From the Executive Director:
  A big "Thank you" to all those who made donations to the SAF last year. We received more donations in 2015 than we have for many years, almost three times as much as in 2014!  Your generosity means that Sensory Awareness will continue to expand and touch the lives of more people across the globe.

A special thanks to the three anonymous donors who gave matching funds so generously in December, to our board members and to everyone who faithfully gives of their time and money every year. 

  

 

And thanks to Richard Lowe, former SAF Executive Director, who remained on the SAF board through 2015 to support and advise us during this transitional period as I assumed the role of Executive Director of the SAF.

• We held the first national SAF East Coast Workshop. Due to it's success, we will continue to offer an annual workshop in the U.S. on both the East and West coasts.
• A new program, Sensing Sundays, supports people in an on-going practice by offering sensing experiments through conference calls twice a month.  The calls are led by members of the Sensory Awareness Leaders' Guild.
• Scholarships made it possible for numerous veterans and college students to attend our two national workshops in 2015.
• Donations have been made to programs developed by leaders who are working with under-served populations. (See below)  
• The SAF continues to support members of the Sensory Awareness Leaders' Guild (SALG) through resources in a special section of our website, the posting of their workshops and by collaborating on the two 3 - day Leaders' Guild meetings that occur before each national workshop.
• Thanks to Enric Bruguera and Lee Klinger Lesser, "Waking Up" will be available in Spanish in the near future.
• We are continuing to develop the new SAF website.
• The SAF has had hundreds of hours of video footage of Charlotte Selver leading the classes of the 2002 Study Group. We now have five finished DVDs thanks to the patient, dedicated editing of Patricia Baxter.
• Michael Atkinson and Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt are collaborating on creating short videos on Sensory Awareness to make the work more accessible and understood. See their first finished video, "Spontaneous Mindfulness", on our home page, click on: Spontaneous Mindfulness and scroll down to the the video on the right. They are currently working on a new project, with ideas for more.
• There are now many audio files of leaders leading experiments.  Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt and Lee Klinger Lesser have generously given us permission to use some of theirs on our website and we plan to edit others. Thank you, Beate Heckner, for offering to do some of the editing.

82 people attended the workshop at the Garrison Institute. It was the first national SAF East Coast workshop in many years. Here Pat Meyer Peterson is leading her session.

Michael Atkinson, Carol Buck and Ray Fowler, SAF and SALG board members, worked with our Secretary/Treasurer, Sara Gordon, to organize this very successful workshop.  It was not only well attended by 82 participants, but there was a waiting list. This workshop brought together many long-time students and leaders of Sensing from the United States and Europe.  It was very moving to see old friends reconnect, some of whom hadn't seen each other for over 30 years. Just as inspiring, about half of the participants were new to Sensing. You can view more

photos of the workshop here: Garrison photos.  

 

Old friends and highly respected leaders, Krista Sattler (Austria) and Lilith Pincus (U.S.) sharing a moment at the 2015 East Coast workshop.

Nine college students were able to attend due to scholarships they received from the SAF  These were students who had experienced Sensory Awareness as part of their college curriculum.  Six were from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG), which also provided them with travel stipend grants. They have attended Theatre/Movement classes taught by Assistant Professor, and Sensory Awareness Leaders' Guild member, Denise Gabriel. She has offered Sensing as a part of her classes for many years, even taking a class to Barra de Navidad for an intensive Sensory Awareness retreat, co-led by Patricia Baxter.

Three students came from Donald McCown's classes at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. McCown is Assistant Professor in the Health Sciences Department and Co-director of the Center for Contemplative Studies at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He has been at the forefront of integrating mindfulness approaches into curriculum, health services and psychotherapy for many years. 

 

The presence of people of a wide range of ages, cultures and backgrounds greatly enriched the total experience of the workshop.   

 

These leaders attended the Sensory Awareness Leader's Guild gathering that preceded the workshop. Many other leaders joined them at the workshop itself. Several came from Europe (Austria and Spain).

We listened as Carol Buck told us of her despair, some 40 years ago, when she was diagnosed with advanced Scleroderma, a terrible, degenerative, connective tissue disease. A soulful, talented cellist, she could only hold down the strings of her instrument using the index finger of her left hand. She was told that her illness was terminal and that there was no treatment available.
Somehow she happened to go to a Sensory Awareness class with Charlotte Selver and she "felt a difference right away. I could feel where the frozen areas in my tissues met the areas that were still alive." That was the late summer. She explored Sensing daily in a study group with Charlotte Selver and by December, she was moving with much more ease. Her recovery continued as she continued to study and the practice of Sensory Awareness permeated her daily life.
Now, in her 70s, still agile and mobile, she performs in several musical ensembles in New York City, including the Ron Carter Nonet. She is also an active member of the Sensory Awareness Leaders Guild. Carol played several beautiful classical pieces for us and invited listeners to place a hand on her to feel the resonance of the music through her as she performed. It was a special highlight at the workshop and a testimony to the power of cultivating deep sensory presence in our lives.
Lilith Pincus (above center) suggested that we have a silent auction and donated one of her paintings and two stools that were designed especially for Sensing experiments by the late Charles Brooks. She donated all of the proceeds to the SAF.  Sensory Awarness has been a part of Lilith's life for over 50 years. Thank you, Lilith!
   As some of you may know, Honoring the Path of the Warrior (HPW), has an new name: Veterans PATH. This program was developed by Lee Klinger Lesser and Chris Fortin in 2008 to "provide returning veterans a safe environment and enable them to rediscover meaning, purpose, and joy in their lives through mindfulness, meditation, and community. The letters P, A, T & H of Veterans PATH are an acronym for: Peace Acceptance Transformation and Honor. The SAF was happy to donate to Veterans PATH in 2015. Besides a monetary donation, to date, we have donated over 60 copies of the journal "Every Moment is a Moment", which the veterans use during and after their retreats. This program has grown from a few veterans to full retreats and a mentoring group of veterans who have been involved in HPW for some time. We hope to see this kind of comprehensive program spread to other areas. It has literally saved lives. Congratulations on your non-profit status!

The East Coast workshop was so successful that we have already scheduled one in 2016 at the Garrison Institute in New York, October 7 - 9, 2016. This year we will be in the larger hall pictured below. Last year there was a waiting list, so be sure to sign up early when we send out the e-flyer later this year.  Join us!

The main meditation hall at the Garrison Institute, formerly a monastery.

The Garrison Institute is a beautiful locale on the Hudson River, surrounded by woods and sloping, green lawns. Garrison hosts many contemplative and mindfulness oriented retreats
and workshops every year.