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Where
my body expresses itself:
-
walking across a parking lot, five steps ahead of another person
– there’s a command of body, self-possession and confidence
and purpose in my steps
-
immediately after sex; the statue pause. Freeze-framey, holding
onto the hum of it but demanding calm from myself – this is
where my body expresses the emptiness (temporarily) of the me-self
that, uncoupled, exists lushly
-
waiting somewhere, the nervous hand picking…
-
reading, I’ll cross my legs or draw up one knee – because
my brain goes into a close place, my body draws in to touch itself
to itself and make a very personal knot
-
when I’m cooking, the sure arc of wrist dropping ingredients
into others
& an example within the last week: closed-eye tucking
a head back into a gap between pillow, the blankets haphazard lumps. My
body in this moment cannot be uncomfortable; is a response only, and so
responds to the lumps and folds and creases with more or less weight –
a leg resting along a wall too cool moves a fluid half-inch away and there’s
the skin… like, skin that is normally very sensitive to difference
in this moment smoothes it all – so wool versus cotton versus silk
versus fleece stop being tactile things, to skin, and skin is atop them
or under them, and fingers like velvet moles nosing along the fold of
a sheet, under the tuck of a pillow, blind feeling the seam, blind marching
over his hip, his body, his skin and fingers who, too, begin a creature
march in my direction.
i. After Movement in the First Class:
My hips have always been openshut – overly flexible, wide stretching
when supine, but never good when grounded and alone. In Warrior 2 they
began to ache, this raw hurt feeling that wasn’t really even pain
– it felt sad. The dominant feeling was discomfort, but I’ve
never had a part of my body feel “emotional”…
I’ve never had it talk to me that way. I responded – turned
my leg in and with it my hip and felt… yes, relief, but more than
that: safety.
My breath was calm, steady, very much something that held me suspended
– I could have been floating but the rhythm and strength of my breaths
held me, suspended me, bolted me. Something. I could feel my lungs in
there doing a fine job.
My body as a whole was more cohesive and cooperative than I think it’s
ever been.
(Our culture says that illness is a punishment, a weakness,
an embarrassment. Protestant work ethic, etc; okay, you have three days
to recover, to normalize. We overlook the backward beauty of illness.
The raw ripple of illness comforts, it reminds. In the disparity between
health and illness, we find unignorable liveliness. Be still in your
illness. Take notes. When it’s over you have a written account
of what it is to be alive.)
(Your sadness isn’t coming from you; it’s coming from the
world you’re in. Let it go through you; use it.)
(It is hard to sustain your sense of self as you, sensitive,
experience more and more difficult things.)
(The language we use to describe the body defines it, yes, but also
determines how we respond to it.)
ii. (7 FEB) After yoga:
For a month, leaping into psychotherapy, I have had no appetite. Food
is completely unappealing. As a former anoretic this was alarming to me;
I have never experienced anorexic symptoms of depression, and any focus
on food still feels dangerous and more than a little alluring. While my
body asks for nothing, my mind becomes hyperactive, trying to remedy it
all, trying to figure out why, trying to resume eating as a normal part
of a normal day on a great journey toward Normalcy. My belly and appetite
quietly and calmly receded (and with them, so too has some of my flesh),
but my brain became hysterical and constantly alarmed. In trying to figure
out the Why I have been trying to assign blame; this is a psychosomatic
symptom of depression, this is a terrifying subconscious grab for control,
this quiet non-demand is an attempt for stability...
No more.
When we place blame, we are looking for a scapegoat
for a real dislocation which is difficult to find and in which we ourselves,
as individuals and as a society, are implicated. Blame is a defensive
substitute for an honest examination of life that seeks guidance in
our mistakes. Fundamentally it is a way of averting consciousness of
error. Sardello recommends that if our hearts are attacking us or if
cancer is immersing us in fantasies of death, then we should listen
to these symptoms and adjust life accordingly. Rather than blame, we
could respond. Listening to the messages of the body is not the same
as blaming the patient. — The Body's Poetics of Illness
And so I am beginning to understand this anorexia not as
a symptom but as a communication from my body. For the first time I am
able to listen to my body as both myself and as a somewhat separate entity;
there are parts of me semi-sentient, there is some soul presence in me
demanding congress. This emptiness is not an alarming symptom but a reflection.
I have been thinking thinking thinking that I need to come to peace with
What Is Me - must not define myself through others, as I have come to
over the last year... must reclaim the independence I had when
I was sixteen and beginning to understand and define myself. Somewhere
I lost this. Somewhere it became easier to lie in bed for a dim afternoon
rubbing bare legs together or against other bare legs. Somewhere, through
the intoxicating input of Other, through addiction to assisting and aiding
and bettering of Others I lost the power to define myself. I took in,
took in and took in. The exports of my body were sex and comfort. I "there
there, lass"ed and "here, here, yes"ed until I had
no here or there.
My belly, empty but unaching is saying Here.
Here.
Give me nothing, take nothing else in. Here.
Here is where we begin.
I demand nothing of you; accept this. Demand nothing and take nothing
into your life until you have accepted this, until you can practice your
new Here.
My emptiness and my quietcalm are not something to fear; it is in this
way that I remind you - we are not searching for things and people and
food because we have nowhere to place them. Let us first find a Place,
and then we may Hunger.
iii. (8 FEB) After yoga:
Communicating with the body? I’ve never done it before. I’m
surprised at how fast it came, once I… I’ve always understood
the body as art and understood the poetry of the body (its lines, its
moves, its sighs) but I’d never considered the body as poet. It
was the product… the painting, the sculpture, the object for photograph.
It was largely “done.” Of course it could change a little
here and there, but these were variations on a theme. I considered the
body as poetry, not poet – considered it a product… but now
I understand it as a speaker. And if it is speaking, and if this voice
is not quite me, then Who is it? For the first time, I understand that
I have a Soul.
Soul searching is a phrase I’ve never liked. I have to do some soul-searching.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow after I do some soul-searching. Doesn’t
the very nature of its use cheapen the idea of the Soul? Call up the Soul
and ask it what to do. Hey Soul – should I buy those expensive shoes
if it means I have to work over time? It’s a phrase overused, like
love… I love tomatoes. I love you. How can we dare double the word
this way? The point is, I’ve never gone soul-searching because until
yesterday I didn’t believe I had a soul. Some nebulous yellow glow
within me, yes; same as everyone, but until I began listening I felt no
Soul presence, no Other within me.
And I was surprised by how completely, loudly it was there. It was like
turning on the volume of a station that’s been blaring… no,
this is too mechanized a description. It was like starting to listen.
How loud it was! How clear! How distinct, how eloquent. Far better than
I – more lucid, spectacular. I could understand the following things:
that I am depressed, that I fuck when blue, that I needed to spend more
time As Me, that I wasn’t eating. But it was only on listening that
I understood these four elements as something united – only when
the Soul was involved did it become Art. And with that transformation,
it gained Purpose and Meaning.
How loud it was, how clear. How instantly artful. And how terrifying,
this speed – how easily it came – how long have I been ignoring
this voice? How much have I missed?
iv. On meditation on the seventh chakra:
From the lower body. Lower body. Focusing on the lower body, the seventh
chakra… he says this is how we connect; this is where I connect
to the earth and look to connect to people, it is from this part of me
that the longing for connection stems.
So why, meditating, did I feel a blankness? The silence in this part of
me must couple with the bodyfast. On first introducing myself to this
part of Sol, the part is polite. Quite. No ranging demands, no memories,
no history. This is strange, at first – center point! Lower body!
Why so quiet? Speak speak speak! Prove to me that this is where desire
stems –
But silence, like.
Not smug silence. Just a serene no response.
I realize that I am looking to blame again.
And I understand that this is a core, but not a source. No little demons
spill from it because it’s not a spring. Nor impure, either.
v. After meditation:
Where does this infinite yellow come from? From my beginning? From where
in my beginning does this infinite yellow come from. I remember in the
third person my crib, its placement in my room, remember in the late afternoons
peeling the yellow paper from the wall – remember in first person
the guilty glance at my I-caught-you mother, remember – perhaps
for the only time in my life – my sense of purpose overruling my
feelings of guilt. I was Doing Something.
Maybe it caught my eye because it was peeling, but after a point the goal
was not destruction, it was reeling in the long strips of yellow (bears,
balloons, etc.) – pulling the important yellow as close as possible.
I remember from a baby photo – no real recollection – yellow
blossoms and green vines; the sheets on my parent’s bed in the photograph
where I lie asleep beside a grey pillow, beside my father’s big-as-me
head.
All of my early memories are tinted yellow – yellow afternoons,
a brown yellow sofa, yellow hearts of daisies in the back yard.
And of course, too, I came into the world yellow.
vi. (15 FEB) After meditation:
I’m still not in control, wholly, of my mind when I meditate. The
simple answer is that I’m overtired and so drift out of conscious
meditation and into a restorative calm, but I think some of this has to
do with my mental finesse. I can feel my body become more powerful, more
rooted and more aware, but – today, for example, I was intending
to go through the seven chakras and only made it a step past the second
– then returned to conscious meditation at the seventh. An apt metaphor,
perhaps – I am now more than ever grounded; the root chakra and
I get along and communicate nicely, and the second chakra and I have come…
if not to an open communication, then an understanding and a mutual agreement
to accept each other.
But the self – the identity – all the middle chakras and their
energies… I’m still not there. I have a global, even universal
consciousness, but I’m lacking the meat of me, still; the substantive
parts, my themes and parts and purposes.
Still trying, though. And am improving – slowly.
vii. Five Questions:
What would happen in your life if you stopped believing that there
are or were aspects that were not art-worthy?
I think this is what I have been doing. I am ceasing to believe this –
to believe there are things in my life not worth ‘arting.’
Yesterday I wrote a poem about dog shit – and it’s beautiful.
How would your art/writing change if you integrated and identified
with all five of your intelligences?
It would broaden, yes, but might also risk becoming obscure, absurd or
too universally conscious. I think a good writer and artist has the capacity
to transition between these, fluidly, but also to hone in.
Do some of the things that provide the most pleasure in your life
lead you to feel cut-off from your body? Is there a pattern that you see
in your consumption of pleasure?
YES. Here’s the skinny: fucking is marvelous and an opening of a
body and a consciousness of multiple bodies. Am I cut-off completely in
sex? No. But after – a complete ending of the self. Cut-off in the
sense that I am listening not TO my body but to the desires of my body
and mind. Sex has lead to selflessness in some cases, and not the giving
kind.
Too, when I spend endless hours by the phone or chatting, where does my
body go? Is it any wonder that I have been communicating so poorly with
my body when the choices I make in spending time are almost entirely based
in consciousness and connection and almost entirely devoid of bodily purpose?
When was the last time you found yourself avoiding listening to the
signals your body was sending to you? Is there a pattern?
A few days ago. I wore those shoes, a size too small. Stupid? Yes. But
the larger problem… how often do I say: suffer, body, toughen up
and suffer through this discomfort so that I can keep on? Who is this
I? When did she become so separate from the body – HER body? What
a hypocritical way to live – to embrace and parade the lushness
of the body while, off-camera, treating it like a husk or skin only!
What would it mean to you if you created art that was wonderful (truth,
goodness, inner beauty) and yet no one ever recognized you for it?
The death of prestige. This is what I must work toward and what, in this
humbling transition, I have begun to work toward. I may not become An
Artist. Everyone knows this, to some extent, but do we bring our expectations
to meet it? Do we act accordingly? Do we make choices according to this
potential for Notness, for nothing? Not FAILURE, but lack of prestige
and recognition? This is my greatest task, now.
viii. After meditating on the body in extremes:
Body lost its grip on the present tense but couldn’t slip into the
extreme moment, either. So it was a bodiless body, felt husked. Husked
is a good word. I just husked myself and was aware of the body’s
limitations – physical limitations – where I exist and where
I do not. The more in tune with my body I become, the more difficult it
is to maintain a mental focus when the body is in an extreme. My mental
focus slipped; was meditating seated and my back ached…
And then I was not nowhere but also not somewhere. I have gained a better
consciousness of my body and as I hone this I am gaining a better consciousness
of my soul presence… but with this has come a consciousness of this
other space. It’s not a physical space, clearly… some metaphysical
but very spatial; very real place I am aware of and keep visiting when
I husk out. So I’ve transitioned from 1) meditating and losing my
awareness and sense of self completely, 2) meditating and knowing I’m
losing myself; being conscious of a blankness, 3) meditating and staying
in this vaguer soul self and maintaining it, 4) meditating and beginning
to understand The Place, the as-close-to-physical-space that my bodiless
soul either lives in or visits… I only have the vaguest possible
awareness of this place, I just know it’s a different place and
a different level of consciousness. It feels lucid, but I’m not
in control… how can that be?
ix. How is yoga an art and how is art like yoga, or a spiritual
form of yoga?
The answer there lies in the word spiritual. Both art and yoga are or
can be spiritual practices; yoga extracts and calls attention to the inherent
poetry of the body while art is at its essence a call for connection and
an expression of universal and individual energy.
x. After yoga:
Gentle allele you spill unsickly, good chromosome did near coupling again,
a stretch, a grounded grounded soft thing – “Allow the earth
to hold you,” – plant, planted, warmly seeded, held. Doing.
Unfinished but not unwhole, not done but not undone, an active –
grounding – an active – revive –
Oh, and “Allow the earth to hold you.” Could you ever have
understood that, before? Could it have been heard with such importance,
before? Now you want to go to people on the street and press their shoulders,
stop their dizzy business and say, “Allow the earth to hold you.”
Now you want everyone to understand that connection – not being
on an earth but with an earth, held by (not held to!) an earth. Gravity
is a nice gift.
You want to say this to everyone, and in that moment of pause there’d
be – oh, the best stillness. A warm light thing and for a moment
knowing other people – for a moment – HELD BY THE EARTH –
that is you and everyone… What a good thing, what a still thing,
what a good still gift of a thing.
(Amazing that we can wake up every day
for years and never wake up!)
[B]
A. RAE MISFELDT |
Norma Desired
by Richard Russell
esprit libre -
by falling_apart
Scapulangar
by Caleb
Sconosciuto
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