Village Process -A nonverbal group exercise to discover the essence level
If you want to discover and learn as a group what it means when e.g. Arnold Mindell talks about the essence level, and you want to make the energetical connection between people tangible and feelable for them, the Village Process is a great exercise to approach this learning.
I came across this process while I was living in an intentional community for some years. We were guided from Clinton Callahan (founder of Possibility Management) through a 3 days- intensiv-community-retreat.
I learned that Clinton was inspired by Arawana Hayashi during an Authentic Leadership In Action retreat.
The need of the community was to get an understanding, how we are all connected and that a tribe, group, team is always following specific patterns, which are not so tangible through your daily life but still they are in place and showing up in tensions between people, withdrawings, connections or disconnections among them.
Additionally I came across a similar exercise in the context of Theory U in a retreat with Marianne Godman from the Presencing Institute. She used this exercise to build trust within the group.
First I want to introduce the process and afterwards I would love to share my insights I got from it at the above mentioned event.
The setting is as follows
You need:
a groupsize of minimum 15 people
a singing bowl or a zimbel
a timer
minimum 30 minutes up to 45 minutes time frame
Remove all the chairs and/or cushions onto the side. Create an open and cleared space for moving around, big enough for this group size.
The group spreads out in the room.
There will be one bing to start the process and 3 bings to finish the process.
During the process there will be bings in a distance of 30 secs and 2 minutes. The timing is up to the space holder.
After every bing there are 5 options to choose from:
You stay where you are
You sit down
You lay down
You start to walk slowly through the space until you face a wall - then you turn with the same angle you approached the wall/window and you move away. Like a billiard ball is hitting the side of the table and moves away from it.
While you are walking through the space, you might come across a person sitting, standing or laying on the floor. Then you will stop there and make eye contact and keep this until the next bing.
You will proceed with what you did before the bing - walking/sitting/lying or staying and keep eye contact in case the other person is keeping the position too
When you feel into yourself after the next bing and realize you want to move again, then choose of the above 4 options. In case you still want to stay like you are (stay, sit, lay) until the next bing.
The participants are invited to follow their impulses, their inner guidance system. It is a non-verbal communication exercise, so no talking.
In between the space holder can ask questions, which are just an invitation to feel and check-in with themselves - still no talking.
Some examples:
How do you feel in relation to the group? Do you feel connected or disconnected?
Are you more in the center or located in the outer periphery?
Are there similarities you experience now to how you feel in the group in general?
Who do you meet on your way? Who do you don`t meet?
Can you feel the group? The people behind you? In front of you?
After the process the group comes together back in the big circle and people are invited to share their experiences and learnings.
Personal experience
My biggest learning out of the process was that the community I lived in was a defined energetical body with different people operating as different organs.
I realized on a deeper level that we are really all connected and what I experienced through my daily life, played out just in front of me again while being in this exercise.. I met the same people again and again. At the same time I knew and felt there are so many people in the room, which belongs to the group, but I am usually not meeting them so regularly compared to some others, which I met and/or saw very often through this process. I felt the attraction to people with similar intentions. For me it also brought me more awareness regarding “the law of attraction” and that there is no wrong nor right on this level. There are just connections playing out in a different way, even it feels like a disconnection, on this deeper level, there is always an energetical connection happening. It made this field, which my mind can not really understand feelable and tangible.
Usually, as a trainer, I use the kind of exercises and processes which had the biggest impact on my awareness most and this process is definitely one of those processes.
Sources and literature:
Village Process - Possibility Management
The essence level by Arnold Mindell
Written by Christine Düschner