Learning about moving from a sense of being 'among' and learning about having a sense of the other's 'being' -- whether that other is a human, a tree, a statue or a rock, I was struck by David Abram saying:
"We might as well say that we are organs of this world, flesh of its flesh, and that the world is perceiving itself through us."
Abram also talks about chiasm - the criss-crossing of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and of messages from the left brain to the right-hand side of the body. (This includes the discovery -- well it's new to me -- that people with a leading left ear have trouble following sequential instructions. And now I read that we listen with our skin.) Then Abram says that chiasm can occur between our body and the surrounding environment. I like that idea.
Thinking more about this idea that the body can sometimes know how it is going to move long before we 'instruct' it to move, I thought that movement is less susceptible to interpretation. At least the way we learn about it.
For example, in psychotherapy, if my therapist and I deduce that some dreadful behaviour of mine relates to my mother's expression when I walked into the sitting room wearing my muddy boots, I can (rightly, in my opinion) discount the whole thing as a fairly crass interpretation based on tenuous hypothesis and Freudian conjecture.
But, if I'm moving and I experience myself becoming tense in a particular situation, or moving to the edge of the room, or being drawn by the loom of an oak beam or a tired human -- well there's really no arguing with that. So Mark Epstein says:
"We tense up around that which we are denying. Our selves are constructed out of a reaction against just what we do not wish to acknowledge."
On language, Abram has a lot to say about the move from an oral to a written language:
"Writing used to be a handicraft. But written language introduces the possibility of reflexivity and some distance from the ideas one is speaking."
This feels like evidence that some speaking (as well as chanting, yelping and the like) can be a natural component of movement.
"Because the written word has a timelessness that speech has not, the literate self acquires a sense of timelessness, detachment and transcendence."
Finally from Epstein, a cultural thing:
"The starting point in the West rarely is an enmeshed self; more commonly it is an estranged one. [He has been saying that the Eastern self is enmeshed is a web of family, hierarchy, caste and other group expectations.] The emphasis on individuality and autonomy, the breakdown of the extended and even the nuclear family, the scarcity of "good enough" parenting, and the relentless drive for achievement versus affection in our society leave a personally too often feeling cut off, isolated, alienated, empty, and longing for an intimacy that seems both out of reach and vaguely threatening.. In Tibet, said Sogyal Rinpoche, a positive sense of self is assumed. It is inculcated early and supported through all of the interdependent relationships that are established by the web of family. If a person cannot maintain this positive feeling about himself, he says, he or she is considered a fool."
"We might as well say that we are organs of this world, flesh of its flesh, and that the world is perceiving itself through us."
Abram also talks about chiasm - the criss-crossing of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and of messages from the left brain to the right-hand side of the body. (This includes the discovery -- well it's new to me -- that people with a leading left ear have trouble following sequential instructions. And now I read that we listen with our skin.) Then Abram says that chiasm can occur between our body and the surrounding environment. I like that idea.
Thinking more about this idea that the body can sometimes know how it is going to move long before we 'instruct' it to move, I thought that movement is less susceptible to interpretation. At least the way we learn about it.
For example, in psychotherapy, if my therapist and I deduce that some dreadful behaviour of mine relates to my mother's expression when I walked into the sitting room wearing my muddy boots, I can (rightly, in my opinion) discount the whole thing as a fairly crass interpretation based on tenuous hypothesis and Freudian conjecture.
But, if I'm moving and I experience myself becoming tense in a particular situation, or moving to the edge of the room, or being drawn by the loom of an oak beam or a tired human -- well there's really no arguing with that. So Mark Epstein says:
"We tense up around that which we are denying. Our selves are constructed out of a reaction against just what we do not wish to acknowledge."
On language, Abram has a lot to say about the move from an oral to a written language:
"Writing used to be a handicraft. But written language introduces the possibility of reflexivity and some distance from the ideas one is speaking."
This feels like evidence that some speaking (as well as chanting, yelping and the like) can be a natural component of movement.
"Because the written word has a timelessness that speech has not, the literate self acquires a sense of timelessness, detachment and transcendence."
Finally from Epstein, a cultural thing:
"The starting point in the West rarely is an enmeshed self; more commonly it is an estranged one. [He has been saying that the Eastern self is enmeshed is a web of family, hierarchy, caste and other group expectations.] The emphasis on individuality and autonomy, the breakdown of the extended and even the nuclear family, the scarcity of "good enough" parenting, and the relentless drive for achievement versus affection in our society leave a personally too often feeling cut off, isolated, alienated, empty, and longing for an intimacy that seems both out of reach and vaguely threatening.. In Tibet, said Sogyal Rinpoche, a positive sense of self is assumed. It is inculcated early and supported through all of the interdependent relationships that are established by the web of family. If a person cannot maintain this positive feeling about himself, he says, he or she is considered a fool."
RSS Feed
