Introduction
About the Program
To begin your journey into the transformative world of Visionary Somatics, this Introduction to Visionary Somatics course is designed to provide a comprehensive exploration of foundational concepts before embarking on the two-year practitioner training. The two-year program requires 270 virtual classroom or zoom group hours over the course of two years and is shaped by the contents mentioned in the summary below. Themes will crystallize as the curriculum proceeds and interested folks are welcomed to visit the blog or the Facebook group to share what they are passionate about in regard to learning content and experiences they would like to have. Student-colleagues must log on 100 Visionary Somatics sessions over the two years and both private sessions with practice clients and group facilitation count towards the 100 hours. Students are encouraged, but not required, to facilitate transformative Visionary Somatics groups appropriate to their emergent skillset. Private mentoring with Brian also counts toward the 270-hour requirement.
Four sessions with a Visionary Somatics Practitioner (not included in the tuition) are required over the two years, as well as ongoing reading that is emergent in the community as curriculum environment. Core reading materials will be required for common ground, but self-directed learning is strongly encouraged. Student-colleagues must demonstrate that they are committed to ongoing research in the subfield of Visionary Somatics that they are passionate about. A research paper must be written to complete certification and plenty of support will be given to accomplish the task.
Weekends are intensive experiences that may require an additional day for the student-colleague to integrate before they return to work. Nine weekends in person over the course of two years constitute the core curriculum, though students can opt to attend Zoom groups or mentoring sessions to accommodate their needs. Spontaneous training experiences are welcomed to arise during the curriculum in order to enact the community as curriculum spirit and will go towards the 270-hour requirement. Weekends are 9am-9pm Friday-Sunday with a break for lunch and dinner and there is one weekend about every quarter of the year. Students can explore alternative options for remote work, just email somaticdoctor@gmail.com to propose your plan.
In Summary, What Is Visionary Somatics?
A somatic (bodymind) therapy that integrates touch, somatic inquiry, group field work, and imaginal process to release trauma, catalyze vitality, and mobilize creativity.
A synthesis of bodywork, science, ancestral healing, psychology, expressive arts, and spirituality.
An embodied philosophy that includes semiotics, perceptual contemplation, ecstatic expression, and sourcery (creative mediumship).
A modality that utilizes verbal skills to engage powerfully with memory, psyche, and soma.
A platform for processing and going beyond trauma narratives.
An alchemical enactment of transcendental empiricism and speculative fabulation.
A MetaModality that appreciates non-linear open systems complexity.
A research methodology and training that incorporates rhizomatic learning, the principle that the community is the curriculum.
INTENTIONS FOR THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT:
To develop flexible, spontaneous, and potent functioning in groups and in one-on-one relationships.
To explore inner blocks to being vibrant and effective in groups, in relationships, in work, and in community life.
To awaken one’s personal and cultural voice and dial into one’s capacities for cultural leadership.
To birth new worlds through a deepening awareness of the spaces between oneself and the other, the past and the future, the known and unknown selves.
To explore independence from external authorities and to stand more fully poised in the world as a creative organism with heart and courage.
To expand the imagination and trust in the emergent wisdom of the individual and social body.
To explore non-anthropocentric becoming’s: creative ways of becoming-beyond personal, social, and human identity structures.
To cultivate courage to engage with creative tension and conflict.
To yoke oneself to the emergent meanings and necessities in oneself, the group, and the world.
To cultivate sensitivity, passion, and efficacy in therapeutic alliances.
To rigorously live an ethics of generosity, courage, vulnerability, and joy.
To play with the intention to gestate radical healings through becoming-semiotic-clowns.
To auger into the depths of tragicomedy by deconstructing melodramatic victim/perpetrator identities.
To relate with unseen affordances by cultivating pluck and innovation.
THE PROCESS:
Modalities of working include emergent and directed themes such as communication training, navigating trauma and conflict, embodiment teachings, field theory and general systems theory, somatic semiotics, transformative learning, neurobiology of emotion, imagination, multicultural awareness, social artistry and cultural leadership, attachment and transference, the alchemical imagination, biodynamic embryology, osteopathic philosophy and contact skills, and stewardship capacities regarding myth, narrative and archetypes.
Facilitated experiences in collaborative group work, contemplation and inner journey, body and breathwork, ritual, medial and liminal skills, working with metaphor and shadow.
Biodynamic Constellation work, a rhizomatic field praxis for individual, group, ancestral, and social healing.
Expressive arts inquiries including dance, bodywork, poetry, and therapeutic drama to embody metaphor, archetype, spontaneity, and a connection to the mysteries
Dynamic, emergent group processes that include peer reflection and will deepen one’s abilities to connect with intuition, presence, reciprocity, and a more throughgoing connection with the living spirit of yourself, the group, and the anima mundi.