Category: Testimonials

Since moving into unit three of the course I have begun to see the Bonobo experience in its entirety. I am now considering all of the workshops and grouping them into modules. The overarching theme of these workshops is to help people self reflect and consider whether they can make changes that might benefit their interaction with their community. I am less concerned about focusing directly with loneliness and isolation but see this collection of workshops of a much more holistic experience that will touch upon intimacy, belonging, connection and the like. I am prepared to take more risks and to find out where this work can really go. I have begun to do this in the recent Bonobo massage workshop, where it escalated into a sexual experience for people. This isn’t necessarily where we wanted it to go but do recognise that there is certainly a way to reach this level of intimacy through the work in quite a short period of time. People that are strangers can engage in intimacy rather quickly if the work we do enables them to feel safe and respected.

The message here is about our culture and the ways in which we are alienated from ourselves and how we lose meaning. Meaning is needed within our lives and our work. Dr Gagor Matë talks about our need for connection and meaning within our working life, our relationships and with ourselves.

Chimp pansy’s and bonobo homos what happened small group of chimps testing hyerarchiy numbers higher than you where more dominant king could fall and others could seek revenge loved seeing Maevon take the bonobos though the experience.

Opening up and bringing others int has has given a new voice to the bonobo experience. The space it provided for me to see this work from a new perspective was a joy. I saw Maevon the co-facilitator really explore where he could taking the bonobo’s on order for them to feel safe to grow. It has be the best thing to widen to bonobo experience. I am no longer along after the workshop finishes.

The Chimp workshop we tested in Suffolk was really worth doing as it gave me the beginning of the machanics for this workshop. The value of Suffolk is really baring its fruits. I was able to lead the chimps in an aggressive manner, each fighting for something, winning and losing power. The numbered tokens made it all possible.

Hi Jason, it’s the last chapter of my new book, Consciousness and Loneliness: Theoria and Praxis (Brill, De., 2018). It’s very expensive, 500 pages. You might try to get your university libtary to order it. Ben

• Jason Bartholomew HallApr 17, 2019Thank you for your reply.
  
  I was wondering, as part of my M.A I am enabling humans to experience Bonobo culture in order to help with their consciousness around belonging.
  
  I would be interested in talking more with you if possible.
  
  Here is the website:
  
  http://www.thebonoboexperience.org
  
  Let me know what you think?
  
  Kind regards
  
  Jason Hall
• Ben Mijuskovicto youApr 17, 2019Basically loneliness is constituted by feelings or thoughts of unresolved separation–psychic and/or physical. Sexual intimacy it seems reduces loneliness but so does emotional sharing. The most extreme forms of loneliness are constituted by a loss of trust, a sense of rejection, or abandonment. Anything that decreases that sense of doomed aloneness and leads to a diminution of the sense of separation will result in positive outcomes. Harry Harlow conducted a series of primate experiments with rhesus monkeys that deprived the infant monkeys of motherly nurturance and the consequences were disastrous, including self-mutilation and unbridled aggression.
• Jason Bartholomew HallApr 19, 2019Dear Ben,
  
  Thank you so much for your response, it’s very enlightening and will help me develop my research.
  
  What are your thoughts on how female bonobos manage there troops?
  
  For me I sense that because bonobo males maintain a primary bond to the mother loneliness is avoided and doesn’t turn to aggression.
  
  I have this notion that humans are separated subtly from their mother as it is deemed queer, I sense fear from the father that the boy needs to play competitive sport and not be home with mum.
  
  I also recognise that the system in which we operate is wrapped in loss and separation.
  
  We are born into a tribe that we are told we need to leave. We are encouraged into the wilderness to compete for females. We then create our own tribe that will eventually leave us to Create their own.
  
  It’s all about loss and separation right?
  
  
  
  Jason
• Ben Mijuskovicto youApr 19, 2019Yes, it is all about separation. Not to get too technical about it, but according to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, self-consciousness is “constituted” by a synthetic a priori relation of subject-object separation within consciousness. For Hegel, the infant begins with Sense-Certainty, no distinction, separation between the self and the external world. So Freud with the “oceanic feeling.” Then it first separates its self from the external world of objects. And next it separates its self from the mother (Kant). Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, wrote a book many years ago, Sex and Temperament, in which she argued that gentleness and aggression were environmentally conditioned. She studied three tribes, the Mundugumore, the Arapesh, and the Kwakiutl (?). I have an article, “Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, and Loneliness,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare”; it’s a PDF.
• Jason Bartholomew HallJun 13, 2019Hello Ben,
  
  thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with me. I would very much like to read the “Organic Communities, Atomistic Societies, and Loneliness,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare”;PDF if possible

Before our workshop.

After our workshop

THE TIMING WAS HELPFUL ON THE PROGRAM

WE COULD EXTEND THE ACTIVITIES OR CUT THINGS SHORTED , GOOD EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH MARY. LEARNING TO ALLOW MORE SPACE WHEN THINGS ARE GOING WELL. EXTENDED THE MASSAGE TIME AS THIS FELT RIGHT AS THEY ADJUSTED FROM BONOBO TO HUMAN. SHARING CIRCLE USE TALKING STICK NEXT TIME SO THERE IS NO CROSS TALK.

VERY HAPPY THIS WENT SO WELL.

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