access component manager from outside cocoon?

[Sam Coward]

Hi All,
   I am wanting to write a servlet filter that does some catch all 
session management issues based on facts stored in user profiles in XML 
format in my cocoon web application.

   Is there any way sensible way to access Cocoon or the 
ComponentManager from another servlet/servlet filter? Currently I just 
modified Cocoon.java to store a ref to the ComponentManager at startup 
in the ServletContext, but it does not seem like an elegant solution to me.

   Any ideas/suggestions? Is what I am doing bad??

Thanks in advance for any answers,
Sam