A Communion of Subjects
Under the title “INSIDE OUTSIDE – Moving into Awareness Together,” Jennifer Bury and Beate Zeller offered a two-day workshop in Munich in September 2025. Movement therapist Jennifer Bury reports her experiences in the English Garden.
Reflections on our workshop in Munich (Deutsch)
There’s something amazing here for you. That’s the sentence that appeared clearly in my head as I stared at the dark brown mud and dried leaves at my feet. So I stepped down off the log I was standing on and began searching, looking with the clarity that all I had to do was stay, and notice more deeply than I was used to. This is a different kind of looking than just seeing with your eyes. I was looking with my whole body: feeling the sounds of the birds and the nearby stream ripple through me, the scent of the rich mud and fishy water, the squish under my feet and the warmth of the gentle breeze on my face. This was a kind of aliveness and connection to the world that I had not felt before I left our workshop group to walk into the nearby forest only to discover this lively river. Then suddenly there it was, presenting itself to me like a birthday present, something so completely extraordinary: a small white spiral shell with a thin brown line tracing its entire swirl. It appeared to jump toward me and I carefully picked it up, delighting in shaping my fingers to its delicate form, and noticing that it was simultaneously giving me some of its mud. I rolled it between my fingers and admired it from every aspect and slowly became that we were feeling each other, while also being felt by each other. We were coming to know each other.
Once back with our group, our co-leader Beate Zeller, asked us to find partners and describe what it was that stayed with us from our adventure. I eagerly showed my partner my shell and described to her how I knew that amazing experiences awaited me in this world. I understood now that in order to discover them I needed to pause and take in what is already right in front of me. Rather than assuming that I knew the other beings around me I could allow myself to not know, and instead to wonder. In this way I might discover who and what was actually around me, and in this case right in front of me.
As my partner listened and looked closely at my tiny shell, I felt myself expanding and thrilled in seeing her see my discovery. Though my partner had probably not been far from me in this northern part of Munich’s English Garden, she had a totally different experience. From her closed hand she carefully unfurled a golden yellow leaf which matched exactly the yellow scarf she wore on her head. She animatedly described to me how they had recognized each other immediately, and how much it meant to her that they were now finally reunited.
Later in the big group, each person recounted their unique experience in response to the clear instructions Beate had given us: to follow what attracted us. It’s such a rare thing in an adult person’s life to have unstructured time to just be and feel, to discover what you’re curious about. It was time to be a child and in so doing I found my way back to the being who is part of a grand and glorious multitude of other extraordinary beings. I came away from this two-day workshop, which Beate and I co-taught in Munich, far richer than I had imagined. Our intention in teaching the workshop had been to offer others an experience of finding themselves with each other as well as part of a greater, vibrant whole. Yet I hadn’t anticipated how striking this simple experiment would be and how profoundly I had been missing this fundamental way of being in the world.
As the sun turned a low, deep gold and our group walked slowly out of the park, we lingered, not wanting to leave each other and what we had shared. It felt as if we had come to know something that others had forgotten and we didn’t want to let go of each other and are shared revelation. When we did finally separate, we each took with us the precious gift of having been an integral part of something deeply private, and yet universal. As I stood on the train platform to take me back into the city, a line from Thomas Berry came to me: ”the Earth is not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects”. I had read those lines as a child and now many decades later, I could finally say that I had learned what they meant.
Author: Jennifer Bury is a certified somatic therapist and a certified trainer and supervisor in Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy™. She brings 40+ years of experience in private practice, leading group trainings and supervision groups. Jennifer works online and in person, in the U.S. and internationally. Her background includes performing with her modern dance company, studies in Gestalt, pre-med, neurology, kinesiology, dance, and numerous somatic methods. jenniferbury.com
Photos in the article: Beate Zeller
Photo Jennifer Bury dancing with the tree by John O’Duinn
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