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the essential nothing in lived experience
an invitation to think, feel, and be together — in person, in Echo Park.
MOVN salons at the backyard lounge:
living connections
at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and social experience.
June 13
our second salon features Dr. James Norwood, whose talk will explore The Essential Nothing with us, based on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of meeting and relating to the nothing through lived experiences
the evening
movn salons are softly structured evenings where conversation, listening, music, and food unfold around a 45-minute salon talk at the center of the night.
intimate, in person, and grounded in togetherness — this is a word-of-mouth gathering, small by design.
what moves between us
we are living through a time of profound estrangement. and yet here we are — drawn to each other, craving something that doesn’t have a name yet but feels urgent.
not a lecture. not a workshop. a circle, a field, a collective form of sense-making — drawing on practices that came before us and continue beyond.
our salons create conditions for living presence — with one another, with a neighborhood, and with psychological life as it is evolving now. each person is a world unto themselves. these evenings explore what becomes possible when worlds meet.
featured speaker:
Dr. James Norwood
James Norwood, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and teacher whose work lives at the intersection of existential psychotherapy and philosophy. His work is especially concerned with anxiety, uncertainty, freedom, responsibility, and what it means to live thoughtfully in the face of groundlessness. He is the founder of the Free Association Clinic in San Francisco and serves as Associate Director of the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis.
In his talk at the salon, he’ll explore philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of ‘the nothing’ from What Is Metaphysics? Heidegger argues that we do not encounter the nothing through abstract theory, but through certain lived experiences — especially anxiety, and sometimes boredom or depression — where familiar meanings begin to loosen and “beings as a whole” come into view. The nothing is hard to describe directly. It can only be pointed to. Yet it may be as essential to thought as zero is to mathematics: zero is not a thing, but without it, mathematics cannot operate. Likewise, all experience is shaped by how we stand in relation to the nothing.
From James: “I hope to make this strange, almost numinous concept more tangible, and to open a more fruitful relationship to it as a ground of creativity, insight, and acceptance.”
featured musician:
Logan Lambert
Logan Lambert (she/her) is a clarinetist and proud New Orleans creole, born and raised in Louisiana. Her performance training has been predominantly in Western classical music, but her passion lies in folk songs.
She has moved many times in her life and has collected songs wherever she’s gone. Like the stories behind them, these songs act as mementos of her friends and of the places she’s loved. She stands wholeheartedly by the power of oral traditions to unite people across space, time, and cultural divides.
Logan holds a Bachelor’s of Music from New York University. She is currently pursuing her Master’s of Music at the University of British Columbia.
details
backyard lounge • free
Echo Park, Los Angeles
child-free event • space is limited
please RSVP using the link on the right
your host:
Dr. Heather LaFace
Heather LaFace, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, systems thinker, and the founder of MOVN Embodiment Collective. her work explores what moves between us — in therapy, in groups, and in the living field of human relationship.
MOVN Salons are her latest endeavor: bringing people together in living presence to explore the deeper questions of consciousness, experience, entangled connectivity, and what it means to keep becoming ourselves.
