Our priority in creating and sharing these sessions with each other was to encourage creativity, expression and going beyond the visible, tangible and material realm to the emotional and spiritual world within and around us. The following workshops were the ones that resonated the most with Milena who is compiling this toolbox. All of the workshops we created and took part in were based on what made sense in the moment and based on the context we were in at the time. We want people to use them if they resonate and make sense in their own contexts, but most of all we want people to feel encouraged to create their own workshops for going beyond whatever borders constrict movement in their own bodies and the body of the context they find themselves in. 

Getting to Know Each Other & Setting the Format 

In the first part of the day we played a game to get to know each other better. The game consisted of passing around a rock and saying our names. In the second round of the game we would re-state our name and also say an activity we liked to do in two words. 

Later on we would challenge each other to remember the names of different participants and their favorite activities. 

Then we discussed what our working days would look like for the following ten days. We decided that each morning we would have an activity: ‘Morning pages’ during which time we would sit together and write in silence for 15 or so minutes about our feelings, thoughts, and reflections. This activity would take place after a small group meditation before breakfast in the morning. 

We agreed on times for eating and assigning two people each day to be in charge of setting the table and putting dishes to wash after eating. The hours for the workshops and the names of the workshops would be decided every day for the next day. 

We agreed on setting aside a separate space, in this case it would be the wine cellar (there was no actual wine there), as a ‘safe space’ where we could go whenever we needed to be alone, to meditate and to be isolated from the group for some time. This was a conscious decision keeping in mind that working and living together for two weeks would be very intense and we would need different methods of dealing with issues/conflicts that rise to the surface.