Improvisation as Ecological Practice

Improvisation is a wonderful and potent tool to understand our participation in the unfolding of events, to realize interdependence and interconnectivity, and I would call it an ecological practice.

To be able to improvise in an artful way I would describe as the ability to respond to a proposition of whatever form and manner in a way that is non-judgemental and serving a spontaneously emerging sense of unconventional order.

You allow movement, sound, painting to happen. It is not about expressing your own emotional life or intellectual disposition, or about acting out and releasing pent up energy.
It is about serving the moment as an expression of a coherent totality, and about giving up the ego in favour of the whole.
Naturally there will be form, and naturally it will be tinted, and yet, at the same time it will not.

It is this experience and ability, this knowledge of an empty, spontaneous mind, that engenders a sensation of being in awe and appreciative of the very process that is unfolding.

And so it becomes clear, that this is the same process that makes a seed sprout and then turn into a flower – and a seed again.
Here we touch upon the fundamentals of how life unfolds, of how ecosystems develop and interact: it all emerges out of the moment.

In my experience, there is a sense of compassion emerging with this realization, a subtle and yet mighty sensation of appreciation and wonder for all of existence. For all flowers and songs and dances. All different. All the same.

Consequently, an organic way of relating and responding to who- and whatever becomes possible.
The practice of artful improvisation provides a guideline for a respectful way of relating and interacting, it is a tool in times of uncertainty or regeneration, as much as for spiritual insight.

Improvisation is the language of the wild. Mountains and rivers speak it. Birds and insects speak it.
It is uncivilized and ever fresh. It is wonder-full.