Testimonials

    Into the world of contempletive spiritual practice comes Harrison Blum with his passion for dance and his devotion to spiritual inquiry.  With a skilled attunement to others, no matter their age, gender or physical ability, he created a safe environment that was a most welcome invitation into the moment-to-moment joy of allowing the body the freedom to experience it's own creative, unencumbered expression of being alive.  It was truly a joy to co-teach with him and to receive the beautiful gifts he has to offer in service of awakening.

 
Jean Esther
Teacher at Insight Meditation
Center of Pioneer Valley, Northampton, MA,
and Psychotherapist
November, 2009

    Wheelock's spring semester Philosphy of the Arts class was privileged to have visiting artist, Harrison Blum, M.Ed., present an embodiment workshop as part of our Art and Embodiment unit.  For weeks after his visiting lecture and experiential exercises, the students were still abuzz with comments and questions.

    Employing a combination of didactic readings, informal discussion, expressive movement exercises, free-writing, and the impromptu generation of a soundscape, Harrison engaged the members of this required humanities class and transformed the classroom dynamic.  One student immediately observed that until this class, she felt she hardly knew the other students.  Now, having danced and shared her free-writing with them, she felt a part of a larger whole.

    Blum created a learning environment in which the students felt safe enough to take risks and bold enough to share their experiences.  Following his visit, the students' relationship to the Aesthetics class and to one another was transformed.  They had bonded in the shared experience and, as many of them plan to be future educators, also came to value the practice of intentional embodiment in an educational setting.

 

Ellen Grabiner, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Visual Communications, Simmons College

March, 2009

    With Dharma Jam, Harrison creates a welcome  and safe harbor in the ocean of improvisational dancing.  By starting the jam with a group meditation, we experience our own gentleness, and become spiritually attuned, one with another.  Then, as we dance to the recorded music, as we improvise, we experience the all, the connection of our soul forces, the one in the others, we dance the Om.

 

Walter Jonas

Dharma Jam attendee

2008-2009 season

    Harrison Blum was a volunteer intern with the Family Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center during the month of January 2008.  Harrison offered hip hop dance and movement with our weekly elementary school children class, and middle school aged class.  He was also a specialist teacher at our winter Family Day with 60 families with children aged 2-14.  
    Harrison is uniquely gifted at working with the entire range of ages our program serves.  He showed enormous creativity and depth at weaving together the principles of the teaching themes we offered- such as mindfulness, forgiveness, letting go, and wise communication with the movement activities he taught the children and families.  He was very well received by the children, youth, parents, and his co-teachers – he is quite easy to work with.  The Family Program would be happy to welcome Harrison back to teach at anytime he returns to the West Coast.

Heather Sundberg
Family Program Teacher & Manager

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

January, 2008

    Our Harrison-led breakdown experience allowed us to both collect and connect with ourselves through feeling & movement.  During the hour we spent, we took time to “break” down the dance of body & mind, to feel & know – from the heart – more deeply who we are.

Buzz Bussewitz

Group Leader, Family Retreat 2008

Insight Meditation Center

    …as a family, we joined hands and danced.  Swaying to the music, giggling, changing our patterns and supporting each other in a circle, there were smiles on all the faces in the family.  Duncan looked at his mother and said, “This is the best family time, ever!”
    This has been a hard year of change for our family.  But, now I know we can dance through anything. We have decided to end each of our council times with dance.
    I thank you for giving my family a non-verbal way to communicate, for getting us all to smile and giggle, to let us support each other, to get us to connect without a TV in front of us.

 

Karen Frost

mother and participant at
Spirit Rock Family Day, January 2008

     I invited Harrison to be a guest speaker in the Chapel at the Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, New Hampshire, where I am currently the chaplain.  He had 200 boys (6-9th graders) eating out of the palm of his hand.  They were so quiet and attentive that you could hear a pin drop.  They were completely captivated by the stories he shared about his life journey from Milton Academy, to college, to Nepal, to Israel, and to other fascinating places.  And when he spoke about his interest in teaching children about the importance of dance and movement as an integral part of the educational process they were sincerely moved - particularly when he did a little "moon walking" by the podium.

 

Rev. Dr. Robert Ganung

Chaplain, Cardigan Mountain School

March, 2007

      Harrison ran a 45 minute breakdancing workshop for about 10 of my high school students.  It was great to see them in a different context than normal and I was impressed how comfortable Harrison made them feel in a setting that can sometimes be challenging for teens.   He consistently engaged the students not only by demonstrating different moves but also by allowing them to show off their own.  Throughout the session the students had smiles on their faces and enjoyed the opportunity to interact in new ways.  After the session the students continued to talk about what they had learned and show each other their own signature moves.

Nati Passow
Jewish Farm School, co-founder
February, 2007