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.

Living the Unintended Lie...with a Smile

What do we do when what we want most remains out of our reach, not for any external reason but because of all the internal ones? This is a question that has fascinated me for year amidst the work I do, which regularly attempts to unlock or open seekers’ best wisdom—their own—by encouraging/urging/goading/irritating them enough to act, to risk it, to expand to the next greatest possibility for significance, meaning, delight in their lives. As I fail at this regularly, and those with whom I share my life do too, I like to think of it as the long defeat (ala Tolkien’s LoTRs). 

Yet there is absolutely no better way to spend a life. In the words of Mumford & Sons, “where you invest your love, you invest your life.” Or Clarissa Pinkola Estés: living open-hearted, knowing the pain and choosing openness again and again, is the only way. In one of her closing poems, she articulates the secret to this kind of life: “Climb the tallest tree you know. Look at the branch you think might break under your weight. Step out onto that branch.”

Allow me a couple hypotheticals. Say there’s an academic who is slowly discovering that she writes most fluently when she lives at the cusp of body-building, strength-training. She is unaware of pursuing public avenues for such things, and has no intention or clearly articulated end-point, goal for this path. If she winds up losing weight because of this pursuit, great. If not, great. At some point, the aim was articulated at simply: not feeling self-loathing anymore, especially when focusing mind at the mid-section. That’s it. That’s all. Not much, but still something never accomplished in over four decades of life. As she walks the path, the loathing lessens, from time to time. She smiles, from her core.

Or another. This one is more familiar with ministry students, for instance. Say there’s a young man seeking connection, a deepening intimacy he seems to know already, recognize, but yet he says he doesn’t. He smiles when he says he has “intimacy issues.” He expresses an articulate desire to confront them gently, wisely, slowly. He sees a fullness of life in those who have learned to risk into relational space, and yearns, regularly, for such connection, such fullness. At every opening, there’s an articulate ‘yes’ alongside an enacted ‘no thanks.’ What he says he wants most remains always just out of reach. Openings come every day, but something internal obstructs. Those around him can count on it, anticipate it, see it when it happens. Again and again.

In these situations, which is the unintended lie? The avoidance of loathing with pretending it doesn’t matter? The desire for intimacy—with self or with other? Or is it the desire itself that deceives? The mind says it wants release from loathing, but the decades of companionship with it are so familiar. It’s better to know the life that’s painful than it is to risk into what might be worse but could be best. Or the fellow who yearns for connection but only knows how to shadow the language, to speak the desire but never push into it far enough for any satisfaction. Which is the lie, and how does one know?

How do people of Spirit discern? The wise-ones who have all the patience in the world, it seems? Who smile in the face of fear (thanks, Pema Chodron) or open hearts again and again (Thich Nhat Hanh, or Baal Shem Tov) to anyone and everything that needs them but needs more to resist them?

I think the answer lies in smiling at the resistance, expecting the deception, and loving whole-heartedly anyway. There’s just enough absurdity in that to hear a gospel ring. Or a bodhisattva vow. Or a gentleness of spirit that comes with practice, practice, and more practice. Such is devotion, the branch that can never hold anyone’s weight but nevertheless never breaks.

Not Food, Not Sex...Then What?

I’m beginning to think that my body may need or desire more than food or sex. Or food and sex. J The fact that this statement arrived as an insight does not bode well for my state/level of evolution in spirit-mind-body harmonies.

As per “Hunger’s Many Tongues” of last week, I’ve been listening more closely to the times I perceive hunger and how it manifests, what I associate with it. Time and again, I become aware of an emptiness or a sensation akin to hunger and I immediately assume it must be met with some kind of food. I find my mind cataloguing through various kinds of foods to see which one seems a “fit” for whatever hunger I perceive.

But what if the energy clue or sense of emptiness has nothing to do with food at all? If I make it this far, sans catalogue-fit, then the next candidate is physical desire on my roster. Am I yearning for some intimate time and space with my partner or is it a more solitary yearning? Communal calendars, work energies, ongoing narratives all come into this discernment, of course.

But then…what if the energy clue or sense of emptiness has nothing to do with physical intimacy at all?

I don’t think I’ve ever made it this far, myself, because I have little to no idea. Sometimes my body requires rest when I’m unaware of it, but that sensation presents itself differently than hunger or emptiness. It therefore seems an illogical or incoherent item for consideration in this musing. Another posting may emerge about times when I feel extreme weariness or tiredness. I’ve learned this can be a signal I’m avoiding something just under the surface that part of me feels inadequate to address or conceptualize, understand or respond to. Another time, perhaps, with no energy drain at avoidance.

Several learnings come to mind in these things, these veins. There’s a very interesting assumption in play, for one. My mind must sort out what my body needs and then arrange to provide it. Rather colonial point of view, mind over body. A portion of this assumption also requires that communication between colonizer and colonized must be language, conscious, speech of some kind. [And no, just to clear expectation and listening: I don’t have an intention of punning on “colon.” If something clever had come by now, I’d aim for it, but you’re safe, for the time being.] If anything, body-language or felt-sensations I’m coming to understand as ‘communication’ are not in such forms that my mind can easily perceive. Instead of words, linear-associated images, or direct meanings, I’ve begun to learn my own body-speech comes in sensations, symbols, unexpected energy points. An image from Thomas Keating to describe God’s way with us: it’s like my body is playing peek-a-boo with my mind, allowing it just enough to conceptualize but so little as to be unable to control it, direct it.

Another learning has to do with commitment and ‘making space.’ This pathway continues to unfold only as I practice fidelity without clarity, commitment without conceptual direction. A big energy point arrived upon realization that re-entry into my professional work after the freedoms of sabbatical required stability of personal training time, not decrease of it, for example. Following the slight desire to return to a women’s circle I sometimes attend opened a doorway to a regular (weekly or bi-monthly) body-wisdom in a shared circle of practice. I have begun to walk through that doorway with less clarity of energy but awareness of significance. Julia Cameron’s observation about such doors opening, or Quaker-wisdom about ways-opening, seems undeniable in this case. Each time, it has been the willingness to create the space, enact the commitment, that clears my ears/eyes/mind for hearing body-speech.

I wonder how people live when they cannot articulate what it is their body needs but they are committed to receiving it…? Is the task to resist conceptualizing an object to be provided, releasing assumptions about object-ivity, moment-to-moment?

I’ve also wondered whether the task should be understood as the mind surrendering to the body, but that now seems to be error in the other direction, overcompensation for years of one kind of imbalance mistakenly selected to become years of another kind of imbalance. Such surrender may be part of it, but it cannot be the whole of it. Balance comes not within the colonial logic there at play, but release from the logic altogether. Spaciousness of an evenly matched tennis game between body and mind, lived in the breath and exertions of spirit. Or another image…the energy and movement of a jazz quartet, playing in concert so each can innovate and all can relax into the innovation, trusting its integrity and flow.

Not food then. And/or sex. Or rest. Then what…? Once again, there is no ‘what.’ Perhaps the best I can offer myself—mind-body-and-spirit—is the metaphor of music and flow, rhythm and balance. Dynamic, relational terms in which strengths of each energy source weave together into a dance, a personal and communal harmony out of which delight is borne. I’ve named that before, of course: an expressive delight able to companion suffering of self and others. We recognize the music, the flow, the rhythm and balance when abundance overflows and all we are yearns to mend and tend what needs to be, expressive of this incorrigible delight.