I am no longer swimming. October, and the nights have dropped into the 30’s. Lakes and pools are hovering around 60 — too cold for even a quick dip. Besides, I swim to luxuriate, to open, to lengthen, to receive. As best I can, I am cultivating a receptive body.
Yesterday in my studio, in my body, I was watching a DVD of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen exploring in movement the relationship among kidneys, uterus, bladder and ureters. Each one of those organs has a quality of mind and movement that is unique, and the orchestration of those parts is a continually shifting and expanding improvisational dance. As I moved with Bonnie, and then on my own, I thought about the time it takes to open, to sense and feel in this way, and how doing that nourishes and expands everything else.
What I mean is this: the receptive body is also the vulnerable body. The receptive body is also the relational body. What is missing in a lot of the conversations about vulnerability and courage (Brene Brown) and living your dreams (Oprah) is the body. The body in the sense of an ongoing, exploratory, improvisational, playful, listening relationship with oneself.
How do we discover that without being a dancer or a yogi? What is a simple way of entering those waters? My friend and colleague is the composer Pauline Oliveros. Her life practice, Deep Listening, is listening to everything all of the time, and noticing when we are not doing that. Deep feeling, or deep sensing is about attuning to the inner and outer landscapes of the body and its relationship to what surrounds us.
Begin here: practice the intentional pause. Whether you are eating breakfast, or diapering an active 21 month old child – pause. Take 5 or more seconds to notice what you feel with all of your senses. Do you feel the shape of the keyboard keys beneath your fingers? The soft warmth of the baby’s skin? The soft channel of breath entering your body? The unseen space behind you, the rush of a truck passing by? Just notice. Let yourself take that in. Then go on. Pause often, throughout the day, an unexpected moments. Catch yourself off-guard. Pause mid-action. As if you were a dry sponge, imagine your tissues – all of them – expanding and opening to the waters of that moment. Receive.