Body-Literacy -- 3

“Why move?” I heard inside my head. An odd but necessary question for an “authentic movement” circle. “Authentic Movement” describes an unfolding teaching-learning practice developed originally at the intersection of Jungian psychology (especially his ‘active imagination’ work) and dance performance. A description, from the newly-revised website for the Authentic Movement community:

Authentic Movement is a simple form of self-directed movement. It is usually done with eyes closed and attention directed inward, in the presence of at least one witness. Movers explore spontaneous gestures, movements, and stillness, following inner impulses in the present moment. The witness watches and tracks inner responses to the mover with the intention of not judging, but focusing on self-awareness. … [This] cultivates a contemplative frame of mind, clarity of perception, and movement that is personally enhancing.

Pioneers include Mary Whitehouse, Joan Chodorow, and Janet Adler, though their students have continued to develop the outreach of Authentic Movement in multiple directions, inwardly and outwardly focused: meditative-spiritual practice, tool for professional psychotherapy, method for creative-process renewal, and community outreach for address and resolution of community-wide problems.

As the body-literacy project continues to unfold in my own life, an invitation to explore this practice arrived. I accepted. Not unrelated to my “If not food, not sex, then what?” musings, I was surprised to hear the persistent question, “Why move?” as the circle-practice began. What does it mean to allow spontaneous gestures? To follow inner impulses in the present moment? What movement follows that is not directed or controlled by one’s mind? I have an incredibly narrow palette in my experience for any of these questions. Partially my over-developed sense of ‘mind’ and all that it entails, partially an under-developed exploration of 'body-experiences & potential', with all those entail.

The witnessing-role I played first was familiar, if requiring focus, attention. Sadness arose as I became aware how much negativity my mind (or body?) unleashed: fear, envy, awareness of the vulnerability of movers, anxiety about non-directed/guided actions in shared space. It seemed all I could hear or imagine were the unexpected injuries that could come, the closing in of quiet ones amidst the expressed freedoms of others. Slowly, the awarenesses began to transform into their celebratory counterparts—the value of freedom, the beauty of expressiveness untrammeled, the mystery of movers in their own process unavailable to any witnessing. Although I had desired to move first (mostly to get it out of the way!), I recognize the witnessing role now as an easing of my mind’s controls. I was weary of mind by the time my own body’s movement began.

My recollection of this time now centers mostly in poetic jottings or phrases. Flow. Deep sadness, memory of youthful fear. Shame. Smallness. Alone, isolation. Awareness of others’ connections. Envy, desire. Smiling release and sensation of strength, arising, stature. Seedlings and oak trees. Deep roots and hard work accomplished. Seasons. Ease and rest.

Two other questions then surfaced, which, amidst eyes-closed-movement, eventually made me laugh. “Why do I have a body?” followed closely by “Why am I a body?” The laughter erupted. You see, my mind recognized a conceptual frame, collision, and renewal of something with which I’ve wrestled regarding friendship and intimacy. Do you have friends or are you a friend? I’ve written about this elsewhere (forthcoming book, actually!) as the collision between correlational habits of mind and contemplative ones, the former with an inherited dualism or objective-subjective split useful to analysis and the latter with an enacted-surrender unto unified mind of nonbeing more suited to wisdom-walking or fullness of life. Regardless of all that jargon, however, what a strange two-in-one question for an embodied soul to ask, in the end. Who is asking, if not the bodied-mind? And will answering it make living within biological existence any more controllable, straight-forward, articulate? Can one's body actually be had anymore than a person ought to be had? Respectively...I don't know; not likely; probably not.

Perhaps one’s body simply has an important role to play in the unfolding of a spiritual path, one’s own path. Perhaps this is where doctrinal impulses—the systematic ones that strive for precise and accurate articulations of consistent and coherent merit—meet their end, for a time. Or their beginning. Perhaps the answer to my question comes not at the beginning, but only in its time, even at the end.

For now.