Skyline Harvest: Christine Stewart Price

Diane and I have been colleagues and friends for many years studying and developing Gestalt Awareness Practice. Her depth of presence, humor and heartfulness create a wonderful field of support where people can discover their relationship to spirit, to world and to the depths of their own humanity. Her devotion to understanding and unfoldment, combined with her passionate commitment to honor all forms of life, bring integrity and a breadth of view to whatever she does. I feel lucky to have her in my life.

Christine Price

Christine Stewart Price has been Diane’s teacher in Gestalt Awareness Practice (GAP) since 1994. Chris’s entire adult life has been involved in growing this form of practice. Her early work was influenced by the originator of Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls and her long and fruitful collaboration with her husband, inspiration and co-founder of Esalen Institute, Dick Price who died suddenly in a hiking accident in 1985. She has been evolving this unique form of Gestalt Awareness over 30 years of dedicated practice and is recognized nationally and internationally as a master teacher.

The following information is adapted from a letter of introduction that Chris Price sends out to people who are interested in working with her. She expresses Diane’s own approach to the work:

I am not a therapist. I am a teacher and consider this process a spiritual practice. This work is designed as an educational process and life practice. People come as students or practitioners, not as patients. Gestalt Awareness Practice (GAP) is best viewed as a sport, an art, and a form of active meditation. Exploring what is unfolding within us and discovering how we might participate with that unfolding is the focus. The emphasis is primarily intrapersonal, centering on the student’s relationship to their inner experience rather than their interpersonal relationship to me as witness, reflector or teacher. The process is aimed at discovery, not problem solving. It is intended to enhance our ability to be present and have a more vital relationship to our world and ourselves. The central practice is moment to moment presence and awareness of “what is”.

Diane offers introductory sessions for Skyline guests who are interested in exploring this form of awareness practice. She emphasizes that this work is neither therapy nor counseling. It is a form of spiritual practice in which she provides guidance in exploring awareness. She brings her 40 years of contemplative practice, her knowledge of the Enneagram and her dedication to expanding our human awareness to include the other-than-human members of our common household, to her gestalt awareness practice work.

Listen to interviews with Diane Pendola and Chris Price. Together they explore the practice, presence, and awareness of Gestalt Awareness Practice in relation to Diane’s book The Lioness Tale.

Price’s current work can be found at https://www.tribalground.com.