Exploring the Territory of “We-Space” Co-led by Kathy Andrews and Larry Kiehl

Eventually we want to have a capability for we-space that we can actually enact/use in our lives, more than just feel good together. But first it’s necessary to become familiar with opening into we-space and exploring our awarenesses in it; learning 1) to have some felt and experience understanding of it, 2) to eventually repeatedly produce it, and 3) to develop capability while in it with another.

Our two hours together will be an awareness exploration—establish a conceptual framework, have experientials, then a discussion—into this territory of consciousness called “we-space.” We encourage entering the territory without preconceived maps, models, or theory. That is, the territory of we-space isn’t an enactment of a model or map or theory—if anything, it’s more the opposite, any maps and models, at best, are attempts to conceptually render or portray the reality of we-space. As such, models and maps won’t be privileged in what Larry and Kathy share with us. Together they have experienced that we can interactively “bumble our way” into a we-space state just with intention, trust, and presently engaging each other so as to open into what is always available for us.

During our two hours together, we will build on our capacities that participants have gained over the last few SDI meetings (although newcomers are welcome). During the meeting, we will use Zoom breakout rooms for opportunities to discover the particular flavors of several practice partners in pure open sharing. We will then use the breakout rooms to practice putting some feeling or reactive issue relevant to the moment in the “space” between the partners to experience what emerges in that mutual space. There will be time for sharing with the group and time for conceptual theorizing afterwards.
Consider that we-space is a non-local phenomenon that is concurrently local and accessible to our experience. One is not dependent on the other. They co-exist in reality. More specifically, It exists...It is One reality, and it is accessible to us, while alone or with others; deep meditation can reveal this.

Larry has previously believed that we needed a capability for authentic personal presencing before being able to enter we-space with another person(s), to keep us from being “distracted” from mutually engaging the process, through what he has termed amygdala work. This exploration will show us that this isn’t necessarily the case (though the jury’s still out on that). Of course this depends on how one defines and identifies we-space, all being subject to our experiences and interpretations while leaning into and exploring it (what he refers to in his book--Your Evolutional Consciousness--as co-centering). Even the awkwardness, the confusion, and the bumbling we might experience together while attempting to find we-space can be part of we-space—when we’ll let it, not making it a hindrance or barrier to it. It can be an experience beyond our shared personal feelings into an experience of our unitive diversity…even into the transcendent.

Kathy has been regularly experiencing and experimenting in mutual awakening communities for about seven years. Her experience is that practices where partners mutually place their consciousness in the other or in the space between them results in both partners experiencing ever-changing emergence, clarification of the uniqueness of the people doing the practice, and development of the capacities and qualities of some larger body.

In their several attempts in enacting we-space together, Kathy and Larry realized it would be a good idea to attempt to demonstrate it together in the meeting to give everyone a sense of what it can look and feel like, not to suggest it’s how it would be for everyone else when they attempt it. This will probably be more challenging using a video-conference medium than in person when breaking out into pairs, but let’s give it a go.