Transcendent Practices: Syllabus W/04

Fall/Winter/Spring/All Level Coordinated Study Program
Credits: 16/quarter; 48 Total  
Enrollment: 56
Prerequisites: None
Signature Requirement: No 
Internships: Spring term only with prior faculty approval

Additional Expenses: $48/term for Yoga Studio. Personal drawing and sculpture materials: be prepared to spend up to $100/term.  Field Trips/one per term: be prepared to spend up to $30 for food and admissions for one-day trips and up to $75/day for overnight trips. 

Faculty:

Sarah Williams		Bob Leverich			Tim Kelly
Seminar 4161			Lab II 3253			Lab II 3260 (360) 867-6017
(360) 867-6561		(360) 867-6760		(360) 491-5640 (home)
williasa@evergreen.edu	leverich@evergreen.edu 	kellyt@evergreen.edu

General Description:

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.  This feeling has many names: in the zone, the sweet spot, creative flow, a peak experience, even enlightenment or samadhi.  How do we characterize and value these experiences? How do we find them?  Like good fortune, transcendent moments 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 will actively involve you in three creative studio practices that can prepare or open one to transcendent experiences through moving, making and writing.  We will explore classical yoga (the eight limbs), shape materials into sculpture, and experiment with poetry and poetic forms.  We will consider how the body’s anatomies and rhythms inform these practices, looking comparatively at Western and non-Western perspectives.  Through program work and reflection, each of us will seek to define and integrate his or her own transcendent practice.

In general, there will be one field trip per quarter and at least one symposium of peer group presentations each term.  Much of the learning in this program will be experiential in nature; therefore full attendance at all program functions will be mandatory. Students will be expected to complete draft self-evaluations at midterm and final workshops, submit them for peer and faculty review, and present a revised final-self evaluation at the end of the term.  Their transcript for this program will consist of this self-evaluation, a brief faculty response and assignment of credit, and a program description.

Each term, the program investigations will center on a general theme relating to transcendent practice.  These themes are Grounding, Flow,  and Sustaining for fall, winter and spring respectively.  Winter term is described in more detail on the next page.  In Spring, students may choose to carry on deeper studies in one of the three studios (yoga, sculpture or poetry), or in a personal practice or internship, while making use of the program learning community for feedback and support.

Transcendent Practices/Winter Term:

Weekly Schedule for Winter Term:
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	
9-11 All Program Yoga
CRC116/117	9-12 Sculpture, Yin 
3D Studio, Art Annex
9-11 Integrative Workshop, Yang
Lab II 2211
 
11-1 Peer Group Meetings	9-12
Open Studio, Yin (with aide), Metals Shop, Wks 1-5; Wood Shop, Wks 6-10
	8:30-9:30 Faculty Seminar	(Open)	
			9:30-11:30 Seminars
Bob: Lab I 3033
Tim: Lab I 2203
Sarah: Lab II 2207		
11-1	All Program Somatic Studies Workshop
CRC 116/117					
			11:30-12:30 Whole Group Check-in
Lab I 1050		
					
2-4 Guest Lecture/ Workshop
CAB 108

	1-3 Integrative Workshop,  Yang
Lib 2103
2-5 Sculpture, Yin
3D Studio, Arts Annex

3-5 Small Group Meetings	
1-5 (Governance)

1-4 
Open Studio, Yang (with aide), Metals Shop, Wks 1-5; Wood Shop, Wks 6-10	1-2:30 Poetry Workshop,  Yang
Lib 2127	1-3 Open Studio (with aide), Yoga
CRC 116/117	
					
			2:30-4 Poetry Workshop, Yin
(Group B)
Lib 2127		

3-5 (Governance)					

First Class:
9 AM, Monday, January 5, 2004 in CRC 116 & 117

The theme for the Winter term of Transcendent Practices is Flow.  The whole program will meet on Mondays for Yoga and an integrative workshop/lecture period, during which  a number of guest practitioners will visit to share their work and insights. 

In studio on Tuesdays, students will work on two projects integrating themes from Yoga, Sculpture and Poetry practices. Each will be approximately four and a half weeks long. The first will address Flow of Consciousness  and the second will address Flow of Breath.  Students will be invited to incorporate a personal practice into each of these two projects, as well.  Open metal shop and wood shop time with aides on duty will be scheduled for each project.

In addition to studio, students will attend an integrative workshop each Tuesday focusing on practice  through work, writing and reflection with program texts, tapes, reserve readings, InDesign software and guided exercises.   

The program will again divide into three person peer groups, three groups for Thursday morning seminars, and two groups for the two Thursday afternoon poetry workshops.  A brief whole-group check-in will be held each week just after seminars.
 
Students will be expected to:
•	practice yoga, 
•	draw and make sculpture, 
•	read, write and discuss poetry, 
•	maintain a journal, 
•	read program books and attend seminars, 
•	research and write papers, 
•	meet weekly with their peer group,
•	prepare and present individual and peer group projects, 
•	master graphic design/text layout software basics (InSight),
•	maintain a portfolio and a program notebook, and
•	prepare a midterm and final draft self-evaluation, submit it to review by peers and faculty and complete a revised final self-evaluation at the end of the term.  

Portfolios:  Your end of term portfolio is the principal record of your work for the term.  It should be submitted in a three-ring binder and be comprehensive, well-organized, and thoughtfully presented.  It will be a key indicator for faculty of the extent and quality of your work for the term.  Design it to be a public presentation of your learning, a resource for yourself, and a primary tool for your own self-assessment.

Program Fees: Winter fees are $48 for Monday all-program yoga.  This fee will be assessed through the college billing office.  Note the additional costs mentioned on page one.

Be On Time for Classes!  The Ten Minute Grace Rule Will Apply.  Faculty and program aides will invite you to return for the next class if you are later.  (Joanna Cashman made this request, but we intend to honor it across the board).  Studios are about experiential learning.  Be on time and stick around or you’ll miss the experience! If you have extenuating circumstances, let faculty know in advance. 

Bonding:  To build a sustaining learning community, program aide Afton Moore and others will be working to organize all program activities (more poetry/performance gatherings, potlucks, a regular film/video series, First Thursday arts nights, etc.) beginning early in the term.  If you like to contribute help and ideas, please see Afton.

Publication of Program Works: We would like to compile student work for publication and distribution later this term and in spring term.  Ideas include CD’s or conventional anthologies.  Program aide Kip Arney has been digitally documenting sculpture studio works to date and will also be managing the program web site - a good spot to experiment with presenting program work.  Please submit an electronic and hard copy of your fall quarter Body and Earth Chapter project to Kip as soon as possible.  Talk with Kip or faculty if you want to help out.  It will be possible for interested students to arrange credit for such work with faculty in winter and spring.

Heads Up! Spring Field Studies: You will have the opportunity to develop a field study for spring quarter of the program.  Ideally, this field study would allow you to gain familiarity with a new transcendent practice or to deepen an existing practice.   You’ll be expected to complete a form similar to an Internship Learning Contract, identifying learning goals and activities to be completed and identifying a field sponsor, but your field study will be under the aegis of the Transcendent Practices program.  Winter term guest speakers and projects (e.g., Tales of Practice: Interviews with the Self) are intended to prime your pump for a spring term field study. 

Continuing Questions/New Questions:

•	What is transcendence?
•	What is a practice?
•	What is the relationship between the two?
•	What is flow?
•	What does flow allow you to do when you’re experiencing it?
•	If flow involves release and opening, and practice involves containment and focus, how do the two relate?
•	Given that flow often is characterized as ephemeral and non-linear, while practice is laborious and iterative, what is it about practice that sensitizes you for recognizing, receiving, or creating flow in your life?
•	How does flow relate to human community?
•	How does flow relate to form and space?
•	How does time relate to the experience of flow?
•	What flows?  What doesn’t?
•	Is the experience of flow inherently transcendent?
•	Is flow intentional?

Winter Term Booklist:

Studio Texts:

TRAIL GUIDE TO THE BODY – BIEL  (Continuing from Fall)

BEYOND POWER YOGA – BIRCH  (Continuing from Fall)

SCULPTURE IN THE AGE OF DOUBT – MCEVILLEY  (Continuing from Fall)

INFINITE AWAKENING TAPES – MILLER  (Continuing from Fall)

BODY AND EARTH – OLSEN  (Continuing from Fall)

AWAKENING THE SPINE – SCARAVELLI

Seminar Texts (In the order we’ll be reading them):

VESPERS – SUAREZ (poems; we’ll read a portion every week)

REENCHANTMENT OF ART – GABLIK (Continuing from Fall)

FINDING FLOW – CSIKSZENTHMIHALY

ARCHIE'S WAY – PROBERT

TRUE PATH – MATTHEW

SOLAR STORMS – HOGAN, or MIND OVER WATER – LAMBERT

Poetry Texts:

LIVES OF THE HEART - HIRSHFIELD