra.  Our learning objective was to practice yoga, and reading and writing about yoga, in order to know the knower of one’s self, which in turn invites an awareness of consciousness itself.  Students were required to maintain a home practice as well as a classroom practice.  They were required to develop a writing practice that made the sensations experienced during yoga real to the reader: a personal journal and three papers on nidra practice were required.  Working in small groups, students also were required during the final week to guide peers through an asana practice designed to open the practitioner to sensation within the physical body.  Required readings included: Infinite Awakening: The Principles and Practice of Yoga Nidra (Richard Miller), Beyond Power Yoga (Beryl Bender Birch), "The Heart of the Yogi" (Doug Keller), "Against School" (John Taylor Gatto), "Embodiment" (Catherine Ingram), "Desire:  Intoxication/Plant: Marijuana" (Michael Pollan).

In addition to studio work, all-program activities included weekly seminar reading, writing with peer review and revision, and discussion; original research and InDesign work with Andrea Olsen’s Body and Earth; field trips; portfolios; and participation in self-assessment workshops; and program fair activities.  Seminar texts included: The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy (Robert Bly), A Natural History of the Senses (Diane Ackerman), Natural Mind:  A New Way of Looking at Drugs and the Higher Consciousness (Andrew Weil), The Practice of the Wild (Gary Snyder), Why God Won’t Go Away (Andrew  Newberg, et al), The  Shape of Content (Ben Shahn), The Reenchantment of Art (Suzy Gablik)..

Winter

The winter term program theme was “flow.”  What does flow allow you to do when you’re experiencing it? How does flow relate to form, space, and the experience of time? If flow involves release and opening, and practice involves containment and focus, how do the two relate?

In the sculpture studio, students were introduced to techniques and materials for use in the program’s Integrative Projects. Sudents explored cutting, bending and welding steel rod, and casting directly from the body using plaster impregnated gauze strips.  They completed introductory drawing exercises addressing cues to form and space, and figurative imagery in sculpture.  They were introduced to wood as a carving material and to the sharpening, care and use of gouges and other carving tools.  

Poetry continued to focus on the discipline of poetry writing; students continued to produce and workshop a poem a week.  New topics covered winter quarter included the practice of revision, the poet Jane Hirschfield (and her volume The Lives of the Heart,) the poetic line and its relationship to the program’s theme of breath and flow, Language Poetry, and the Prose Poem.  Poets were invited to submit a poem for an online compilation, and to read a poem of their choice at a quarter-end open mic.

Yoga workshop focussed on the practices of yoga nidra and pranayama or breathing practices, which included three-part breathing, kapalabhati, ujjayi, nadi shodhana, sitali, and pratiloma. 

In addition to the specific studio work, students were required to complete two integrative projects.  The Flow of Consciousness project asked students to use the gauze and plaster body casting process and steel armatures to create sculptures to represent the sensations experienced during yoga nidra practice, or awareness their poetry practice and/or their sculpture work itself.  The flow of breath project included focussed pranayama or yogic breath practices, wood sculpting as a meditation on the filling and emptying of form, and poetry writing inspired by practices of respiration.  Students also participated in an Integrative workshop that required them to complete weekly logs and reflection sheets regarding their engagement with program practices and a personal practice.  Students also completed a self-interview regarding what they learned from their practices, which was modeled after the required course text, Can Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life?

In addition to studio work, all-program activities included weekly seminar reading, writing with peer review and revision, and discussion; original research and InDesign work with Andrea Olsen’s Body and Earth; field trips; portfolios; guest lectures; critique sessions; self-assessment workshops; and program fair activities.  Seminar texts included: Awakening the Spine (Scaravelli), Vespers (Suarez), Finding Flow (Csikszenthmihaly), Archie’s Way (Probert), The True Path (Matthews), Mind Over Water (Lambert), Solar Storms (Hogan).

Spring

The spring quarter theme was “sustenance.”  Our central questions were:  How do we sustain a practice?  How does practice sustain us?  How do a practice and a practitioner contribute to and sustain a community?

The design of spring quarter required students to select one program practice, which resulted in intensive work with just one faculty member in the area of sculpture, poetry, or yoga.  Most students designed 8 credit Individual Study Plans that structured their specific work in their chosen area.   The other half of students’ spring quarter work was all-program activities following from fall and winter quarters, but also included an interview with a practitioner of their choice and all-campus seminars on Jim Crow’s Children (Irons). Other seminar texts included: Air Guitar (Hickey), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig), I Don’t Know How She Does It (Pearson), After the Ecstacy the Laundry (Kornfield), Cultivating Inner Peace (Fleischman), Claiming the Spirit Within (Sewell), Risking Everything (Housden). 

In the bronze/sculpture …

Poetry…

All students within the yoga focus group designed Individual Study Plans and pursued these plans during spring quarter.  Many students participated in a Tuesday morning yoga practice studio in which students themselves took turns teaching and facilitating asana, pranayama, chanting, and nidra practices.  All students participated in a Tuesday afternoon workshop during which they regularly gave progress reports and facilitated discussions regarding their Individual Study Plans.

Suggested Credit Equivalencies:
						Fall		Winter	     	Spring	
Somatic Studies (All Program Yoga)		2		2		2
Cooperative Writing & Text Layout Software	2				
Portfolio and Self Assessment		2		2		2
Seminar & Seminar Response Writing	2		2		2
Sculpture Studio				4		2
Yoga Nidra Studio				4		2
Poetry Workshop				2		2
Integrative Projects						4
Interview Project								2
Poetry, or,									8
Bronze Casting, or,								8
Individualized Studies								8

Totals						16		16		16