Ash has been a student since 1998 and a teacher since 2016. His background is in theatre. He acted for a decade, and taught professionals and aspiring professionals in Australia and the United States for twenty years. His PhD research used the Diamond Approach and Transpersonal Psychology to illuminate essential experience in acting. Ash is also trained in Holotropic Breathwork.
Years of intense inner work had brought many profound experiences and openings. At a certain point, I began to feel a need for some kind of integration, a need to embody the realities that I was experiencing more fully, more personally. I found myself craving structure, a teacher and a path. At this time, Jean Berwick offered an introductory talk and weekend in my city. At the talk, I picked up Luminous Night's Journey, by Hameed Ali. I read the first page, which described an experience of inquiry, and just got it. Something clicked. I realised that the way I explored my experience, naturally, out of a deep wish to know the truth, could be the path. Then Jean, now my teacher, came and sat next to me. I felt a wave of kindness go through me as she approached, and soak into me as we talked. At the weekend, the teaching addressed very particular things I had struggled with for a long time, very precisely and effectively, which allowed my journey to take off on a deeper level, and which started to bring the integration I had sought. That's what led me to commit to the work, and what has kept me in it: it has continued to address very precisely where I am at and what I dealing with, to take me deeper, to strengthen the feeling of integration (integrity), and to cultivate a more and more substantial and clear knowledge of reality.
Acting and Essence: experiencing essence, presence and archetype in the acting traditions of Stanislavski and Copeau (PhD Thesis, using the Diamond Approach)