Philosophical Fellowship practice @iunisanctuary

Embodied reading practice of an excerpt of I and Thou - Martin Buber

In this workshop for Edge Exploration, I am introducing Philosophical Fellowship practice that I learned through a John Vervaeke and Christopher Mastropietro with the Circling Institute a earlier this year.

While while in Lectio Divina, or Sacred Reading, one picks up a text from philosophy, religious text, or Poetry and we slowdown to have a very deep sense of connection with the experience being depicted in various stages. In Philosophical Fellowship we do this as a group, ideally nor more than four people.

We start usually by a short meditation to be more present.
A person is designated to be guiding the practice, and the full text will be read by them. That same person will then like in Lectio Divina, let the text ooze into their mind and body and see what line seems to be drawing their attention.

Then the line of text or phrase will then be chanted in turns by everyone and we do four turns of that table. The idea is again to let the words echo and feel like the meaning is shifting into a deeper level. This is usually a surprising phase because everyone will have a slightly different sensibility and their reading out loud will generate a different emphasis to different parts of the sentence and will influence others in their reading and comprehension. The sparks of the fire will start to be visible.

After every person had had a chance to read the passage four times. A new phase where each person will paraphrase in one or two sentences what that phrase meant to them. One one round is usually sufficient.

Then another round starts with a longer expansion of the meaning of the phrase, with this time each person spending about two to three minutes elaborating further, so that a more refined sense emerges. Smoke can now be visible.

Then a phase of about ten minutes of free flow can be initiated and a more detailed exploration of the meaning can be achieved. Usually that’s where the fire takes place.

When time is up, it’s a common practice to share some gratitude and share some feedback into how the experience is for everyone.
What usually ends up happening is that there is a meta discussion that emerges, and that often leads into wonder and mystery, and a willingness to go further in the notions from the text with a deeper sense of curiosity.

I hope you enjoy this session, and hope to offer this again in the future.

Happy trails!