The single central question of the practice is:
What does it actually mean to own your experience (rather than blaming the outside world) and how, and where, do you do that? Who does it? The speaker, or the listener? What muscle is used? What energy? Do you have to use words? (Obviously not.) How do you do it?
With words I can explicitly own my experience; "I have a story that you are feeling embarrassed".
But what happens if first; I really look inside; feel into the knowledge of this story, as I notice I've created it.
And, when I do realise; that this me has created this knowing or 'story'; what happens if then, I say, "You've just waken up in the cinema naked".
Will you then be able to see that I'm sharing how I'm seeing you? The construction and workings of my consciousness laid bare?
Stemless is a ruthlessly loving relational-presence practice. It's like meditation, except in connection with others.
Most social interaction consists of conspiracies to run away from awkwardness or seek validation, lest the fragile balance required in responding to even "how was your week" devolve into painful anarchy.
Stemless offers a container where our fleeting neurotic prisons can be shared and dissolved in lightness. We find intimacy in the truth by foregrounding the often-unsayable stories we're constantly inventing about ourselves and each other. Simply revealing our naked dreams, the practice of stemless loosens our need to "be seen" or establish who we think we are.
Our notion of connection is not in achieving a shared understanding of who or what we are. Rather, we attempt to lucid dream in our waking lives: to catch ourselves in the act of inventing the characters we see (and imagine ourselves to be).
Warm feelings might come, but they are not the goal. It might be weird at times. You might feel dropped, or unacknowledged. But it will be our joy to invite you in to experience a kaleidoscopic tilting of your world's dream logic; laughter; insight.
Sahil, Harmony, and James are facilitators and interpersonal practitioners with a combined 13 years of experience in circling and 15 years of experience in meditation. They are also world travelers, from India, the US, and the UK, respectively. Their particular foci of curiosity are group coherence, freedom in connection, and deep ownership.
Harmony
James
Sahil
----- Email us
----- Our Substack blog breathes the practice
January 2025 was our last in-person Stemless weekend.
We plan to host more weekend sessions; day sessions and are discussing a longer in-person retreat.
Stay updated
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We host regular weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) online group sessions.
In order to ease group safety, trust and compatibility; these sessions are currently invite only; for people who have attended one of our online (or in-person) "introductory" sessions.
Contact us to be informed of when our next introductory session is starting - Email
We will offer structure to help you at any level of relational ability. Since this is a counter-intuitive practice, it will help to have some comfort with:
Like in any interpersonal practice, difficult emotional matter may come up as we explore a more raw encounter with ourselves and others. We trust your self-responsibility in a decision to participate. This is not intended to be a "safe space". Although we will hold each other with care, we cannot guess what emotional safety means to you and we do not guarantee it. Stemless is less "Let's heal" and much more "We're already whole, already connected. Now what?"
If you've experienced relational practices before (like circling or authentic relating)
You probably grew up speaking non-ownership; in those practices you learned overt ownership; our practice could be called subtle or deep ownership. See here for more.
Our theme of practice is, "What happens if we assume ownership and allow people to project freely? Even use projections, to reveal more than carefully owned sentences can?" In subtle ownership, we drop the need to coat our sentences with "I project that..." or "I have a story that..." and open to the inquiry of what does it take, to actually own my experience?
Stemless gave me a taste of how it feels to turn my world completely subjective. Consensus reality dissolved, and I didn't need anyone else's witnessing.
-- Aditya
Being able to express my perceptual experience unfiltered feels liberating. It's a practice of dropping into pure awareness, and recognising that that mode is always available -- even in the midst of a charged social interaction. That's really precious for me.
-- Elisa
Practicing Stemless was (and is) a surefire way to play and understand in a serious way the silliness and joyful experience that is being right now... we were allowed to explore what we were in these moments, and blessed to collectively let go of that with ease.
-- Carolina
I've been circling for I don't know 3 years or so, and this was one of the best circling (or circling related) events I've been to. The main novel thing for me is seeing my perceptions, in particular of others as part of my experience, and something I can own. This may sound a bit technical or something, but it feels minorly revolutionary for me. Great stuff, I want more.
-- Harri
It felt like a process of softening and unraveling my perceptions of reality, opening the door to greater inner freedom.
-- Emilija
It's so DAMN EXCITING!!! Like stepping into the dark, and somehow ending up seeing each other a little more clearly.
-- Jasmine
There's an unbridled freedom, power, playfulness and life that emerges when the stems are dropped... I feel like I have only just scratched the surface of the unbelievable power of this practice. Like "normal" circling on steroids!
-- Ash