Life stories : bringing to life embodied narratives.

Biography retreats offer an opportunity to join a small group of like-minded people in a process that engages embodied memories with a view to understanding more fully the stories by which we live. ‘Biography’ means life writing and the biography retreat is an invitation to find some clarity and orientation in each unique individual life story, within the context of the wider story of our times.

Beginning from a place of respect, compassion and generosity towards individual experience, we find a way to listen to and to move the living, breathing stories that have brought us to this point. Taking the time and the space we need, we recreate our narrative in a self-portrait, sometimes scrutinizing, sometimes being swept away in the current. We work authentically and transparently, with a keen eye on the specificity of experience, sketching an outline with a highlight here, a tiny detail there; adding some shading and a touch of colour; ready to be surprised at any moment.

During the process we oscillate between subjective and objective positions, finding our balance and orientation in the contradictions that arise. Significant landmarks might seem immediately apparent, while at the same time, modest, private moments that have fallen out of sight might make their way to the forefront of the dance.

Each dance shape-shifts within the public and private arenas that have given meaning to a given narrative and to the narratives within that given narrative. The stories of others, human and otherwise, might become woven into the story and together we share, witness others and experience being witnessed by others.

As the process comes to an end, we find a way of letting go and making way for alternative possibilities and perspectives, wondering how to reconstruct and reimagine the stories by which we live.

© Caroline Frizell and movingdifference, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Caroline Frizell and movingdifference with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.