Reference:

Coming home

When I first came to the lessons of Or Bagim, where the play and movements are an exciting adventure, I immediately had a sense of homecoming.

The adventure is in the exploration of new ways of moving and experiencing, the tapping into unknown sources in ourselves.

The homecoming for me is in two important aspects of this work (or play):  First the connection to the body, our home base. And second, the recognition of the basic principles of psychosynthesis in the way of working and the comments of Or.

Or Bagim does not have a psychosynthesis background, but it seems as if she and Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, have drunk from the same source. Or, to put it differently, that both of them, through intuition and research, have connected to the same wisdom and insights. It is as if the wisdom of psychosynthesis has been worked out for the body by Or.

The first basic principle is the principle of unity, expressed in connection. Connection from the heart, with the powers and limitations of our body, and the experiences that it contains. This brings us to the many powers that lie dormant in our unconscious. As in psychosynthesis, Or defines power as broadly as possible: connection to and acceptance of the richness of the many facets of our being.

If this sounds heavy or complicated, it is not. The lessons are a joy. They wake you up like nothing else. Or Bagim is a master at playing with form. We roar like lions or crawl on the ground like worms. And all those experiences find their way to our centre, and to an enhanced and deeper awareness of ourselves. Through that awareness we can also connect to sources of energy and power outside ourselves.

As we do in psychosynthesis, Or explores in her work the relationship  between structure and flow, between essence and form. With compassion and wisdom, the distortions we all  have created during our lives are faced and experienced. Through this connection, the pure, clear energy of the potential within the distortion is released.

How do we experience connection? Through relationships, with ourselves and others. Often we experience these relationships as contrary to our autonomy and our free will. The brilliance of the Gateways Method is that it uses connection to free the will, another fundamental principle in psychosynthesis.

Assagioli has said: We are dominated by everything we are identified with. And: We need to identify in order to dis-identify.

What does that mean? Generally, we are identified with a part of ourselves. We see ourselves as a mother, or a teacher, or an ambitious worker. Those identifications shift, depending on what the situation demands of us, and on inner clues. Often, we need those identifications, and they give us a form of focus. But the identifications are also narrowed by fear of aspects that seem threatening: Oh no, I am not such an egotist, such a bum, such a loudmouth, such a coward... The list is endless. And with that, we cut off the potential that lies hidden in these disowned aspects of ourselves.

Psychosynthesis is the development of a clear centre within ourselves that can embrace all the aspects of our being, and see and experience their infinite richness. You don't accomplish that by smiling from the height of your mountaintop (in Or's analogy) to parts of yourself that you dislike, or that frighten you. You have to go into them.

And that is exactly what Or does. She says: Come on. You're all of it. Mind and body. Tough and subtle. Sensitive and straightforward. Deeply serious and completely crazy. Silent and very loud. Let's get into it. Feel it, enjoy it, move with it, express it! That process in itself is great fun. And it leads to greater inner freedom.

Or Bagim says in her introduction that this book is a gift. And what a gift it is. Unwrap it and savour it, and it will give you great joy. 

Edith Bakker

Psychosynthese- en neurofeedback-therapeut

www.edithbakker.nl