Just got back from a visit to Bristol. I went down partly to attend the launch of Kamalamani's first book.
It was a lovely evening and Im really pleased that Kamalamani has agreed to come up and do a talk at one of our Buddhist Therapist Fourums and also run a retreat day the followig day. This format is proving really interesting, with an informal discursive day and an evening talk on the Saturday and a therapeutically orientated retreat day on the Sunday. The next forum is March 24th when Manu Bazzano will be with us. Kamalamani's approach brings together embodied therapy, working with character positions with meditation. I first met this form of bodywork in 1985 at a workshop run by Nick Totton, who writes a foreword to Kamalamani's book, so the approach feels like a great homecoming. It integrates well with environmentally based therapies and Buddhist approaches so I think we could have an ongoing synergy around these themes.
I also met a number of people at the book launch interested in eco-therapy, bodywork and alternative approaches to the professionalisation of therapy. Some great conversations and plans for ongoing contact.
It was quite a weekend for meeting people. On my way to Bristol I called in on Rachel, a stalwart of our group who hasnt been well. We had some good conversation about Tariki developments. Whilst in Bristol I met up with two former Amida students to catch up and also to talk about the possibility of them teaching on our therapy programme in the future. This is very exciting as I feel we are expanding our staff team considerably and I am looking forward to doing some development work on the course as soon as Tariki is running smoothly (which it seems to be doing!) and not needing quite so much 'start up' work.
Yesterday I had a day out with a friend, walking around the lovely old town of Froome. Whilst there, we had lunch with some friends of hers who ran a market garden. In conversation it transpired that I was a Buddhist from Leicester. Did I know someone called Massimo? They asked. We pieced together that we did indeed know the same person, who lived in the Buddhist House community for about a year and left eighteen months ago. His next port of call was WOOFing on their market garden. It's a small world - but a exciting one.
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