In-Person Spring Gathering on Saturday April 20th, 2024 in Derreen, Gort
By Peter Duffy
The Irish Focusing Network held its Spring Gathering on Saturday April 20th at An Tionól Cottage, Derreen, Gort, Co Galway for a day of workshops, focusing, and connection. This gathering was the first one to be held outside Dublin, and what a wonderful place it turned out to be. As we arrived the sun was shining, the first spring flowers were bright in the fields and meadows, and the trees were almost green everywhere. We were deep in the countryside of east County Galway, making our way down narrow country roads between grey drystone walls. At this stage, all twelve of us knew that we were a long way from the M50! I am writing this piece some two months later and without any notes, so my recollections have a lot of blank spaces.
Our hosts for the gathering, Marta Fabregat and Marta Wanczyk, welcomed us at Derreen and we chatted briefly in the two-roomed wooden barn, which was to be our location for the day. The barn was at the edge of a native woodland, and the trees seemed to bring a calming presence throughout the day’s workshops.
Marta ran the morning workshop called ‘Wholehearted Communication: Felt Sensing what we mean.’ This experiential workshop combined Focusing with the work of Marshall Rosenberg, who developed Nonviolent Communication (NVC). NVC develops practical communication skills, provides a model for NVC by breaking communication down as an interactive process of speaking and listening from an internal/external experience of ‘request –-need--feeling—observation.’ After Marta’s workshop we worked in pairs, following the NVC steps. NVC works very well with Focusing because they both complement each other and come from a place of empathic listening. If you are interested in finding out more about NVC, a good place to start is with Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 2003, Rosenberg, M.
Before the afternoon workshop, we had a delicious vegetarian curry for lunch, followed by tea, coffee, and more chat. (Thank you, Marta.)
In the afternoon, Marta Wanczyk, lead us in an exploration of sound and resonance, using handheld gongs. Marta started the workshop by playing the gongs as we sat around the room. Then she invited us to choose a gong. (I liked the look of the smallest gong, and grabbed it straightway. Mmm…I’ll focus on this later. )
We each moved around the room, playing the gong, and sensing where we should stop and resonate, listening to the sounds and sensing where we should move next. It was a really interesting way of combining sounds with Focusing.
Thanks to Marta F and Marta W for a wonderful day in Gort, two fascinating workshops, and extending the possibilities of Focusing. After writing this article, I realised that both Marta F and Marta W were following the path that Eugene Gendlin envisioned for Focusing: ‘Please don’t spend years under the impression that Focusing is all that one needs. We need to learn many methods for developing ourselves along many dimensions.’ (Vision Statement for Focusing: Action Steps and Projects, 2003, Gendlin.)
