The Fabric we are Made Of and the Garment we Become

For the most part we are unaware of what a brilliant balancing act it was and still is for our species to achieve the upright stance.

In non-existent “ideal” conditions the normal situation would be to be light, free, and unaware that we are, in fact, living, moving, breathing, 24/7 balancing acts whose stability is constantly being threatened, lost and efficiently, eutonically recovered. In ideal conditions all response option would be open to us always, so we’d be free to choose according to circumstances.

But life falls short of ideal. Although we all come with the same basic fabric design, we are born neither perfectly symmetrical, nor perfectly balanced, nor perfectly ambidextrous. 

As we choose, like and prefer some options over others, using what works and gets results fast, we pull and twist the threads of our basic design slightly askew to accommodate our tastes. This makes choosing the same option easier the next time around, till we don’t have to “consciously choose” anymore: we can reset to relative “neutral” while the fabric is still young and elastic, but our favourite choice has becomes “preset”.

The more we choose the same paths over and over, the more they become a part of who we believe we are, who we “feel” we are. Eventually the choice becomes “us”, it gets recorded in the very grain of our fabric. All the habitual twists, the stretches and pulls, the contractions and rigidities become fixed. As our fabric ages and elasticity is lost, it becomes harder and harder to reset to “neutral” and to choose and hold a different set of twists and stretches on the fabric.

As we become convinced that the twisted and stretched fabric is in effect our “neutral” and “natural” basic design, all “other” possible options fade from our awareness. As they fade from our awareness they become temporarily “lost” in that ineffable place that has become for us the “unknown”. There they will lie dormant until we choose to set out on the quest to re-awaken our potential, to map-out the unknown.

The “unknowable” will remain forever hidden from our human senses. But the “unknown” will be forever there, waiting for us to map it and thus reclaim our supreme inheritance.

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Allowing Time to Make Space for Change

Beginnings are tough for me. I’m all about order, but beginnings tend to be for me all about chaos.

Most of the chaos stems from the fact that I haven’t fully closed the previous actions. I’m dragging the dregs of yesterday into today and tomorrow, and getting them all jumbled up with the new stuff that wants to emerge.

What to do about it?

If I followed my own advice, I would quit doing stuff about it. I would find a bit of space on the floor to lie down on my back, with my head supported on a few books and my knees up. If I did this every day, morning and evening, I’d be making space for change to happen.

It’s hard to believe that just lying down like that and doing nothing will make space for things to sort themselves out. But it does. It’s a cascade of space creation: I make space in my day to stop doing; that leads to making space to lie down; lying down makes space in my body to release accumulated tension; as body tension releases, mind tension lets go too and voilá!  I have created space in my mind.

It’s all about space: time-space, environmental-space, body-space, mind-space.

There’s absolutely nothing else required but to take the time to rest in that space. Time itself will take care of the rest.

When I ask myself to start a new action, I have to allow time before saying or doing anything more. Why? Because as soon as I ask myself to do something, I start up my habitual response to any order (in my case too many frantic thoughts and thoughtless actions) and it takes a little time for me to realize this and to stop.

And it’s only when I have remembered and stopped, created space and given myself time, it’s only when the dust of the previous actions has settled and the waves have quieted in the mind-pool, that the next phase can operate.

What’s the next phase? Listening, with my whole being, for a clear and true direction.

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