Between Form and Formless – A Resting Place

by Susanna Knittel

“All nighter’s “ at Continuum Movement studio are a way to immerse deeply into the mystery; to meet the night in silence and be with what wants to be born. Movement, breath and sound open the bodyscape to the unknown.

Last week, the ‘all-nighter’ had an Egyptian theme.

Ten of us met in the darkened, carpeted studio. The room had been transformed into ritual space. Red velvety fabric was covering all the equipment we use to hang, stretch and twist from. Glasses holding T-lights laid out in the shape of the four cardinal directions were burning in the middle; the center was marked by a bowl of water with red roses floating on top. Inflatable camping mats formed a star around the middle. We brought covers and cushions for sleeping and laid them out in a circle around the center, heads towards the middle. We dedicated the space exclusively to this experiment. All other vital functions, like drinking water or rummaging through stuff was delegated to the adjacent office. Every preparatory measure taken was a step towards eliminating noise and distraction and allowing us to transition from the realities of living in Los Angeles on a Thursday evening in June of 2004.

Emilie’s voice had a different quality this evening. Beckoning? Will you come to the river, make this journey with me? After all, it is not everyday that we build our own sarcophagus, the Egyptian casket for the dead.

Emilie is the pioneering founder of Continuum. Following the basic outline of a class, she laid out the work sequence for this night. We each were to draw with our imagiantion a pyramid around ourselves. Each apex would be marked with a specific sound, the ‘o-e’ we were familiar with. Lying down, we would then wrap a breath around our body, the ‘theta’ breath. The wrap would become a spiral encasement; topped with the ‘primordial breath’, a sound evoking ancient times. This protocol would slow us way down, match our consciousness with soma and the speed of our connective tissue. With the water from the rose bowl, we blessed ourselves, then we went to our respective places to immerse in the experience.

I remember coming to the end of the wrapping, before sleep took over.

When I awoke, I joined two people who sat in meditation. Then I started to perform the sequence. A sense of a very slow, low wave expanding seemingly forever across the landscape of the earth took hold. The boundaries of my body vanished, my sense of self did no longer exist, and I felt extended into the whole room and the space beyond the room. Then a thought entered my awareness, ‘do something’, another ‘theta breath’ or so, but barely a sound came out. A split second, a tinge of panic ‘now what’ shot through me. I let go, surrendering into this being state where words cannot go. Motionless to the outside eye, I lay there. How long? - ‘It’ slowly took form again, all by itself. I was aware of breathing again, and my next ‘theta’ breath/sound went on and on to form a strong, lasting, defined sound.

Emilie was calling us back into this time, this place. We came together in the circle to weave the strands of the experience. Would it be possible to form words? This experience of dissolving form and coming together anew, what made it so essential?

All fear is gone! The process in the studio had left me feeling spacious, smiling and wishing, every young person could have this experience, so we as a society could stop running like hamsters in a cage, trust the emptiness, the continuum and reinvent ourselves from that place.