On Being Participant & Observer
An Expanded State of Awareness
Author – Laura Lee Robear ©2026
We often marvel at how, in our practice of Ecstatic Trance, through the embodied practice of Ritual Postures, we truly enter an expanded state of awareness.
With this “hybrid state of the waking dream” as we like to describe it, such expansion of awareness happens in a variety of ways. One of the most delightful, often recounted by our community of practitioners, is that of entering into the state in which we gently realize that we are both participant in a deeply immersive spirit journey experience, as well as witness, as observer.
Over and over again, we hear various iterations of this experience. It comes on gradually, with a sense of awe and wonder at being in two places at once:
“I was myself, and yet, I was fully living the life of the Jaguar, seeing with sharpened vision through its eyes. Feeling my hands, my paws, walk along the forest floor, listening with keen ears. And all the while, I was observing the cat, at the same time while I was the cat.”
One of my own favorite experiences of this state was a molecule of water. Enjoying with glee the lightness of being, freely moving through the atmosphere. Catching a ride with a raindrop, I fall to Earth as a blessing, soaking into the ground, nourishing the life below. Absorbed by thirsty roots, gliding up it’s massive trunk, the tree deposits me in its leaf canopy to soak up the sun’s rays, as I am exhaled back into the atmosphere.
It was an exhilarating roller coaster ride, that so often comes with metamorphosis. The invitation of being in communion, of merging momentarily with the life of another, is just one of the ways in which we find ourselves in two places, two points of view, simultaneously. We do not lose ourselves in this experience.
We expand ourselves, as, fully immersed in this experience of other, we remain ourselves — our core self — as witness.
I was not just taken on this ride by the single molecule of water. I knew Gaia was also my tour guide, showing me her hydrology cycle, her breathing apparatus, her inhale and exhale. Showing me how every part of her, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, is alive, intelligent, sacred.
This expanded state may help facilitate the profound emotional and psychological shifts and insights that occur in these trance sessions. An integration of two points of view, and the wisdom, through direct experience of the Other’s live experience, with which we are merging.
Once we step outside our everyday state of being, we know that it’s not our only state of being. We get comfortable expanding beyond it, to what seems to be our natural state. Are we built for this, to be in two places at once: Participant and Witness? It comes so naturally — being completely inside the experience, we are also observing it. Inside and outside merging, edges blurring. Unity. As we so often find, we are both Healer and the healed. We are both Diviner and Divinee. Our small self and our larger Self, merging in myriad ways, with the most magical, mysterious, and beneficent Universe. Indeed, it all seems to be part of the Grand Plan.
"We expand ourselves, as, fully immersed in this experience of other, we remain ourselves -- our core self -- as witness." - Laura Lee Robear
The name “CUYA” carries with it both history and vision. Rooted in our origins as the Cuyamungue Institute, it now also serves as an acronym — C.U.Y.A. — a guiding symbol that unites our mission:
C — Consciousness: The field of shared awareness that arises in Collective Presence, where the “We” awakens beyond the “I” – moving from the “Me to the We.”
U — Unity: Our alignment with the Cycles of Nature and the rhythms of the cosmos, reminding us that we are woven into a greater fabric of reality. This sense of unity reminds us that our awareness is the shared consciousness that connects all living beings.
Y — Your Awakening: The inner journey of Embodiment and Wisdom, where through direct experience the body remembers. At the CUYA Institute, this awakening is nurtured through Ritual Body Postures and ecstatic trance, where the body itself becomes the doorway to wisdom, presence, and transformation.
A — Ancestral Wisdom: Roots. Our connection to Sacred Lineage, honoring those who walked before us and rooting us in belonging and continuity. Our founder, anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman looked to some of the oldest, most authentic ancestral records we have — the world’s collection of early and indigenous art — and decoded selected artifacts as embodied “ritual instructions.”
Together, the Four Pathways of C.U.Y.A. — Consciousness, Unity, Your Awakening, and Ancestral Wisdom — form a single tapestry of practice. They remind us that awakening is not an abstract idea but something we live: through the body in Your Awakening, through nature’s cycles in Unity, through community in shared Consciousness, and through the guidance of Ancestral Wisdom.
- …. CONTINUE
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