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| REACHING IN THE WARM UP STRETCH. On Sunday, January 25th, 2015, I completed my final requirement to become a certified InterPlay leader by getting filmed leading InterPlay so that my mentor, Phil Porter, co-founder of InterPlay, can observe me teaching. That's me, Ruth Schowalter, second from the left. (photo by my husband, Tony Martin) |
Hurray for mile markers--those events in life that "mark" a significant change in one's life. Yesterday, was one of those moments for me. For almost two years I have been living and breathing InterPlay ever since I discovered it while doing research on using improvisation as tool in the English as a Second Language classroom. At Soulprint Players, our Atlanta InterPlay performance troupe's rehearsal, I completed my last requirement for becoming a certified InterPlay leader by having 30 minutes of my teaching recorded! Yay!
Of course, there are a few more formalities before I can hang my shingle as a certified InterPlay leader. For instance, Phil Porter, co-founder of InterPlay, needs to see the recording of my teaching and have a discussion with me. He is currently in Australia with InterPlayers there and then returns to California, and the Body Wisdom office only to begin a workshop with the other co-founder of InterPlay, Cynthia Winton-Henry, at the beginning of February. So we are not having the celebratory party yet!
Meanwhile, at the encouragement and support of InterPlay Atlanta regional director, Jennifer Denning, I have created my first InterPlay class! I am so excited to be offering it in my community of Decatur within walking distance of where I live! I am "reaching" out with my flaps up ready for discovery!
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| REACHING FOR THE HIGHER SELF. As I offer a new playshop series in the Metro-Atlanta area, I am practicing keeping my "flaps up." "Flaps Up" is a phrase used in InterPlay to express reaching up to the "big self" as opposed to the "little self." Both big and small selves are equally valid and treasured but different. Perhaps it is our ability to navigate between these selves that is the challenge. At this mile marker for me as I step into being an InterPlay Leader, I am practicing loving and holding space for both my smaller, finite self that dwells in the specifics of every day life and the higher self that mingles in the great infinite mystery. (Image by me, Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter, titled "Baptism at Sweetwater Creek") |
Here is the flyer I created to announce my playshop series, "InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul":
InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic of the Embodied Soul
Facilitated by Ruth Schowalter
“Learn how to walk in the sweetness of the possession of your own soul.” -D.H. Lawrence
What is it you alone know and want to express? Are you being called to speak from your soul? Each one of us has a private way of speaking that yearns for support and to be heard in community.
InterPlay allows us to speak to one another in the marvelous flexible languages of movement, voice, story telling, and stillness. But what is InterPlay and how is it alchemical?
InterPlay is an improvisational system that is an active creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body. Devoted to fun, InterPlay integrates body, mind, heart, and spirit in a “sneaky deep” way. It also teaches the language and ethic of play in a powerful way. If you would like to be a “recovering serious person,” InterPlay might be for you. For more information about InterPlay, visit http://www.interplay.org/.
In this
eight-week series of Tuesday playshops, “InterPlay Alchemy: The Creative Magic
of the Embodied Soul,” we will play around with themes related to the meaning
of life--thresholds, “flyingtime,” the little self and higher self, grace, joy,
wholeness, health, and more.
InterPlay invites us to create from where we are, and not where we think we should be. At the same time, creating from our embodied souls can transform us in ways that feel magical!
This course is open to both experienced and new InterPlay participants.
Tuesdays
10am to noon
February
3rd-24th and
March
3rd to 31st.
*(March
10th, no class)
Fee
8 classes: $120.00
Decatur
First Christian Church, 601 West Ponce De Leon Ave., Decatur,
Georgia, 30030
Contact Ruth Schowalter for further information and for signing up at: RuthTruth@mindspring.com or 404-580-2392
For more about InterPlay in Atlanta see:
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| Ruth Schowalter. photo by Lisa Alexander Streib |
For more about me, see my
blog,
Ahhhh...I am experiencing the sense of wonder at taking my ideas--ones that I have been dancing, singing, drawing, painting, and speaking into the world. My love of celebrating each and every individual's uniquities including my own has manifested into InterPlay Alchemy!
I believe in living vibrant meaningful lives shared in community! How awesome to be able to celebrate this vibrancy through the marvelous languages of movement, voice, story telling and stillness in InterPlay playshops!
This is a "flaps up" moment for me! Hallelujah!
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| FLAPS UP ON FACEBOOK! Experiencing my higher self, expanding into the world of friends and new possible friends using the social media of Facebook. This image accompanied my announcement of InterPlay Alchemy on the Facebook page of InterPlay Atlanta. |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to InterPlay co-founders, Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter for giving us what the body wants and ways to access having it all by reuniting the body, mind, heart and soul--at last! Thanks to our ever expanding InterPlay Atlanta community, especially InterPlay Atlanta director Jennifer Denning and soon to be certified InterPlay leader Christine Gautreaux. I am also so grateful to the members of the InterPlay Atlanta performance troupe, whose soulful playing so inspires me. And gratitude to the Reverend James L. Brewer-Calvert, the senior pastor at Decatur First Christian Church, who opened the doors of his church for me to teach my first series of InterPlay play sessions. What an awesome community to be a part of! I also want to acknowledge Callahan Pope McDonough, Lesly Fredman, and Lynn Hesse for helping me shape this new class in words and place.
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