Alain and Sarah founded “ Moves Into Consciousness“ (MIC) in 1997. Individually they have studied and practice diverse therapy, creative and spiritual disciplines, and together were trained by Gabrielle Roth to teach her 5Rhythms method, which they taught internationally for 20 years.
In 2018 they recognised it was time for them to stop teaching that technique, or any particular form, whilst following the trajectory of their years of practice. They still study paths and teachings that point towards the practical embodiment of greater consciousness. They continue to lead dance, movement and meditation retreats, workshops and online facilitation. The strong meditation and devotional practice they have informs their life and teaching, and is central to the core values and offerings of MIC. They both also work with individual clients seeking therapy, mentoring, supervision or other forms of support and guidance. Their intention is to share their own evolving experience of how to cultivate and support Presence in daily living.
We nurture awake awareness and embodiment
Alain
Born in 1956 Alain has had a varied working life. Encouraged to follow a traditional education and career path he wandered off track from his late teens, unable to tame his free spirit and conform to ways of living that were inauthentic for him.
He dropped out of Oxford University and began a long process of selective self education to support his wish to live in alignment with Truth and Creative Integrity.
He studied and practiced a variety crafts and disciplines including shepherding, fine woodwork, house restoration, Aikido, sociology, philosophy and psychological astrology before beginning, in 1988, and then completing a formal training in Transpersonal Psychotherapy.
As an accredited (UKCP), practising therapist he also worked as a trainer in the field of addiction, and included various aspects of his psychological learning within the extensive range of somatic workshops he led as a 5Rhythms teacher all over the world. His life and work are a continued enquiry into the Physical, Emotional and Psycho-Spiritual nature and possibilities of living in awake awareness. His desire, his practice and the intention of all he shares is the continued learning of how to loosen the grip of conditioning, reactivity and emotional storylines. The goal? … to be in harmony, peace and presence with Life’s unfolding intelligence.
He is the author of 2 illustrated childrens’ books, a father and grandfather. He is married with Sarah, both of them co-directors of MIC.
Sarah
Movement/dance has been my practice, listening and grounding through breath and body, for over 28 years. As I share my own experience I am constantly learning not only from this ever unfolding within me but from the unfolding I am witness to in others, seeing how it seems we truly are “spirit awakening in our physical body” that we are being asked to consciously realise ourselves in every cell of our body. Consciousness waking up to itself through our physicality.
I am a Laban trained movement therapist and a trained 5rythmns teacher, for which I studied with Sussanah and Y’acov Darling-khan and studied and trained with Gabrielle Roth. I have a strong meditation practise, having worked with various teachers of meditation over the last eight years. This has brought me into working with the merging of these disciplines of movement, silent sitting and constant enquiry into our true nature.
I am a devoted student to the mystery in all that is. I am deeply grateful to all the wise teachers i have and have had in my life, in this I include students; our beloved family and for all of this life, the challenges and the realisation of the light in all there is … my deepening within each breath in and out and realising in me the ever pervading silence and stillness, “imperishable presence”.
I have two children and, in 1991, met Alain and his three children and they, and we, over time became a little tribe… my two, his three… makes five and now we are proud grandparents. I am co-director of ‘Moves into Consciousness’.
What we do
The work of Moves into Consciousness is to nurture and nourish embodiment, fluidity, and receptivity. This is not a trying to ’think about’ and ‘get an answer’ but the cultivation of direct attunement with Being Here Now.
Whether through sitting or dance movement meditation, whether in silence or with music, we guide and encourage embodied direct experience, and the revelation that arises naturally out of that. Allowing the felt sense experience in the body to be met, moving (through us) ever forming and dissolving, becoming more empty of dense matter and more aware of the grounded spacious vibration that is the true nature of Consciousness meeting Matter. We learn to be with what arises, seeing with our hearts patterns of behaviour that cause suffering.
Resting into awareness – the underlying silence and stillness of Life – the invitation is for Presence… moment by moment becoming. This is the ground of Being.
The work is always a deep intimacy with oneself… a turning towards presence… breath… and kindness.
Workshops
Moves into Consciousness
We get lost in habitual thinking. Familiar narratives unconsciously replaying themselves while we hold our breath tightening and constricting the life force, and so separating from our true nature. This disconnection doesn’t feel good…Through movement, dance and sitting meditation we can find vitality, spaciousness and light in everything that arises. Doing this we regain our own inherent kindness, renewing the relationship with our heart and basic nature.
In this workshop we create a shared space to meet and be with this essence of who we are.
Embodied presence
This movement meditation workshop is a time for integration of the senses and the intelligence carried in every cell of the body. We inherited a worldview that locates our existence as being somewhere in the head, our life as being a stream of thought and getting things done. In this virtual world of past and future disconnected from the ever unfolding present our Souls long to heal that familiar sense of separation that haunts so many of us. Life happens now. Moment by moment. A deep and rich intelligent experience of Spirit singing and dancing. Everything is in a state of pure potentiality that is breathed into life by embodied presence.
In this workshop we dance, move, and sit; softening our contracted sense of self, gradually opening to our basic clear and spacious nature. We rest back into innate presence.
Deep Winter
Winter is the time we naturally turn inwards, as the call of “outside” is not so strong.
The days are cold, the vibrant autumn colours and swirling leaves have gone, the bursting of summer fruits and long days is already a memory, and there are many days of darkness before the next excitement of spring. This turning into ourselves, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually can be a rich and rewarding process. A chance to be still and to hear clearly what is deeply true and important for ourselves.
In this workshop we take time to sit, meditate, dance and explore our relationship to sensate awareness as we meet body, heart and soul. The movement we share and explore together is a doorway to deepen the meditation practices that we will use to bring clarity, perspective and connection to our lives. Cultivating conscious Presence helps us attune and find beauty in the deep Winter.
Compassion
We are essentially fluid beings constantly changing as we breathe and move through life, opening and closing, learning, forgetting, remembering. Whilst our conditioning, both individual and cultural encourages us to hide our vulnerability behind fixed roles and seemingly solid identities, our Essence is spacious, tender, heart based and open.
As we gain the courage and kindness to live in and as this Truth, so we grow in compassion, generosity and peace-filled Presence.
Over the 5 days of dance, music, movement and sitting meditation we work with group process, offer individual attention and focus together to liberate and experience this, our true nature. As we dis-cover our Heart so do we more fully Awaken to Life.
Ongoing groups
Introduction
These groups are led by both Alain and Sarah blending their individual styles, experience and focus with this ongoing group of committed students. The beauty of the venue, the regularity and continuity of working repeatedly with the same people over a long period, the quality of the sound system and the availability of plenty of time create an environment where we can all rest in and be nourished by our meditation practice; the ongoing group is a valuable opportunity to evaluate and consciously shape the path of your life. Travelling this self-reflective path with others has the benefit of normalizing, amplifying and encouraging the vital process of human development. As a group we learn to take ‘risks’ together; to open, to share and to value each person’s experience. Whilst individual attention is available in these groups, every participant can progress at their own speed. Our shared intention is to flourish together as mature, grounded, emotionally responsible adults, present in our day to day lives with greater consciousness.
“Why wait for your awakening?
Do you value your reasons for staying small
more than the light shining through the open door?
Forgive yourself,
Forgive yourself.
Now is the only time you have to be whole.
Now.
Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature
Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.
Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.
Please, oh please, don’t continue to believe
in your stories of deficiency and failure.
This is the day of your awakening.”
Danna Faulds
Awake My Soul – Despierta Mi Alma
“Awake My Soul” is a continuing series of retreats that use the platform of movement meditation, psychospiritual and psychotherapeutic techniques and other metaphysical maps and practices to support awakening – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Running now for many years, at a beautiful retreat centre where time and space support our shared intention. this ongoing group is the best way to enter into Advanced Study with MIC. Each ‘volume” of this Series is made up of 4 consecutive residential “chapters”, each one serving as a personal retreat for contemplation, exploration, movement and shared perspectives. Many students have attended all previous “volumes”, but each new volume is complete in itself, and opens the door both for some students to leave and for a new intake of others to join us. In this way the pool of experience, intention and co-creation grows and nourishes us all. Some of us began studying together with more basic ongoing groups over 15 years ago, and so there is a deep thread of trust, community and love that nourishes the work and progress in awakening that we each make.
When one year group ends, and the new “volume” begins it is an opportunity for us all to take stock of what we have uncovered and what the next steps might be. Each module is rooted in attention to body, heart, mind and breath; our meditation is practised by moving, sitting and enquiring with whatever arises. We give ourselves and each other the gift of time, love and attention. Our intention is to keep developing the capacity for true Presence.
Entry, is strictly by application or invitation only. Places are limited. Attendance at all modules is mandatory. An ability to understand and communicate in English is necessary.
“just as we open and heal the body by sensing its rhythms and touching it with a deep and kind attention, so we can open and heal other dimensions of our being. The heart and the feelings go through a similar process of healing through the offering of our attention to their rhythms, nature, and needs.
Jack Kornfield “A Path With Heart”
Rest and Retreat
Summer Mountain
This long weekend intensive is a time to call in Peace and Presence through the breath of silent inner attention. We come together to be in the still mirror of Nature and see our Self reflected back in the Wind Water Sky and Earth that surround us.
In this beautiful summer mountain retreat, working with movement, sitting meditation
and reflection we will dance, fall back and rest. Time for us all to invite in the deep physical listening of silent embodied enquiry to ground, to loosen and to soften.
The Retreat
Retreat is a time to slow down, relax, breathe and meet our deepest quiet self. By resting back we can drop tension and restore our true rhythm. Sarah and Alain have been offering these kind of reflective retreats for the last 16 years in line with their own personal practice.
With a combination of movement, sitting meditation and enquiry we will dance, fall back and rest. Whilst this is both a holiday and a sanctuary it is also a deep enquiry into that in our lives that we may be ready to release.
Individual sessions
Alain
We spend lot of time in reaction, being run by conditioned responses pulling us out of the present moment. Life is a relational ongoing process yet, mostly due to fear, we become accustomed to not living authentically. So maybe we get stuck in some fixed identity that does no good to our relationship with self or others. The way through the ‘problem’ of our life centres around knowing, liking and listening to our True Self in a more generous way, and so having a good enough platform from which to renew and revitalise our connection with the inside and outside.
Individual sessions begin with me listening to you, then agreeing as to how we might use the meeting to lead to some further exploration and possible resolution of your concern or discomfort. We work together based on my long and extensive experience of the territory of many such enquiries, and your deep-rooted knowledge of the heart of the issue. I will make suggestions as to what and how we might follow and investigate, but we will ultimately be going with your direction, imagination, creativity and pace to lead us through the session.
I am there to guide and support, prompt and confer as required. My own preference and belief is to involve physical movement, deep attention to sensation as well as words, dreams and symbolic exploration as well as intuition. Years of facilitating change have led me to deeply trust the body to provide questions and answers. Ultimately though how we work is up to you, we go at your speed and with your choice as to the mode of enquiry. Private sessions usually are about one hour in duration and are mostly offered via Skype and occasionally in person at various international locations when I am teaching workshops there.
In all cases arrangements and initial enquiries are made by email to: alain@moves.me.uk
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Sarah
I offer support in looking at what is arising in your life asking for your attention, and in dropping down underneath what presents itself on the surface. Together we will explore. Cultivating a practice that allows a resting back into the ground of your being, the silence within, is central to how i can support you. My directive will always be to come into the body, focusing on the heart area in the centre of the chest and to ground in the belly, to become aware of sensations in the body. To start to listen deeply within the whole body, and to breathe as it were with your heart and meet and learn about yourself here in this present moment, through this inner sensate awareness, and the silence and stillness. Finding what is true for you.
Publications
Coming and Going Day
This book, written by Alain and illustrated by Mariona Cabassa, published by Fragmenta, is a short fable piece encouraging awareness of the place of dance, movement and the natural world in our lives. It includes as an appendix an ’educational’ guide for children and is available in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and English. We currently sell only the English and Spanish versions.
Coming and Going Day was Winner of the Childrens Book category of the Junceda Award in 2017, has been featured on Catalunyan radio, and was listed in El Pais as one of the 10 most imaginative Spanish childrens books of 2016. It was adapted for theatre by Compañía El Sótano Colectivo Escénico (México), shown locally in Merida for a season, and was selected for performance at the Muestra Nacional de Teatro in Mexico City in 2020.
SHOPQuerido Yo (Dear Me)
Written by Alain and illustrated by Mariona Cabassa, published by, this is a short, illustrated book about love and self compassion. Suitable for all ages it is intended for younger children.
Available in Spanish and Catalan only.
SHOPWork with us
Here you will find information on upcoming workshops, retreats and ongoing online events.
Workshops and Retreats
Barcombe
In these days together we will dance with music, sit in silence, share in movement and words. And be with whatever comes to be expressed.
To register please email …. admin@moves.me.uk
admin@moves.me.uk
Barcombe
Norway
Using our shared experience of living, of dancing, of longing, of knowing, seeing and feeling we will share 5 days of movement , music and shared exploration to uncover how we might live more soulfully.
To some degree we all see the egoic insanity of the world, yet act as if we do not notice, as if we were powerless to awake from the madness , and live fully from the heart – more courageously .
It’s as if we do not want to see how asleep we are, how much we need to awaken and free ourselves from fixed, unconscious limiting identities ; personal, familial, cultural….
Yet we are drawn to movement practices because we know at a very core level that physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually we are fluid, and deeply capable of pursuing and embracing conscious change.
In our time together we will look at many archetypal maps to investigate how we might awaken, live with true authenticity, and carve our own pathway to liberation.
DATES: 17.th –21.st of September
VENUE: Scenehuset, Oslo,Norway
TIME: Wednesday 17.th 18.00-20.30
Thursday 18.th, Friday 19th. Satuday 20th. 11.00-18.00
Sunday 21st. 10.30-17.00
COST: Nkr. 4200
BOOKING: mail to: hege@dans5rytmer.no
hege@dans5rytmer.no
Norway
Spain
The Cortijo has a wonderful wooden floored dance space, and is situated in a rural Andalusian landscape – dry and dusty compared with the green of the UK – with steep hills and beautiful sunrises. Set up some years ago with vision and heart, it has a large vegetable garden and fruit trees, and is run, on perma-culture principles, as an organic smallholding, and educational resource
The accommodation is simple rather than luxurious, down to earth and homely. It is a very friendly warm and welcoming place which we have come to love.
Body work, of various styles is available by request at the Finca both from residents and local practitioners.
This setting and the intention, safety and support of the retreat enables a profound sustained experience for each participant, and the opportunity, for those who wish, to go deep. And at the same time, and increasingly with the shared recognition of its value, the chance to be actively present and also deliberately rest back, listen and follow the call for deep aware relaxation and the nourishment that it can provide.
Throughout the 10day there will be time for personal retreat, for silence and contemplation, for music and dance, for group and individual process.
We will work with exploration through movement, meditation, individual reflection and the sharing and exchange of perspectives…using the same (or similar) psycho-spiritual and psycho-therapeutic techniques, metaphysical maps and practices that we are used to sharing to support a greater sense of liberation – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
In joining the group we give ourselves and each other the gift of time, love and attention. Our shared intention is to keep developing the capacity for true Presence.
Venue: Cortijo Los Banos, Almeria, Andalusia, Spain
Places are strictly limited. If you would like further details and/or an application form then please email admin@moves.me.uk
admin@moves.me.uk
Spain
Online with us
We share Mantra and Silent Sitting whenever we are able to; every Sunday we send out an email – to those who ask to be on the list of recipients – giving info about the days that week we will be online.
Currently we mostly meet regularly on Sunday evenings and Friday mornings.
Sunday evening to share Medicine Buddha Mantra and Silent Sitting from 7pm – 8pm, and Friday mornings 7am for Gayatri Mantra and silent sitting until 8am, and then until 9am we have Sangha – a chance to share and be together – all times are UK times.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89487940305?pwd=SWJ1dkxDWGJHcnJMWUhjZkpVSGZtQT09
Regardless of your experience you are welcome to join us whenever you feel to. If you would like to receive the weekly email list then please fill in this enquiry form:
admin@moves.me.uk