Perhaps this will be a blog entry that will be constantly evolving.
Just like myself....
Unfortunately, i have reached by saturation point - at 4:39pm, as twilight creeps into my office window, feeling sleepy and slow. But will perhaps return to inject deeper insight that comes from a night of solid sleep and fruitful dreams.
In a world filled with constant superfluous and extraneous noise, our minds have adapted to the notion that silence is awkward, at best, uncomfortable. This past week i have learned and directly experienced what it is like to fully live within the moment of a pause. To linger inside an instant of quietude. And explore that time of "no time" without hesitation, trepidation or anxiety.
On any given day, my mind can go from a relative level of subdued white noise mumblings to a cacophony of screams and whispers. I like to imagine that is the din of my neurons as they fire back and forth, transmitting information, images and chemicals from one branch to another. Sometimes they are calm, sometimes they are chaotic. Medication serves as the modulator in this network of brain soup.
but sometimes, because of extraneous circumstances - stress, hormonal imbalances, change of seasons, the network is shaken by shifts of the teutonic plates of consciousness. Chaos ensues. A form of neural sea sickness pervades my consciousness.
Since September, my body has become senstive and highly aware of the change in temperature. Instinctive hybernative state has taken over, slowing down my digestive functions, increasing my need for sleep, food and comfort. On an evolutionary level, this would make sense - bulk up and hunker down for winter. But living in a heated home, with adequate layers of clothing and unlimited access to vegetative and carnivorous caloric supplies, as a human, i can withstand almost any level of cold if i think and act strategically.
And since it is said that the mind follows the body, it (my mind) has been struggling to make sense of those changes.
Through the art of improvisation, i have come to realize that through a kinetic, spiritual, conscious connection with the body, the mind can free itself from the labyrinth of thought. By becoming aware of the muscles that wrap around our bones, the flesh that wraps around those muscles, we are intricately integrated fully into each experience, each moment we decide to move through in time and space.
I experience a deep level of vulnerability when i am tired. Evolving in my being is a slow pervading micro-thin environmentally sensitive film of translucent confusion and discombobulation. My logical self despises this primitive form of chaos.
The sound of this confusion and discombobulation is a kaleidoscope of murmuring doubts, chants of self-deprecation, wanton whisperings about personal insecurities. Digging for reason, I inadvertently become my very own canary in a coal mine.
And my "go to way" of buffering my 'insecurities" is to talk about them. Examine them, dissect them in an internal and external manner, filling the space of sentences with my own words, reasoning, opinions.
my relative inaptitude for dealing with sudden changes often has me grasping at loose ends, gasping for air. In the dark, in a panic, fumbling desperately for a light switch. To buffer this void, i try to inhale as much information, reasoning and logic as possible, in the hopes that it will save me from the unknown. The silence. The stillness that pervades the instant between a thought and action. And as a result, the ego flounders, and takes willing listeners as auditory hostages, spewing this deluge into the outside world. A fallacy in a belief that if i express this "fear" to the outside world, it will somehow make sense to others, who will in turn, decipher it and make it make sense to me....
through action theater, i have become aware of this tendency, because, during this past week of intensive exercises, i have been introduced to the training in the fine art of "listening to the now. Listening to the body. Lingering in the pauses and silences"
During this week, i have had the luxury of exploring the mind body connection
and through shouting, screaming, grunting, (Using the voice), rolling around on the floor, slithering like a snake, rolling from one point in the room to another, using my limbs as wheels, the connection i have made with my body has been solidly cemented - primitive meets practical.
in exploring the awareness of the body, each muscle, each inch of skin, individual hair follicle, i realize that i am a whole universe onto myself, with a complex galaxy of emotions, wants, needs, beliefs, hopes and dreams. And fundamentally, the ego is an active black hole, necessary in the architecture of this universe, simultaneously keeping order and propagating chaos by the sheer nature of its existence.
Embracing the life unexpected as the life yet to experienced.
But the paramount understanding comes as a knowing through experience - that i am a source of my own strength, as well as vulnerabilities. And symbiotically, these two will function in harmon with one another if i just let go and "be" as complete as i can be. Non-judgment, complete and utter self acceptance. Knowing that the "fairies*" will provide me with the intuitive knowledge and guidance to navigate through this moment in time called "life".
The collective unconscious is filled with the wisdom of our ancestors. It is plethoric in its dynamic energy and infinite generosity - the only obstacle to tapping into this is our own fears; fears of letting go to something that is exponentially larger than our conscious mind can comprehend.
There is something so lucid yet fluid about the practice of Action Theater. Experiencing it makes me feel as if my mind has been switched to autopilot, where a higher level of intelligence takes the reigns, stripping away the superfluous idle internal chatter, allowing a symphonic order to mysteriously form out of discordant chaos...
The practice centers on becoming cognizant of the awareness within yourself, then gradually expanding that awareness of others in relation to the self.
And being able to "become aware" of others on a physical, and perhaps, on a more profound esoteric energetic level lends a whole new layer of comprehension and appreciation of our fellow human beings. Realizing that you are not only the sum of your parts, but the sum of the universal parts, taking that understanding and exponentially stretching that to a cosmic level is nothing short of a complete cognizant existence.
*Ruth Zaporah refers to "fairies" as the opposite of the "engineers of the mind". They come into our existence when we switch off the "engineer" and allow the life and experience to flow into our lives. Personally, "the Fairies" for me are an aspect of the infinite divine consciousness.
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