Donna Frost

Philosophical foundations and methodological principles 65 3 that has meaning for us as an individual. Merleau-Ponty ( 1958 / 2006 ) emphasizes that the world exists and has existence even without us and our experience of it; other people too give the world and their experience of it significance without us. In other words, both our own actions and the actions of others can be individualized and symbolic and not necessarily related to or relevant for “the generalised needs of the species” (Dewing, 2011 , p. 66 ). Thus, to observe the actions of another is alone insufficient to understand the meaning of, or to ascribe meaning to, the actions. To understand the lived experience of the other we must come to understand the intentions, desires, reasons underlying and imbuing the actions, even when these are pre-reflective. By taking the position that we are fundamentally and existentially embodied beings I view our bodies and bodily sensations as a resource offering information about the world, our way of being and doing in the world, and the world’s response. This assumption required that research into the nature and facilitation of professional artistry take account of the body, valuing it as a legitimate source of knowledge (Merleau-Ponty, 1958 / 2006 ; Gendlin, 2003 ; van der Kolk, 2014 ; Ellingson, 2017 ). A suitable methodologywas onewhich acknowledged the information present in and coming from our bodies and bodily experiences, and employed ways to render it visible and tangible, bringing it into the foreground. Furthermore, the methodology must make it possible to scrutinise and critique the wisdom of the body, subjecting it to the same hermeneutic process as cognitive information, and, where needed, support change in our ways of being. Age-old insights The idea of considering the nature of our being and the way in which we come to know about the world and about ourselves in that world are questions which have been asked at least since recorded history. Insights, when new for me, are not of course new in the world. Aspects of the thought of Levinas, Gadamer, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty for example can be traced back to the thought of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates – either in acceptance and development of particular positions or in the rejection of a standpoint in favour of another. More specifically, the connection between mind, body and spirit, as assumed in this work, has been variously recognised, denied or ignored in western thought. The world views prominent among Indigenous peoples in the parts of the world known, in English, as New Zealand (Whaanga, 2012 ; Watene, 2016 ), Australia (Sarra, 2005 ; Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009 ), Hawaii (Meyer, 2003 ), and North and Central America (Arrien,