An Approach to the Numinous

Part 3 

October 13th – 15th, 2023

Marian Dunlea with Patricia Llosa, Pauline Sayhi & Abigail Whyte

Module Seven

Module 7 invites us to consider the numinous, and how this unique experience presents itself in our lives. In this module, we will bring more attention to our dreams, inner dialogues and outer explorations using active imagination.

Exploring the Numinous

In these next three modules of the BodyDreaming Training, we will explore how to approach the numinous. As in St. Exupery’s “The Little Prince” (“Le Petit Prince”), in order to receive the encounter with the numinous, we must first be “tamed”, or receptive. Our approach is therefore to proceed by building trust and creating ritual.

What We’ve Covered So Far

Until now the practice sessions in our modules have focused on two types of awareness or “attunement”: inner attunement, focused on our own bodily feelings – known as interoception; and outer attunement, towards the people, objects, and nature that impact us in our environment. By paying attention to the responses in our nervous system, we come to recognize habitual patterns and “complexes” that are often activated. With the practice of “titration”, slowing down the activation, we learn to resource and reset our nervous systems from heightened states of activation. We experience a greater ease and spaciousness in the body and psyche, extending our capacity to tolerate old triggers and uncertainty. Because of this our receptors are more engaged, and we enter our images with greater curiosity.

Looking Ahead

This newfound ease and agency mark a shift from a state of defensiveness to one of trust, openness, and receptivity. Something totally new presents itself, heralding the possibility for the numinous. BodyDreaming prepares us to receive the numinous. It allows us to be present in a way that expands our consciousness, bringing us into greater communion with all life.

In the Final Modules

In these final three modules we will further develop the somatic practices and theory – which affirm that our matter and all matter is alive and interconnected. By developing an embodied experience of our own matter as a secure base, we may engage in a participatory relationship with the world around us. As Monte states, “the nature of matter itself [is] to embody and transmit the numinous experience” (2015, p. 78). By establishing an embodied home for our soul, we begin to realise that our body and soul, psyche and matter, are each reflectors of the numinous, what Jung referred to as the “hint of the god” (Jung, 1997, p. 919).

Dates Time Zone

Friday October 13th from 2pm to 8pm
Saturday October 14th from 2pm to 8pm
Sunday October 15th from 2pm to 5pm

Time Zone

Dublin, Ireland (currently Irish Standard Time) (GMT+1)

Venue

Online via Zoom

Please plan on attending all sessions.

Tuition Fee

€390

Continuous Professional Development

15 hours

Notes

Each module can be taken as a stand-alone experience or as part of the BodyDreaming Training. New participants will receive a recording from the previous module to view and are also recommended to view the recording of the online Introductory Workshop. The training weekend will comprise of theory and practice, experiential learning and embodied practice sessions, dream work, movement, voice work, ritual and art. We work in large group sessions and in small break-out practice sessions. We have a group of assistants providing containment and guidance for the small break out practice sessions. Each breakout group will have an assistant present, from our team of assistants, who all provide containment and guidance for the small break out practice sessions. To request an application form, or for more information about the training, please write to Julia and Cat at BodyDreaming@gmail.com. Instructions about payment will be provided once your application has been processed.

Module 7 – Recommended Reading

Chapters 8: The Matter of Self-Regulation: “The sun is coming out of her face” In BodyDreaming in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: An Embodied Therapeutic Approach, by Marian Dunlea
(Routledge, 2019).