Body Literacy -- 2

I don’t know how to view the world from my core in what I do, in what (it seems) my calling or contribution to the world is. After a very full week of re-entry into this work—preparing for classes, ordering lecture notes, conceptualizing learning activities for other learning styles, attending to institutional and collegial needs of a shared learning community—a morning’s pause, respite really, has opened before me. So...,

I put the poop-bag into my pocket, leash up my canine companion, and walk into the mist of a pre-autumn morning. The sights and smells remind of me something, just out of reach. I breathe in the softening air and remember an invitation to view life from my mid-section. What do I notice? How new and foreign it feels. I realize my posture has shrunk to protect—hide—my core once again. This, after several committed hours to bodily activity, care in hunger and satiation, companionship with others exploring a body-path. Frustration arises. I do not know how to sustain this invited-practice, to view, hear, feel the world around me from my core. It is unclear whether way will ever open in direction of that desire. Way has opened to share at least a foreseeable path, for a time, with others wise in these things. But how do I start, again and again?

The wisdom is recognizable so far: signature ‘expressive delight,’ I call it. The language given me for understanding—for living more deeply into—this work I have called ‘mine’ describes a tell-tale sign of living wisdom in “an expressive (theological) delight able to companion the suffering of self and others.” Sitting in a circle of new companions, for a practice unknown and uncertain, I was struck by the consistent awareness of gratitude, of thanksgiving to be right where they-we were. Thanksgivings were easily spoken, said with heartfelt vulnerability. Suffering of self, the difficulties experienced in exquisitely painful particularity, were not neglected or ignored in these thanksgivings. Both were held in unity, together. Leadership of the circle had the shy smiles of living wisdom too. A space opened in the circle to express a delight of living alongside faced difficulties and companioning to come. “An expressive delight able to companion the suffering of self and others.” Tell-tale sign of wisdom incarnate.

This work I call ‘mine’ has been further conceived as the articulation, modeling, and fostering of such delight in whatever environment or role I seem to be placed, led. This means articulation for my understanding, modeling for my own learning-experimentation, fostering spaces in which I may practice receiving (which oftentime means surrendering precious ‘absolutes’ I’ve inherited to welcome larger and larger ‘absolutes’ coherent with but transcendent of previous ones). Such articulation, modeling, and fostering may also open doors for others to welcome understanding, learning-experimentation, and receiving, of course. If I’ve learning anything on this path, however, it is that little is gained by qualifying my own process dependent upon the openness (or not) of others. Companions are absolutely crucial on the path—interdependence allows nothing less—but each of us is unavoidably responsible for only our own process-opening…or refusal-closure-pace of process. So I listen and practice, attempting to be faithful to this path of articulation, modeling, fostering—attentive to my own path, hopeful for connection with others’ paths, but practicing non-attachment to affirmation/condemnation from others. All this constitutes what I’ve called here “wisdom walking.”

All this also compels awareness that the way opening to shared paths with body-wise circles is indeed an ‘opened way’ in which to learn. No less certain: I have no idea how to start. I have little awareness of how to feel, to regain feeling, to open the door to feeling first so that life comes from there, in harmony with mind-spirit. An ironic statement, of course, in that the summer has been about little if not feeling, which comes and goes as it will. Not unlike scripture describes Spirit, with a shy smile.

The practice unfolded in circle, well-established and communicated. An ocean opened up before us, me.  The “I” I have known began to gasp for air, perchance to drown. At the very least, overwhelm. I was returned to a time of being pushed out of my family thirty-years’ prior when a new circle companion took my place in the circle without awareness it had been my only safe anchor, the only familiar place. Tears arose from all directions, no clear origin to conceptualize and redress. I remembered words “fetal position” from the instructions and my body mimicked the memory. More recent body-memory, enacted in a relatively new (for me) morning yoga practice, reminded me felt-strength can be received underneath or beyond mind. Impatience with feeling small moved me into the rudimentary alphabet. Returning my awareness to my core posited notions of mind-following-body, again and again. Is it possible? a voice asked within me. How does the dan tien become Primary Mover in human being? I’m sure Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas would shudder at their language swiped for this purpose…which makes me smile and repeat it: how does one’s core, one’s mid-section, become Primary Force moving and directing human fullness? As I explored motion from my core, exploring capacity of my head to follow the flow of movement instead of leading it, I became aware of a difference, the words written here. Movement from the core, mind following body's lead.

The first part of the practice concluded, inviting us into an intentioned time of personal-integration before sharing words in the final section or group-integration. Stilted words came first, in green marker on paper: cannot, positive, negative, etc. The drum-beat softened the edges, drew an abstract exploration of page-space not unlike the Korean-Japanese artist-teacher I “met” this summer at the Guggenheim, Lee Ufan. My spirit had yearned for weeks now to explore abstract drawing or practice in such fashion but I had not known how to start there either. Pen followed drum beats, spirit-body breathed into the sound-structure provided. Mind eased, letters disappeared, all that remained was rhythmic marks and dots, guided forward in multiple directions chosen in a manner inarticulate.

The circle spoke its experiences in brief and diverse fashion. My mind spoke in my turn, mostly from its petulance. “I don’t know where I am. It’s going to take a long time,” I heard myself say. Then a dissonance of some kind felt itself awaken, suggesting to me (belatedly) that what I had spoken was, in fact, inaccurate. Confirmation arose in me as the tears flowed, again without aware-referent or obvious ‘cause.’ Tears not unlike the salty ocean that had opened before us, that had overwhelmed articulate speech in the circle. Tears salty enough to cleanse but also to confirm an open way. A companion assured me the tears would not last forever.

As I walked back to my car in the holy darkness, I felt a bit of that other tell-tale sign that invites attention as gift: sacred envy. Something Wise is here, whispering its unspoken welcome, waiting for any and all willing to step into the surf. Perhaps it is good not to know. Perhaps sacred envy leads each of us to lean bodily into the trust of those who do know, who have learned to breathe in such a surf, who have been cleansed by their own tears, who live from the core of their being-loving-serving. 

At the very least, it is good to breathe open at the core once again, to offer a small thanksgiving into the morning-mist, and to walk into the ways of the day, whatever may unfold.