New Thought Vermont

Sensing Space/Sensing Time

Physical Contemplations on the Experience of Space and Time

A Workshop With BruceFertman.
You will need to register for this class and pay a fee is $75 for all 3 sessions.
Please go to this link to pay: https://www.donortools.com/give/2285

Sensing Space

We all possess a sense of space within, or a lack thereof. Sometimes, we feeltrapped, or cramped, that we have no room to move or breathe or think.Sometimes, we feel open and free, that the future is open to us, that thehorizon widens forever, that the sky is the limit, that life is deep and vast,like the ocean. Unwittingly, we impinge upon this omnidirectional sense ofspace. Some of us puff out, some of us squeeze in, hold back, thrust forward,press down, pull up. Sometimes, unmeaningly, we intrude upon the space of others.We want to live our lives with a peaceful, invigorating sense of space withinus. We want to feel spatially unconfined, unfettered.

Space alsoexists between us and the animate and inanimate world, between us andour smartphones, our computers, our steering wheels, our soup bowls, betweenpeople toward whom we find ourselves drawn to, orrepelled by.

There is space around, above us, below us, before us, behind us, beside us. Often, unbeknownst to us, we live with blinders on, zooming inon what is in front of us, living our lives running along tracks, downinvisible corridors, through high hedged mazes, unable to see and sense theimmensity of space around us. Space exists. A lot of it.

Sensing Time

Time feels very real to us. A second is a second, a minute aminute, an hour an hour, a day a day, a year a year, a decade a decade, and yetour subjective sense of time varies. An hour can fly by in a second, an hourcan feel like an eternity, for better or worse. An entire life can fly by in ablink of the eye. Ask almost any person nearing the end of their life.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time. Chronos, (as inchronological), would be clock time. Clock time is sequential, movinghorizontally through time, from A to B to C. From past, through present, intothe future. Chronos is quantitative, measurable time.

Kairos, on the other hand, is closer to biological time. Itmoves not horizontally but vertically. It goes nowhere. It is the eternal moment,a fraction of an infinity. Think of someone striking a bell, one single note,rising at once up to the stars and down to the ocean’s floor, spreading outomnidirectionally. Kairos is non-sequential, singular. It is time standingstill, not flying by.

Kairos is about knowing, moment by moment, what it is timefor. Now.

“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, anda time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; atime to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time tolaugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and atime to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time tocast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and atime to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time ofpeace.”

How profoundly physical these actions are of which Solomonspeaks – being born, dying, planting, reaping, killing, healing, breaking down,building up, weeping, laughing, mourning, dancing, embracing, not embracing, (as during a pandemic), speaking, not speaking, loving, hating, fighting,forgiving. The biology of time.

By reading my words, already we have begun physically contemplating our experience of space and time. If you would like to delve moredeeply into these themes, consider joining me for what will feel like athree-day retreat.

About Bruce Fertman “In Bruce’s class you feel as if you are sitting by a deep, soft lake. He is the embodiment of his work. His pace and patience, his quiet confidence, allows people to unfold and open layer by layer. The superfluous falls away, leaving only life’s inner vitality effortlessly expressing itself through you. And then you know, ‘That’s who I am, that is who I could be.’”Margarete Tueshaus – Alexander Teacher, Equestrian, Germany

Having done so for 30 years, Bruce continues to teach annually in Europe, Asia, and the United States helping people to understand and experience the interconnectedness between physical and spiritual grace.

In 1982, Bruce co-founded the Alexander Alliance International, an intergenerational, multicultural community/school, now with programs in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, England, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and America.

Author of Teaching By Hand/Learning By Heart, Delving into the Work of F.M. Alexander, Bruce currently lives and works in Osaka, Japan and Coyote, New Mexico.