Taught by

"It moves and moves not; It is far and likewise near. It is inside all this and It is outside all this."  — Isha Upanishad

The "it" that defies definition in this second-century BCE sacred text has become an equally perplexing focus of secular study—a “question that towers above all others,” according to Scientific American —in the contemporary life sciences. What is consciousness? Our inquiry will hold open this question within an intentional learning community for six months as we explore dance as metaphor and practice for how mystics as well as scholars, artists as well as scientists, experience the movement of consciousness.

If you really want to inquire about your experience of the movement of consciousness, this program is an invitation to explore its embodiment in relationship to Indian wisdom tradition. Specifically, we’ll practice Odissi dance and study our dreams as science and science as dream as manifestations of the dance of consciousness. Our work will include lectures, book seminars, films, workshops, introspective dream-journaling, and what an Evergreen faculty elder named “autobiomythography” in order to explore the multidimensional movements of consciousness. We'll consider anew mythic texts such as Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu-Li Masters and Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics that bridge beliefs about East and West, mysticism and science, and that have formed consciousness studies from fields of inquiry such as psychology of dreams, ecofeminism, neurobiology, and quantum physics. Capra, after inquiring into his experience while sitting by the ocean, wrote: “I ‘saw’ cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in which particles were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I ‘saw’ the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I ‘heard’ its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of Dancers worshiped by the Hindus."

Students should expect to work 50 hours per week and perform at the end of fall quarter. During winter quarter, in lieu of dance, we will continue our studies of dreams and the nature of physical and mental reality.

Quarters

Fall Open Winter Signature

Location and Schedule

Final Schedule and Room Assignment

• Fall

Campus Location

Olympia

Time Offered

Day