The paradox
of discovery fascinates me. Plato named it way before me, of course, but the resolution
to his Meno’s Paradox is not the point. It’s the entrance into the paradox that
matters. How do you come to know something truly new if you don’t remotely know
what it is you will come to know? How do you decide what you aim to learn if you
don’t already know it in some fashion, so to aim properly in learning it?
Plato’s
Socrates creates some concoction of memory and recollection to resolve the
question. In order to pursue knowledge of something, you must have some recollection or memory of it in order to pursue “it” in the first place. Buddhists
would place this felt-sense in a previous life, this sense of seeking to learn
something new that a previous you had already known. I don’t have much
confidence in Socrates’ recollection or the notion of previous lives, so I’ll
have to content myself with the amorphous notion of ‘embodied intuition,’
which, admittedly, doesn’t really help me much with my new quest (to come to
know, perhaps even articulate ‘a psychic representation of my reproductive body’). Particularly if I struggle to know what I mean by 'embodied' and what I mean with 'intuition.'
You wanna
know the first thing I’ve done in order to listen more deeply to my body’s
speech? I went to the university library. I checked out books by Nancy Chodorow
and Carl Jung. And they’ve been very interesting reads, as far as these things
go. I get the sneaking suspicion that this is not the most germane path of
discovery for my particular interest, however. Neither 'embodied' nor 'intuition' seems a focus of a research quest at a university library. Which is not to say they're not active in such a setting, of course. In this case, however, neither word describes my experience of this research.
I have spent a little time reviewing old
blog posts and reflecting on the listening ahead of me this summer, however. This
journeying really has been going on for quite some time. A year’s explorations
of “authentic movement” and a more free-form but circle-practice called “wild
heart,” allowing any form of movement, shared space, meditation and more within
a covenantal community. Sustained commitment to physical training over a period
of a year now, with specific attention to development of core muscles and
awareness. A renewal of engagement in ChiRunning, a form-focused contemplative
path of running aimed at integrating the wisdom of Tai Chi into long-distance
running. I’ve been listening to my core for a long while now, though it’s hard
to put into words.
I wonder if
that work is what my new friend, Susan, saw? How does one see core or energy-work in a person?
Now I have
an occasional evening-art listening practice to accompany my library books.
Another new friend, at least while she wasn’t drawing beautiful, large naked
women around her Sudoku puzzles, showed me a simple abstract way to express
feelings and association on old typing/copy paper needing recycling. A perfect ‘medium’
for ‘end-of-day-listening’ before heading off to sleep.
I’ve also
been encouraged to listen more intently to my dreams, which I’ve been a little
less successful at these last couple nights. Upon return from some days away,
at a 5-day conference in Colorado, the dreamworld felt so much more accessible,
for a time. I think I resist it in my normal routines here at home, allowing
only the tectonic ‘awakening’ dreams to surface when necessary. Kind of like
never cleaning your room because when it gets really bad, the difference into a
clean room is so much more satisfying than a daily clean, everything in its
place all the time. I tried to convince my
mom of that once. She didn’t buy it.
And I’m
about to explore a new abdominal massage therapy, apparently. One of the women
in one of my circles invited me to explore it a bit, when I told her I needed
to pursue a little belly-listening. I wonder whether I’ll reach a point when I
can no longer enter into worldviews so completely outside my own? How do we
decide when there’s no more to be learned on any given path? Hmmmm…..
At the very
least, there’s some snippy bumper sticker wisdom to be remembered here: “If
you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always
gotten.” Perhaps someday I’ll remember who quipped that aloud, but I do love its redress of Meno’s Paradox,
which is where we began. You learn what you want to learn by listening to your
own yearnings—whether they be recollections, memories, past lives, or not—and trying
completely unexpected, new methods entrusted to you by companions along the
way.
Perhaps I
should just take the books back to the library for now. They’ll be waiting for
me if I need them.