Stephen Schwartz

photo by Julie Ericksen

If you look at these oak trees surrounding this house… one can only notice, in an exploration, that they arose from a seed, and that there was nothing in that seed – at least nothing that could be directly experienced – which would give an indication that such a mighty form would arise like that – such a great and beautiful form would stretch towards the heavens. It is as if within that seed lay a kind of restlessness, a kind of ferment, a kind of aching; and out of that aching, out of that restlessness, something had to break open – and in the breaking open, direction, in space and time was given to this tree. 

All of our emotions, really, are this same kind of ferment, this same kind of creative restlessness which is emerging from a silence and going toward an as yet unknown goal. And we are the seed, our life is the seed, and at various times there are boundaries that don’t feel good to have, especially when something seems to be fuming and pulsating so much of the time.

We are conscious beings. We are conscious seeds and we can come back to the restlessness; we can make a choice; we can discover the energetic element within that restlessness. We can, in a sense, cooperate in the barrier walls of the seed falling apart and giving rise to new life. This is the possible beauty of our experience here; but all of this in the context of a silence, an unknown.  

from the audio ‘Principles of the Process’, New York 1991

…the seed is restless with life current, and becomes so restless that it bursts, and out of its bursting comes the trees and the flowers and the grass…  

…it is time as seedpods in the great adventure, to put down the blinders and to let the life force in as it is and not as we want it to be. Here is the beauty to end the congestion…  

…We have been fighting against the movement toward expansion, unfolding, blossoming… 

from the audio ‘The Body-Bridge Between Thought and Feeling’, November 1991, Albuquerque, New Mexico