When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes half closed because to open them would break the spell. Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement — as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary…”

I got up well before dawn today and went to the shortest stream to move before starting vigorous doing with the strimmer at about 6. A completely unimaginable beginning of the day for someone who never got up before 10 if he could possibly help it.

I wondered where the satisfaction of being with, holding, pressing against, lying on a tree comes from. Does it arise from within me? It doesn't seem to. 

I moved all the time with the word and idea of satisfaction. Lots of thoughts:
the 'faction' is making, the 'satis' is enough.
making enough not making full.complete
making enough not made enough
making enough not given enough
making enough not getting enough
who is doing the making? surely I am? 

I half stood/half lay against/on one of the mossy trees and there arose such a strong and clear sense of satisfaction. 

The feeling arose but I was unclear where it began, where it came from. It was a response to the shape and texture and solidity and pressure offered by the tree, or offered by my pressing myself against the tree. But I couldn't say that the feeling was entirely mine. 

It was somehow caused in part by the tree and seemed to come into me, to arise between me and the tree as a sensation which I then experienced - as if it had a life of its own. And I couldn't exactly say that I received the feeling any more than I could say that I produced the feeling - it was partly active and partly passive. 

Then, thinking about satisfaction (which comes from the Latin 'to make [or do] enough', I was interested in the making or doing. What about receiving enough as well as doing enough? That would be satisception. Or being enough? That would be satisessence. 

Circumferences and rays: the two polar principles of the circle. On the left the morphological "egg cell principle", on the right the morphological "sperm cell principle"  
Van der Wal on:
THE ONE TO BE MET: THE MORPHODYNAMICS OF HUMAN SPERM CELLS

Unlike the solitary egg cell a sperm is never on its own. The production of sperm cells in the human testis is characterized by the production of enormous numbers of cells. On the other hand the process of oogenesis (i.e. the process of ripening and production of egg cells) is characterized by a tendency of diminishing and reducing in number. The facts will support this view. During the fetal phase of a female, at first millions of egg cells are produced by means of cell division. Next the number is reduced to about 2,000,000 cells at birth until about several hundred thousand remain at the beginning of the menstrual cycles (menarche). In every cycle however some ten to twenty egg cells may reach the final stage of ripening, but only one of them (very seldom two or three) is released (ovulation). The rest of the ripened cells disintegrate. So the whole process of egg cell production and ripening might be described as a converging tendency (gesture). On the contrary the male process (spermatogenesis) exhibits a diverging tendency: continuously enormous numbers of sperm cells are produced within the testis. Millions per day, thousand per second! This huge numbers are also functional. Very many sperm cells will be sacrificed in the process of overcoming a lot of anatomical, physiological and biochemical barriers, which a sperm has to face in order to finally make contact with an egg cell. The production of egg cells from the ovary is a process of titration (one by one), the production of sperm cells in a testis is massive and explosive. These features cope with the polarity of one and solitarily for the egg cell versus many and community for the sperm cells.

As to their shape the contrast between the two gametes is very strong. The egg cell could be described as purely spherically shaped. On the contrary the sperm cell, with its total length of about 60μ, with a diameter of the head of the cell of about 3 to 4μ (at the most) and a diameter of the so-called tail of not more than 1μ, should be characterized as a radial-shaped cell. In the sense of morphodynamics the polarity here is evident and impressive. The egg cell is a ball. Isn't the ball a form with (endlessly) many non-visible radiuses? The sperm cell on the opposite brings the principle of radius to appearance. Later on, prior to and during conception, many sperm cells will converge and focus on just one egg cell. Don't they bring in this way transcendentally (sinnlich-übersinnlich) a ball shape to appearance, with the sperm cells as visible rays of the sensorially perceivable manifestation of that ball? The sperm cells are making visible what is present in a non-visible way within the egg cell!

Describing the egg cell previously it has been argued that the spherical shape represents the spatial form with the least environmental contact that could be adapted to by a cell. It therefore represents par excellence the shape that fits to being brought into motion (being moved). On the other hand the radius-like shape represents the principle of motion and (self) mobility. The fact that the sperm cell is an actively moving organism (in opposition to an egg cell), is not actually surprising or unexpected for the dynamic morphological observer. It is the same flow of fluid within the ovarian tube by which the egg cell is being transported passively in the direction of the uterus, that offers to the sperm cell the resisting stream against which he can exhibit his potency to move.  At the same time the flow of fluid is directive and guiding for his movement.

The end of spermatogenesis is marked by the event of seemingly eliminating nearly all its cytoplasmatic content. This process therefore results in a cell with a cell membrane, a very small amount of cytoplasm and with merely a nucleus as its cellular content. The dynamics of a ripening egg cell may be characterized as one of enlargement, swelling and diverging, the formation of a sperm cell as a gesture of concentration and diminishing (loosing volume). Just like in the case of the egg cell and its being-large, the signature of being-small of the sperm cell represents a qualitative rather than a quantitative characteristic, and therefore represents a morphodynamic gesture.

The egg cell actively and metabolically relates to its physiological context, the sperm cell on the contrary does not exhibit any metabolic exchanges or interaction with its environment. Could the egg cell therefore be described as open and vulnerable and the complete opposite be true for the sperm cell? Apparently without any difficulty the sperm cell might undergo all kinds of mechanical and physical manipulations (maltreatments) – for example being centrifuged, being frozen to more the 60 degrees Celsius below zero – without any evident or notable damage. In terms of morphodynamic gesture the sperm cell may be characterized as a closed or non-open cell.

All this from Van der Wal again:
http://home.unet.nl/walembryo/econceptie.htm

I have become a tree hugger and realise the tenderness that emerges from the tiniest fluttering of my fingers against the mossy trunk. The fluttering is a reminder and a generator of tenderness.

This is the delicacy of interweaving - in smiling, I remember having been happy and engender happiness.

In fluttering, I remember tenderness and engender it.

This seems to connect to Van der Wal, quoted by Stephen Talbott:

Moreover, “when blood vessels first start to form, the heart does not yet exist . . . . early blood flow stimulates the development of the heart” (ibid., pp. 82–83). As we see everywhere in the world, fixed form not only shapes movement, but is first of all the result of movement. The human body is a formed stream. Thus, the spiraling fibers of the heart muscle that help to direct the blood in its flow are themselves a congealed image and consequence of the swirling vortex of blood within.

Oh, all that and sitting quietly with Nancy for almost an hour, watching the fire and looking out of the window at sheep, a farmer and a putative giraffe are as stilling and as softening as working with any client - and there is no catching - nothing whatsoever is required of me so long as she  seems to be content.

There is something about repeating the movement - to Wales, out to the wood, etc.

And there is something about having a commentary spoken on my movement, like Wallender.

Cwm Lwch - and I have rather ordinary realisation that trees grow up and apart, while rivers flow down and together. 
Production and reception.
Male and female.
Divergence and convergence.

So, one question I have for myself and my project is whether it's growing or flowing, diverging or converging. From one point of view it's obviously diverging - leaping from one stone to another in the stream. But then the sense of trajectory says something about a pattern,  a flow, a convergence.

And this all relates to my Open and Vulnerable post.

At Cwm Llwch, there is some question about the flow - the sense that my crystallisation has already begun and that its ending has already begun and that my letting go of how it felt has already begun - and that all this is a river, a flux and there isn't a precise 'here and now' in it. 

So that I wonder whether the idea of being present in the here and now is - in some senses - limiting in its exclusion of what has gone before and what is already emerging.

Is now-centred the temporal equivalent of self-centred?

In brief:

The egg and the sperm fuse; the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg, but there is something like a mutual decision. The fusion itself is supported in some sense by the sperm cells that don't fuse.

The whole thing starts to rotate before the fusion occurs, as part of the pre-conception attraction complex.

This is the end of my thwock.

Van der Wal on:
MATING DANCE: THE PRE-CONCEPTION ATTRACTION COMPLEX.

In humans fertilization takes place in the ovarian (fallopian) tube. Under normal conditions the egg cell arrives in the first (proximal) part of the tube directly from the ovary In the mean time the sperm cells have completed a long journey up to there. They have been deposited in the female vagina and have swum all the way from the vagina via the uterus to the ovarian tube. Many millions of them (more than ninety percent of the number that were present in the male ejaculate) have passed away or have become out of order by all kinds of biological barriers that crossed their way (e.g. the sperm hostile properties of the cervical mucus). Anyhow there exists a reasonable chance for both gametes to meet each other.

The same fluid stream (produced by the activity of hair cells of the tubal mucous membrane) by which the egg cell is being transported into the direction of the uterus – slowly rolling along the numerous folds and niches of the tuba mucous membrane - provides for the sperm cells a kind of directive stream of resistance against which they exhibit their swimming behavior. It is also the large volume of the egg cell that creates a greater  opportunity for both cells to meet. Moreover there exists a kind of chemotaxis (i.e. a biochemically induced attraction) between both types of cells: the egg cell as well as the tubal mucous membrane excretes substances that attract and activate sperm cells. At the end some tens or hundreds of sperm cells will actually reach the egg cell and organize themselves in a circular or radial orientation with their heads directed towards and concentrating on the egg cell.

At this moment so-called nutritive cells, the corona radiata, still surround the egg cell. From the evidence of the in vitro fertilization procedure it is known that in the next phase a so-called pre-conception attraction complex (PCAC) is generated for several hours (see figure 4).Under the influence of the substances secreted by the egg cells and the nutritive cells, the sperm cells now undergo important changes. For example they lose their so-called acrosome(outside shell). Without this happening a sperm cell is not capable of fertilization at all. On the other hand the presence of sperm cells and related substances obviously evokes chemical reactions in the egg cell and her coat (zona pellucida), making her more receptive for the eventual fusion process between the two cells. So it is obvious that the mere existence of this biological attraction complex is a necessary condition for the actual process of conception. Both cells seem to exchange and settle mutually within the chemical and biological conditions for the eventual decision whether or not a sperm cell will enter (fuse), and if so, where, which one and when. In a very subtle mutual process of encounter and exchange of signals and substances both cells are prepared for the actual process of fertilization and conception.[5]

In the context of the dynamic morphological considerations of this essay it is important to establish that now a biological entity is formed by an egg cell with some sperm cells. (See figure 4).We are dealing with a state of activity, that is more than just a kind of passive composition and sum of two cell types. Specific interactions take place within this biological complex. It is a biologically active and interacting whole that is occurring here. Within the initial few hours that this complex exists, a conception is possible, but whether this actually happens or not depends on a large number of subtle reciprocal chemical interactions and exchanges. Eventually it might result in a fusion of the cell membrane of the egg cell with that of a sperm cell. It should be emphasized here that describing the whole process as the penetration of a sperm cell is an inaccurate description. If the circumstances and conditions at a given moment and at a given place are appropriate, only then can the fusion of cell membranes take place and the content of the sperm cell (nucleus and the small amount of cytoplasm with some important cell parts) be brought into the egg cell. The continuity of the egg cell membrane is never interrupted or broken! The very common and somewhat aggressive image of a sperm cell penetrating the egg cell is not correct! In the pre-conception attraction complex there is no question of an active partner versus a passive partner complex, nor of a penetrating versus penetrated partner, nor fertilizing versus fertilized one. Rather cell and cell qualities are equivalent as a subtle equilibrium of exchange and interaction are maintained. The morphodynamic process of fertilization rather is like the gesture one may observe so very often in the animal realm when mating behavior and mating rituals are taking place. In a nearly never ending process of exchanging signals, of attraction and repulsion, a male and female animal can circumambulate each other before copulation happens. Almost literally this animal image, this gesture, this morphodynamics becomes discernible in the phenomenon (that is also observable during in vitro fertilizations) that the whole pre-conception attraction complex (PCAC) exhibits a tendency to rotate. The linear (radial) movement of the sperm cells turns into a spherical motion.

In order to understand the type of constellation that is actually being achieved in those first hours it is necessary to bring into memory the strong polarity (inversion) of the sphere of cytoplasm i.e egg cell versus the nuclear head i.e. sperm cell. The power of attraction between these two types of cells is indicated on the physicochemical level by their reciprocal biochemical interactions. From the point of view of the phenomenological observer the attraction between the two cells however is not surprising. To summarize: an egg cell is everything that a sperm cell is NOT. And in reverse! The anatomical, physiological, chemical, biological features of the egg cell may as well be characterized as the absence of the opposite of those features. In the egg cell sperm cellularity is the most absent, at least at the sensorial level. One might state that a fulfillment or completion takes place íf an egg cell encounters a sperm cell(s)! What has been separated and differentiated is unified and brought together again. In the description of the morphological characteristics of both cells as given in the first part of this essay, it has been concluded that the sperm cell reflects to the egg cell what the egg cell is radiating transcendentally and supersensorially (sinnlich-übersinnlich). The fact that both cells eventually meet each other is not serendipitous, but in fact reveals an intrinsicnecessity or purpose. Both cells belong to each other; they fulfill each other. This is achieved quite literally in the pre-conception attraction complex (PCAC) in the way both cells and their respective qualities constitute a unified entity as a reciprocal polarity.

All this is directly from:
http://home.unet.nl/walembryo/econceptie.htm

My seed bottle is gone. 
Mine. 
I've looked everywhere and deduce that it was lost in a very minor landslide. 
Perhaps it's not even lost. 
I realise that there are probably thousands more in the wood and that grieving for seeds is a fruitless task. 
As is claiming ownership of them.
But I'm an animal optimised for attachment and empathy.
Trying to let go of my optimisation
Like a seed letting go of its inclination to grow up and put roots
Down.