Exploring Webs of Connection:

Inter-being with Fluid Authenticity

 an Online Continuum Retreat

with

Cherionna Menzam-Sills and Jane Okondo 

Join us for this 5-day online Continuum Flow retreat (at home) which is offered for those who are experienced with Continuum, having had at least 5 days experience with a Continuum teacher. Please submit your application before completing your registration for the retreat.

"Technically speaking, our bodies are not exactly ours. What we call a body is an open-ended expression of an ongoing universal process that is in constant flux, arranging, re-arranging, and experimenting as new formations come into existence. The continuum of life on land takes place with the galaxy and humans alike." - Emilie Conrad

We are interconnected, fluid beings, resonating with all other fluid entities. In this retreat, we enquire into how we can experience and enhance our sense of interconnectivity within each of the three tissue anatomies: cultural, primordial and Cosmic. How does our awareness affect our tissues and how do our tissues affect our awareness? And how do we affect each other? Even virtually, with fluid authenticity in our field.

The form of the retreat includes teaching of Continuum principles, and setting up dives in a morning session. This is followed by spacious time for diving and gathering in the early evening to share and harvest our embodied learning. We will also include time to explore how to be on retreat at home.

This special 5-day retreat offers a deep dive into our webs of connection with ourselves, each other, our fluid bodies, the planet and the Cosmos. Via fluid resonance, we experience the inter-connected nature of life in a body. We will spend the first two or so days establishing our field together, as well as the sequences of Continuum breaths, sounding and mindful movement we will engage in for our exploration.

This retreat is being offered online due to COVID-19 restrictions. We have discovered that there are advantages to coming together online as well as what we miss by not being together in person. 

Here are some words from some participants from our first online retreat in September 2020:

About Continuum Flow Retreats

Continuum Flow is a series of seminars in a retreat setting for those experienced with Continuum and ready to dive deeper with this subtle fluidic practice. It is also designed to be part of a fuller mentorship programme for those drawn to teach Continuum to support you in being prepared to apply to become a member of the Continuum Teachers’ Association. The fuller mentorship programme includes individual mentoring sessions as well as smaller workshops to practice teach with feedback from peers and mentors. The retreats at Karuna Institute provide an opportunity to deepen into Continuum, with each course including 2-3 days in silent enquiry process. These retreats are open to anyone who has had at least 5 days experience with Continuum teachers, and is ready to dive deeper. Continuum Flow has emerged from Cherionna and Jane coming together to teach the visionary somatic work of the late Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum. Continuum is a subtle practice involving specific breaths, sounding, mindful awareness and gentle fluid movement. We slow down, relax and dissolve restrictive patterns in our tissues and nervous systems opening to new, more creative resilience and potential.

Learn more at: www.birthingyourlife.org

Why Five-Day Retreats?

The importance of these longer retreats is to enable spending extended periods of time in silent enquiry, where we can deepen under more habits and patterning, including that of time. Emilie Conrad enquired,

“If a system was not bound in time, would it be susceptible to the impact of the environment?”

This question is an important aspect of our Continuum enquiry. The effects of time patterning begin as early as birth, or even before. How do we listen to our own impulses, discover our own rhythms, when we need to rise to an alarm in the morning, eat at certain times, sleep at certain times, etc. Within the extended field of an “all nighter,” an extended silent dive, we can begin to explore what is beyond the constraints of time.

In each retreat we will enter silence once the sequences of breaths, sounding and movement have been learned and the group is adequately settled.
Each seminar has a different theme, designed to enhance awareness and understanding of the nuances of Continuum exploration in your practice. While the seminars are designed to support your deepening in this practice, it is not required to attend every one or to attend them sequentially. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT REGISTRATION REQUIRES COMPLETING AN APPLICATION FORM FIRST. 

PLEASE VIEW/DOWNLOAD/PRINT THE APPLICATION FORM HERE BEFORE REGISTERING FOR THE COURSE.

Register Now! 

SCHEDULE FOR OUR ONLINE RETREAT

Sunday: 7 – 9 p.m.: Welcome, introductions and establishing baseline 

Monday and Tuesday: 

10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Sharing, discussion and teaching.

12 – 5 p.m. Dive

5 – 7 p.m. Sharing, discussion and questions 

Wednesday:

10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Sharing, discussion and teaching.

12 – 4:30 p.m. Dive

4:30 pm. Check ins, preparation for silence including teaching the song, entering Silence

Thursday: Continuing to dive in your own time in silence as possible 

Friday: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Final sharing and completion 

PLEASE NOTE THAT REGISTRATION REQUIRES COMPLETING AN APPLICATION FORM FIRST. 

PLEASE VIEW/DOWNLOAD/PRINT THE APPLICATION FORM HERE BEFORE REGISTERING FOR THE COURSE.

Register Now! 

Jane Okondo

Jane has been practicing in the field of somatic therapy since 1995. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist with ISMETA and a Registered Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist. Jane met Emilie Conrad in 2000 and began being mentored at this time. In 2007 Jane was Authorised by Emilie Conrad to teach this work and she became the first Continuum teacher in the UK. In 2014 Jane and Cherionna (who moved to the UK in 2010) began co-teaching Continuum retreats together and from here developed their mentoring programme, Continuum Flow.

Cherionna Menzam-Sills

A therapist since 1978, Cherionna worked intensively with founder of Continuum, Emilie Conrad, the final decade of Emilie’s life. Cherionna was authorized in 2007 by Emilie to teach Continuum and has been teaching frequently since then. Her passion for Prenatal and Birth Psychology led her to pursue a PhD in this field, where her dissertation addressed prenatal and birth themes in dance and movement. Inspired by her doctoral studies, she has taught embryology through movement since the 1990s, and was adjunct faculty for graduate students in Somatic Psychotherapy and Prenatal and Birth Psychology at Naropa University and the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. Trained and experienced as Occupational Therapist, Massage Therapist, Dance/Movement Psychotherapist, Bodymind Psychotherapist, and Prenatal and Birth therapist, her background includes intensive mindfulness meditation practices as well as extensive training with prenatal and birth therapy pioneers, William Emerson and Ray Castellino. Cherionna is a senior tutor at Karuna Institute and has taught Craniosacral Biodynamics and Continuum across North America and Europe, often with her husband, Biodynamics pioneer, Franklyn Sills. She is also a published author, with her writings highly influenced by her time with Emilie and Continuum. Cherionna is committed in her life and work to embodied presence.

More on Cherionna and Continuum at www.birthingyourlife.org