Mindful Academy Solterreno (MAS)
Community Hub
The ‘hub’ of something is the most important part of a place or activity. The ‘hub’ of Mindful Academy Solterreno, and therefore its most important part, is our community. The MAS Community Hub is organised by Dr, Sheena Burke, with assistance from peers in the community, and offers different means of meeting together to share our personal practice and teaching experiences in community.
The intention of these sessions is to create conditions that may deepen our embodiment of the practice and to grow our connection with the heart of MBSR teaching. In community, we encourage our growth of self-inquiry and reflective practice, that are foundational dimensions of our teaching competencies.
- weekly ‘Sit with Inquiry’ sessions offer a shared space to sit together in practice, to listen to and voice our experiences of the practice.
- ‘Reflect and Share’ sessions - - almost-monthly - offer a space to reflect and dialogue together on our experiences of teaching to the key themes of the MBSR curriculum.
To join the MAS Community Hub, please contact sheena@discoveringmindfulness.ie to register for these sessions and to be added to the mailing list. All MBSR teachers are welcome.
The fee for all of the sessions is by donation only. And only if within your means. Payment options will be provided in the email notifications for the meetings. A maximum donation of €15 per session or €60 max per month is suggested. Fees received contribute to administration costs including Zoom. The graduates who support the Hub sessions receive supervision for their contribution and to support their own deepening practice.
Sit with Inquiry
Since 2020 we have been coming together each week for our ‘Sit with Inquiry’ sessions and appreciating the ‘added extra’ to our personal practice when we sit together in community.
In these weekly 75 minutes sessions, a brief theme or poem is introduced, we sit together in companionable silent practice for 30 minutes and participate in inquiry on our practice.
This is an opportunity to show up as a ‘participant’ rather than ‘teacher’ and to connect with fellow MBSR teachers in personal practice and inquiry. Listening to each other’s experience and participating in inquiry also serves to deepen our relationship with the inquiry process that is central to MBSR teaching.
As a peer-focused initiative, we welcome the evolution of our shared practice space including involvement by the community so if you are interested in facilitating a session, please contact sheena@discoveringmindfulness.ie
NEW DATES 2023
Saturdays mornings 09.30 am GMT / 10.30 am CET
Reflect & Share
In response to continued conversations with the community these ‘Reflect and Share’ sessions offer a co-created space for reflective practice on our teaching experiences of the MBSR curriculum. ‘Skilful engagement with reflective practice’ is regarded as key to our growth and development as teachers as well as providing a means of maintaining a ‘grassroots level’ holding of the ethics and integrity of the wider field of mindfulness teaching. Demonstrating reflective practice skills forms part of our teacher training pathway (for both qualified and certified stages) and these sessions offer the opportunity to develop these skills together. As well as the joy of simply being together for a while!
In these 2 hour online sessions we will hold the MBSR weekly session themes as the central structure for our reflective inquiries and sharings. We will hold these lightly as we trust in emergence and what arises from our own sharings in each session. We will review the theme of the session and remind ourselves of the different experiential activities we might use to bring the theme to life in our teachings. We might sit with a reflective question on our experience of teaching and learning on the theme, from our direct experiences. We will practice mindful listening and speaking in small groups as well as the wider group as we share and reflect together. We may gain the opportunity to connect with peer MBSR teachers who are teaching in similar contexts or cultures and expand our awareness from the breadth of our diversity.
Whether or not you are teaching the 8 week format of the MBSR curriculum, these sessions are open to all and offer us a means to stay connected with the core principles and teachings of the MBSR curriculum as the foundations to our professional work. And we can learn from the range of contexts within which MBSR teachers find themselves, sharing the challenges and adaptations emerging from applying the curriculum in context and consider how the evolution of the curriculum upholds its integrity by remaining responsive to the property of emergence, arguably one of the key differentiating features of MBSR teaching.
To join the MAS Community Hub please contact sheena@discoveringmindfulness.ie to register and to be added to the monthly mailing list.
