When stimuli begin to impact, there is a micro-window of opportunity to stay mentally fluid and allow options to appear. This happens very quickly – almost in a different time-scale. It is a high-energy state in which the wonderful possibility of the new appears, with all its freshness and, at times in the face of the unknown, a degree of trepidation.  I call it, ‘entering the creative space’.

I remember the late Sir George Trevelyan saying in a workshop once that he thought for a long time that the sequence of ‘inner events’ was first inhibition and then direction, but he had come to realise that direction was very necessary in order to be able to inhibit.

According to one of his pupils, Dr D T Suzuki, who played a large part in introducing Zen Buddhism to the West, spoke of “keeping the mind in a state of flux – never letting it fix on one thing.”

The late Erika Whittaker pointed out to me a passage from some early Zen texts, “All practices are carried out at once: there is no before or after, and no in between.”  “That’s what Alexander was trying to teach us, “she said. “You can’t separate things.”

In this workshop we will explore these subtle inner processes, which are at the core of what we call ‘use’, and how to teach them.