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.

Thresholds of Here

I’m not back, but I am here. 

Gladness overflows for entering into work rhythms on a campus, to have the commute to my office and anticipate the political (or not) chumming with colleagues engaged in similar callings of theological education. A rich harvest season looms ahead, with a lightness of spirit and sleight of hand in getting all kinds of overwork done, in good order. Metaphorical “balls that drop” because of growth management demands and resulting overwork seem to “bounce,” not break. A broadening container for life has been given, across multiple communities and webs of relationship, such that new paths, new partners, seem not only possible but probable. I’m here, and so very thankful. But I’m not back.

Why bother with such minimal distinctions? For one, the notion of “being back” is prohibiting me and those I love from “being here,” being present to the richness, fullness, that beckons. “How does it feel to be back?” is probably the most frequent question I’ve received in the last month upon my return from a spring-semester sabbatical. Dear co-workers are welcoming their colleague back into work-collaborations on campus, and of course, they know who this person is, right? Actually, no, they don’t. They can’t. “Being back” suggests a return but, at least when sabbaticals are well-engaged in multiple-dimensions, the journey itself prohibits any return to the pre-sabbatical person. The one who arrives on campus after a sabbatical is rarely the one who had left campus in the first place.

“Re-entry” is another notion often discussed amongst all those who truck in the practices of higher education, meaning sabbaticals in this case. “Re-entry can be a bear,” so the saying goes. After months free of campus or student responsibilities and open-ended time devoted to research and conceptual work, faculty face overwhelm and disorientation. “Re-entry blues” or in some cases, like mine, “Re-entry fullness.” Overwhelming, whether experienced negatively or positively. Requiring of some re-acclimation. But re-entry is not accurate either. The learning community that welcomes a person into its midst again after a sabbatical is rarely the one who had said farewell to him/her in the first place.

So here we are, neither ‘back’ nor ‘re-entered.’ And where is here? A threshold of many dimensions, doors, leading into

·         new communities—the Nur Community (Islamic), women-centered spirit-circles, contemplative conferencing

·         new work—interreligious methods unto new book-proposal, ‘naked writing’, integrative leadership in familiar circles

·         new voice—musing vulnerable, budding poetic, exploratory artistic, differentiated academic, blog-plenary professorial

·         new bodywork—active, internal-restful, yoga, authentic-movement, wild-heart

·         new companioning—doctoral support, spiritual listening, liturgical service

How hard we strive to keep the stream the same, to slow the changing currents into an eddy or pool in which we can keep warm. We long to return to the familiar, to the warm and provisional. We spend lives attempting re-entry into what has been. How else does one learn trust, we imagine aloud, if not within protected quarters, well-defined and even predetermined? If nothing stays the same, then how can we know steadiness, stability, durability?

The irony, of course, is that the life of trust only grows across instability, change, disruption. Trust is not necessary within a harbor or in a stagnant pool. There’s so little movement or diversity that everything looks trustworthy, the same. Robust trust, on the other hand, grows out of enacted stability across ever-changing streams, relational tenacity amidst regular disruption and change. The only way to grow steadiness is to have unending situations in which to practice being steady. We never return, nor does anyone “come back.” If one is fortunate, however, one can learn to be here. One may practice finding thresholds and actually venture forth across them, learning a life of trust in new and robust ways, with tenacious and trustworthy companions.