Category Archives: the body

Oct4

are you sitting?

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And I don’t necessarily mean on a cushion.  I have a practice of looking for moments of intentional stillness.  They can be of varying duration – some momentary, others longer.  One way might be to pause feeling all the fluids in my cells settling and returning home.  Another is to look up and widen my vision peripherally and multi-dimensionally.  Another is to close my eyes and listen deeply for a few moments.  Another is to feel a yielding, deepening contact with whatever parts of my body are touching a surface (chair, keyboard, bed).  I do that until any urgency to change or shift, any impatience or mental busyness is gone.  Then begin again.

With the horses, I find this intentional pausing to be especially delicious.  The weather has been extraordinary in the Hudson Valley — warm days wrapped in light and color.  Before “working” I walk out into the woods on my horse, the two of us taking in all of it.  Sometimes we just stop and stand.  I like to do this until I can feel our shared breathing, feel the inside of me softening to meet the inside of him.  Feeling our skins and all of the moving layers of our bodies within.  During the “working” time, I intentionally pause as well.  I find it helps me to unhinge from any sense of pushing, forcing, bracing or hardening in my body.  I practice being two bodies together, rather than a driver and a vehicle, or one who knows and one who must do.

I recently watched a video of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen teaching, and she talked about how when we touch another person, the cells of that part of the body – our hand and whatever part of the body we are touching – migrate to that place.  That is where we join in feeling and intention.  On a horse, any horse, that cellular harmonizing is what I am seeking.  Then I know that I am sitting.

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Aug18

thank you Jacob, thank you Marion

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943542_522024324525996_2036370784_nJacob’s mudras, Jacob’s dance

Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting our friend Stanley who has advanced Alzheimer’s.  He is at home, being cared for by his family and a full time caregiver.  Stanley has no speech, nor can he organize his movement and is therefore confined to bed.

My mother died of Alzheimer’s six years ago.  I know something about the arc of the disease, the inexorable progression.  I also know about its gifts.  I wrote this in a story about her called Mother Lode:  “You never told me you were leaving. That leaving would happen with startling, irregular cadence, an evaporation of being from body, an unsnapping of essential self from the edges of a shrinking world. You never told me that you would leave and stay, all at once.”

At the end, when there were no words, no recognizable language of any kind, there was still her dazzling smile.  It was as if she had been winnowed down to this one essential expression.  In that smile was joy, appreciation, even peace.  Grace and beauty where everything else had been taken. It took my breath away.  She taught me about the mystery of presence and absence wound together like the Mobius of the heart.

Jacob, my autistic godson, has taught me many of the same lessons.  We are going to see Jacob and his family next week.  I am so looking forward to seeing hm, to what he will teach me and what I will discover in my time with him.  Jacob teaches me about deep listening, stillness, and patience.  He teaches me to look beyond the outer shape of movement and sound into the subtle layers and reverberations.  He shows me what is important to him moment-by-moment, and how to engage where he is, rather than where I want him to be.  Most importantly, how to stay in my own body, my own breathing, my own heart.

Back to Stanley.  He was making a blowing sound with his lips.  It is strong and clear and has force, focus and expression.  I made the sound to him and that caught his attention.  He made the sound back to me.  We had a long, blowing conversation, with smiles and even a chuckle.  I added a blowing sound like a horse makes and he found that funny.  I added some touches on his hands and feet and legs, watching for his responses, his engagement and curiosity or discomfort.

What I felt with Stanley is what I so often feel with Jacob, what I felt with my mother – enormous blooms of love and gratitude.  I have entered the room of their world.  My “work” is not to redecorate or improve upon what is there, but simply to be present with curiosity and willingness, to follow them with my heart and offer connection. That is the whole dance.

 

 

Aug6

fluid riding

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IMG_1620Amadeo, ridden by Brandi Rivera

Today in my studio, I was playing with movement that originates in the body’s fluid system, specifically cellular fluid, transitional fluid and extracellular fluid.  I had been watching Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s videos on the fluid systems of the body.  According to Bonnie, “The fluids are the transportation system of the body. They underlie presence and transformation, set the ground for basic communication, and mediate the dynamics of flow between rest and activity, tension and relaxation. The characteristics of each fluid relate to a different quality of movement , touch, voice, and state of mind. These relationships can be approached from the aspects of movement, mind states, or from anatomical and physiological functioning.”

In Body-Mind Centering,understanding the fluids means

  • Distinguishing the qualities of specific fluids through movement and touch.
  • Initiating movement from each of the fluids.
  • Identifying individual psychophysical characteristics of each of the fluids and their various combinations.

So back to my studio.  The cellular fluid has a quality of simple, presence, of being “home” where everything comes into a state of rest, similar to the savasana pose in yoga.  Tuning into the transitional fluid means finding a way to move from that parasympathetic state into action without a sympathetic activation.  Extracellular fluid can be any fluid that is outside of the cell membrane and has a quality of moving in a direction, like the flow of plasma, for example.

Today, while riding my always complicated Andalusian Amadeo, I decided to experiment with those three fluid states in my ride.  Deo is recovering from bilateral hind suspensory injuries, so we are taking things slowly.

At the halt, I looked for that state of rest, tuning into the stillness and presence of the cellular fluid.  Then, instead of “popping” out of that stillness into forward movement, I looked for a subtle, transitional feeling (in my own body) of the fluids beginning to “stream” into motion.  Then I added the light activation of my leg to move us into going more actively forward.  The difference I felt in Deo’s body was profound.  He felt much more open and soft as he walked and then as we moved into trot.  There was none of the bracing that I often feel as I ask him to move from halt to walk or trot.  I felt that in the halt (pause), feeling for the “coming home to rest” quality of cellular fluid, we were able to open to each other and then move together in a more attuned and expansive way.

At the same time, I was excited to be creating this bridge from the studio to the arena to this page.  Ride, dance write!

 

Jul31

mille grazie mi amor

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DSC02565 - Version 2Photo:  Pam White

I am so lucky.  She has been shooting me for 28 years.  We are not close to stopping.  Yesterday, we shot nearly 600 frames at the marvelous studios of our friend the sculptor Gillian Jagger.

Today, she wrote me this poem:

This Earth

You were put here on this earth

to drive me nuts. Only that, oh,

and your shadow devouring you in the earthly

last light of day in my film of your movement.

Motion shivers your amazing body, shadows, body, dipping

tangling with yourself in realtime and slow mo.

And me, I can see me in the shake of the camera,

when the great angle is made, when the dove flies

up the wall with your shadow. I can feel your

movement in my aching arms, my ant-bitten ankles

as the camera does its job. In Italian – where we each

live parts of our days – camera means room.

There is room in our hearts for this shake

that is us, this flight on the wall, the light

on your face walking backwards to me.

I have to be so still when I get the great shot, you

have to keep going when you ace the phrase: movement

perfection, body lit. As we work the tangle of our lives

the light reaches its peak and retracts, we go on.