Touch of Presence

09/23/2026

"The line of aplomb implies a center or still point from which movement may move out, to which it will return, and which will be present throughout.” ~Roger Tully

Now is the time to act on several upcoming qualifying courses aligned with future Intensive and Retreat opportunities. Thanks for sharing this with interested friends and colleagues.

After the foundational Intro Course is completed, you may attend any Retreat and Group Intensive (with teacher approval).

2026 Intro
HAMBURG Intro October 1-4 (register NOW)
The German Intensive starts in March 2027

Louisville, KY Intro October 30 - November 1, 2026 (with Mary Reis) Special discounted price for new students ONLY until September 25, 2026
*This is one of only two Intros offered in the US through 2027!

Special note for USA participants unable to travel/attend EU Courses: Be sure to catch these qualifying Intros with Mary Reis! Giorgia will return for future Retreats and Group Intensives.

2027 Intros
(Required before attending the Intensives and Retreats)
AMSTERDAM Jan 30 - Feb 1 (waitlist)
PRAGUE February 4-7 (register now)
WARSAW February 18-21 (waitlist)
*GAINESVILLE, FL April 24-26 (with Mary Reis)

2027 Intensives
Germany begins March 4-7 ~ calling in Applications NOW!
Czechia begins December 2-5 ~ calling in Applications NOW!

2027 Retreat
Czechia June 2-6

2028 International Graduate Intensive
Week #1 February 16-20 ~ NEW DATE!
Week #2 June 7-11 ~ Week #3 October 4-8
Beautiful venue in Poland! More details coming soon.
Prerequisite will be completion of two rounds of the regular Group Intensives, plus teacher approval.

Photo 1 of Giorgia G. Milne by Kasia Halicka
Photo 2 by of Mary Reis by Stacy Arenas

09/22/2026

Revolutionary new research indicates consciousness exists in plants, slime molds, and other organisms without brains.

Yes, seriously.

For centuries, the scientific consensus has been fiercely 'brain-centric,' treating subjective experience as an exclusive luxury of complex nervous systems. However, a growing network of researchers is dismantling this dogma by demonstrating that organisms without a single neuron can think and learn.

In pioneering facilities like Spain's Minimal Intelligence Laboratory (MINT Lab), scientists are showing that brainless organisms like slime molds and plants can navigate mazes, adapt to risk, and even react to anesthetics.

These findings suggest that the capacity to experience the present is not a late-stage evolutionary perk, but an ancient, widespread feature of life itself.

This paradigm shift fundamentally redefines our understanding of what a mind can be. If a central nervous system is not a prerequisite for consciousness, the traditional tools we use to measure intelligence—which were built in our own image—must be radically redesigned.

This research pushes us beyond scientific chauvinism, forcing us to confront a reality where our forests, gardens, and cellular neighbors are not merely passive biological machines. Instead, they may be active, feeling participants in their environments, navigating the world with a unique form of awareness we are only beginning to comprehend.

source: Lawrence, N. (2026). New studies suggest consciousness exists in organisms without brains. IAI News.

09/14/2026

09/14/2026

Thank you, Warsaw🇵🇱 Wonderful Group❣️

“Life is wholeness. It is a mystery beyond our potential to understand. We must consider becoming comfortable with our ignorance, becoming a living organism in "The Sea Around Us", nurtured and loved through an indwelling sense of direction.
We move beyond being complete, content or fulfilled... into the Holy River of Life.”
~James Jealous, D.O. Osteopathic Odyssey

08/24/2026

Go if you can. Read Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal by David Abram 🌍

Dear friends, dear strangers, dear undecided,



You are warmly invited to an evening of unhurried trouble.



On Thursday, September 24, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics will host a public conversation between David Abram and me - brothers in thought and cosmic mischief, as I'd like to think - as part of the W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship Series: "Now at the End of Things, A Plea for Magic."



It is often said that we live in disenchanted times, that the world has been measured, mapped, monetized, and mostly explained. And yet the word 'machine' and the word 'magic' grew from the same ancient root - almost as if modernity, in its rush to file the world under the practical, misplaced its own twin. (the twin, we suspect, has been in the room the whole time.)



Together with host Alex Forrester, David and I will ask what it means to plead for magic at the end of things: when our senses of the possible are besieged, when agency has been asphyxiated into the crystallized lines of the practical (the regime of responsivity I call 'Pragma'), and when the pragmatic insists it is the only adult in the room.

I think this will be closer to a séance for the possible than a lecture. It will be an evening of story, etymology, mischief, and the kind of question that does not resolve so much as it recruits, enlists, and spirits away!



Come as you are. Bring your doubts; they are excellent company.

Thursday, September 24, 7:00 PM (doors open at 6:30) / Saint James Place, 352 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA / Sliding-scale tickets



Let us begin.

Bayo Akomolafe

https://www.universe.com/events/now-at-the-end-of-things-a-plea-for-magic-tickets-91WFC8

08/20/2026

Just a few seats remain. Join us in the beautiful city of Prague. This course is offered in English with Czech translation.