Three Year Deep Listening Certificate Program
Instructors - Pauline Oliveros in association with Heloise Gold and Ione
Listening Requirements - Pauline Oliveros
• An initial one week Deep Listening Retreat followed by two advanced retreats preferably one year apart.
• Two year long projects consisting of a proposal based on experiences with the retreat material in relation to your special interest or profession, the keeping of a listening journal which includes sound, movement and dreams, composition of your own listening exercises, readings and writing.
• Study and analysis of Sonic Meditations, Deep Listening Pieces, readings in Software for People, The Roots of the Moment and Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros; Familiarity with compositions by other certificate holders.
• Demonstration of leadership and listening skills through organizing a curriculum and conducting a class or workshop of your own.
• Participation in DEEPL – a discussion group that extends the experience of the Retreat and provides opportunity for dialogue with other participants from other Retreats. To join DEEPL via the World Wide Web, visit http://groups.google.com/group/deep-l?hl=en
• E-mail contact with the instructors and DL Certificate holders during the year for home study questions, reports and support. A brief quarterly report on your progress is expected by e-mail.
• Pauline Oliveros’ publications are available from the Deep Listening Catalog
Movement Requirements - Heloise Gold
• Commitment to a daily ten-minute (minimum) movement meditation practice - to be taken from movement work learned on the Retreats (for example: walking meditation; moving from stillness and listening; rising and sinking; breath-wheel; catwalk; T'ai C'hi form; Swimming Dolphin; standing meditation with visualization; dance of the moment or other meditations) or ten-minute daily commitment to some movement-awareness practice that you are currently studying.
• Movement awareness journal: The Observer:
-Written recordings of your perceptions of your own movement, the movement of others, the movement of the surroundings.
-Written recordings of changes that you notice happening in your body.
-Can demonstrate ability to bring consciousness into the body.
-Can demonstrate ability to pinpoint blocks and tensions in the body and through attention have the ability to ease some of these tensions.
• A question to consider: How can I become more friendly with my body?
A video of the Tai Chi form as practiced and taught by Heloise Gold is available from goldbird1@gmail.com. Movement Practice Handbook is forthcoming in 2007.
Dream Awareness - Ione
• Ongoing commitment to dream journal upkeep including sleep and dream phenomena, and the creation of drawings, diagrams, maps etc.
• Demonstrable development of dream awareness techniques
-Lucid dream study
-Creation of dream experiments
-Demonstrate ability to explore the reality of the dream and the dream of reality through art work, music, movement or other creative means.
• Listening in Dreams: A Compendium of Sound Dreams, Meditations and Rituals for Deep Dreamers PLUS This Is A Dream! : A Handbook for Deep Dreamers by Ione (note: extensive bibliography included) is available from The Ministry of Maat Press, 156 Hunter St. Kingston NY 12401 or iodreams@deeplistening.org
Commentary
The practice of Deep Listening continually unfolds over time as a multi-dimensional process. Observing this process is a big part of the learning. Having a year in between each retreat creates the opportunity to practice and experience development of listening skills. It is possible to experience and sustain a substantial shift in perception through practice.
Making a proposal, which incorporates retreat experiences and connects with your own special interest can accelerate the learning. If there is a connection with your own interest or area of interest there is more opportunity and motivation to practice.
Keeping a listening journal (The Movement and Dream journals may be incorporated here) is an open form, which can be engaged in every day for as little as a few minutes to some hours. Over a year's time interesting patterns for study will appear in your chronicle of listening. Writing about what you are hearing is another way of listening and can bring about changes in your perceptions. Writing will help to ground your experience and build an overview of your listening and it's value.
Composing your own listening exercises can bring insight and help to develop your leadership.
Much has been written about listening in the last twenty years. Familiarity with the literature can help to connect your own experiences of listening to the larger community of interest that exists. A Deep Listening Resource list compiled by Tom Bickley is available on line and can be accessed from
Sonic Meditations were composed by Pauline Oliveros beginning in 1970 as part of the curriculum for The Nature of Music - a course for the general student at the University of California at San Diego. Oliveros also used Sonic Meditations for a weekly private class taught at her home to a group of women for two years.
Oliveros also engaged in a nine-week research project at the Center for Music Experiment at UCSD using Sonic Meditations with twenty people daily. Deep Listening Pieces are a continuation of Sonic Meditations. Many of these pieces have been composed for Deep Listening Retreats.
Software for People is a collection of essays from 1963-1980. The Roots of the Moment is a collection of essays, poems and scores from 1981-1995.
Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice (2005) describes the course that she teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that is continually evolving from the Deep Listening Retreats. There is also a CD of an Oliveros piece titled The Roots of the Moment (1988) (hatArt CD 6009) of a solo performance - accordion in just intonation in an interactive electronic environment created by Peter Ward. See the Deep Listening Catalog for more citations at http://www.deeplistening.org/dlc.
Organizing a good curriculum helps you to understand the material. Your ability to lead a class is directly related to the organization and creative use of the material as well as knowing what the material is.
Developing the ability to guide others and to facilitate creativity in yourself and others through listening is a major goal of the Certificate Program.
It is important to note that attending the Retreats and doing the requirements do not guarantee certification. You must demonstrate your understanding and attain a level of mindfulness determined by the instructors. You must show that you are listening by your presence and ability to lead Deep Listening exercises. The certification process takes from three to five years to complete.
Deep Listening is a service mark of Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. - you may use DL material in your teachings and projects however certification, appropriate credits to DLI and a license fee for the use of the logo are required in order to set up a class or workshop called Deep Listening®. In order to set up such a class a proposal is to be made to Deep Lsitening Institute, Ltd. with a description of the workshop and a budget. A small percentage of the budget, which is negotiable, will go to the Institute as a license fee for the use of the name and logo.
Please address inquiries to:
Deep Listening Institute, Ltd.
PO Box 1956
Kingston NY 12402
(845) 339-6858
(845) 338-5986FAX