Underground Circle
Upcoming January 27, 2024
"Every landscape has lessons and benefits for the body, heart, and mind. And the benefits of one landscape or ecosystem are not the same as the benefits of the others: therefore the ocean offers something differ from the desert, the forest, the mountains."
Underground Circles are group activities designed to bring participants into a closer connection with the specific physical elements of the natural underground environment, and explore the potential of those elements for supporting change and personal growth. Caves are uniquely enclosed and secluded environments, challenging and inspiring in an inimitable way. Many people who have devoted their lives to exploring caves have observed these elements, but rarely is a cave trip designed to intentionally pursue and explore these elements. The Underground Circle is that cave trip.
Each Underground Circle is different, designed for a distinct group of participants and with a specific potential theme. Because the cave environment is psychologically potent as well as providing some physical risk, and because the processes introduced in the Underground Circle are experimental, participation in non-TSROP Underground Circles is screened. Please contact Keely for more information if you are interested in being a participant.
CONTEMPLATION PHASE TRIPS
- A VISCERAL ANALOGY FOR PERSONAL GROWTH -
The purpose of the Contemplation Phase Underground Circle is to offer a guided experience navigating the cave that can serve as a visceral analogy for navigating personal change. The Contemplation Circle is designed to help provide insight into how you experience change and growth, so that you can use that insight to help you heal from the past and build skills for coping with the present - but it is not therapy, in the sense of an intentional process for facilitating you to work completely through a specific issue. You will be with a group, and there will be opportunities to share issues that you are working through and how you feel that they connect with the experience - but sharing will be optional, and there will only be a limited amount of time available for each person to share and to develop the group into a container. There will also be support; at least two licensed clinicians will be present, and we also try to have at least one additional person who has some clinical training as well as a fourth person who has experience with caving - so if strong feelings come up, or physical issues with the caving experience, there will be someone to help. However, again, the focus will be on helping everyone stay safe and emotionally grounded and oriented, rather than to open issues further in order to fully process them. The reason for that is that the experience does not provide enough time, enough focus on group development, and enough clinicians to fully process everyone. You are encouraged to take anything that comes up on this trip as a starting point, and to work with it further in a therapeutic container.
THE VISCERAL ANALOGY
The different aspects of cave exploration have been broken down into different aspects of navigating personal change. From entrance to exit, the cave can teach different lessons. One unique aspect of navigating a cave, versus other experiences, is that you must do it with your whole body: all of the insights are therefore visceral as well as intellectual or emotional. This can help you learn them in a different and important way.
Act 1: Crossing the Threshold
Contemplating the Unknown: What does it feel like looking at the unknown, from the outside?
Crossing the threshold: Saying goodbye to the light, and also to the external structures that you are used to.
Beginners Mind: Break down rigid patterns in how you move, think, and feel. Learn to move like water, rediscover play.
Act 2: In The Cocoon
Formlessness: In order to change, you have to release internal structures and learn to tolerate being unformed
Orienting: What do you use as a guide, when you are formless?
Balancing Opposites: All of us have abilities and limitations, solitude and community, connection and isolation. How do you instinctively navigate these, and how can you do it differently?
Theater of Shadow: How do you confront parts of you that you don't understand?
Difficult Passage: How to balance force and acceptance when navigating obstacles
Release: How to let go of control, when you need to?
Act 3: Emerging
Conscious Assumption of Form: When you re-emerge into the world of structure, how can you be more conscious of what forms and roles you assume?
Anchoring: How do you ground an experience, so that you can begin to build a change around it?
Storytelling: How do you communicate what you have experienced?
REQUEST INFORMATION ABOUT UNDERGROUND CIRCLE NOW
by using the form below.
The Underground Circle for the 2022-2023 Cycle has already concluded. For information or to express interest for future Underground Circle opportunities, use the form below.
Upcoming January 27, 2024
"Every landscape has lessons and benefits for the body, heart, and mind. And the benefits of one landscape or ecosystem are not the same as the benefits of the others: therefore the ocean offers something differ from the desert, the forest, the mountains."
Underground Circles are group activities designed to bring participants into a closer connection with the specific physical elements of the natural underground environment, and explore the potential of those elements for supporting change and personal growth. Caves are uniquely enclosed and secluded environments, challenging and inspiring in an inimitable way. Many people who have devoted their lives to exploring caves have observed these elements, but rarely is a cave trip designed to intentionally pursue and explore these elements. The Underground Circle is that cave trip.
Each Underground Circle is different, designed for a distinct group of participants and with a specific potential theme. Because the cave environment is psychologically potent as well as providing some physical risk, and because the processes introduced in the Underground Circle are experimental, participation in non-TSROP Underground Circles is screened. Please contact Keely for more information if you are interested in being a participant.
CONTEMPLATION PHASE TRIPS
- A VISCERAL ANALOGY FOR PERSONAL GROWTH -
The purpose of the Contemplation Phase Underground Circle is to offer a guided experience navigating the cave that can serve as a visceral analogy for navigating personal change. The Contemplation Circle is designed to help provide insight into how you experience change and growth, so that you can use that insight to help you heal from the past and build skills for coping with the present - but it is not therapy, in the sense of an intentional process for facilitating you to work completely through a specific issue. You will be with a group, and there will be opportunities to share issues that you are working through and how you feel that they connect with the experience - but sharing will be optional, and there will only be a limited amount of time available for each person to share and to develop the group into a container. There will also be support; at least two licensed clinicians will be present, and we also try to have at least one additional person who has some clinical training as well as a fourth person who has experience with caving - so if strong feelings come up, or physical issues with the caving experience, there will be someone to help. However, again, the focus will be on helping everyone stay safe and emotionally grounded and oriented, rather than to open issues further in order to fully process them. The reason for that is that the experience does not provide enough time, enough focus on group development, and enough clinicians to fully process everyone. You are encouraged to take anything that comes up on this trip as a starting point, and to work with it further in a therapeutic container.
THE VISCERAL ANALOGY
The different aspects of cave exploration have been broken down into different aspects of navigating personal change. From entrance to exit, the cave can teach different lessons. One unique aspect of navigating a cave, versus other experiences, is that you must do it with your whole body: all of the insights are therefore visceral as well as intellectual or emotional. This can help you learn them in a different and important way.
Act 1: Crossing the Threshold
Contemplating the Unknown: What does it feel like looking at the unknown, from the outside?
Crossing the threshold: Saying goodbye to the light, and also to the external structures that you are used to.
Beginners Mind: Break down rigid patterns in how you move, think, and feel. Learn to move like water, rediscover play.
Act 2: In The Cocoon
Formlessness: In order to change, you have to release internal structures and learn to tolerate being unformed
Orienting: What do you use as a guide, when you are formless?
Balancing Opposites: All of us have abilities and limitations, solitude and community, connection and isolation. How do you instinctively navigate these, and how can you do it differently?
Theater of Shadow: How do you confront parts of you that you don't understand?
Difficult Passage: How to balance force and acceptance when navigating obstacles
Release: How to let go of control, when you need to?
Act 3: Emerging
Conscious Assumption of Form: When you re-emerge into the world of structure, how can you be more conscious of what forms and roles you assume?
Anchoring: How do you ground an experience, so that you can begin to build a change around it?
Storytelling: How do you communicate what you have experienced?
REQUEST INFORMATION ABOUT UNDERGROUND CIRCLE NOW
by using the form below.
The Underground Circle for the 2022-2023 Cycle has already concluded. For information or to express interest for future Underground Circle opportunities, use the form below.