To: K-list
Recieved: 2003/01/30 14:56
Subject: [k-list] patterns, fix and flux awareness
From: Nina Murrell-Kisner
On 2003/01/30 14:56, Nina Murrell-Kisner posted thus to the K-list:
"There is something in nature that forms patterns. We, as part of
nature, also form patterns. The mind is like the wind and the body
like the sand; if you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can
look at the sand." - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, 'Sensing, Feeling, and
Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering'
. . .
On Saturdays, I am a ghost that wanders a field of 50 or so yoga
students, my senses wide open. Their bodies and breaths move variably
in cadence with the vinyasa, which is led by the primary teacher; it
is my task to meld with her intention and the flow of the class while
providing adjustments and nudges to awareness.
It is a remarkable thing to look out across a sea of bodies in breath
and movement and see mind.
Even more remarkable is the responsive relationship among breath,
mind and body; when one is nudged, the others shift. The emphasis
within the composition is variable; the best avenue to adjustment is
variable. This is why the senses must be wide open and fresh to each
person; the optimal location and focus of the nudge varies from
person to person and changes from moment to moment.
I approach a student who is clearly struggling, collapsed in her
breathing, back arching in compensation, eyes wandering, body
wobbling. Put your consciousness here, I say, touching a specific
spot on her body. Push down through this part to lift up through this
part, I tell her, demonstrating with my body, then drawing the lines
over her body. Draw these pieces together in this way, once again
demonstrated. Fix the eyes; soften them. Breathe your ribs into my
hand. Sigh it out. Breathe into my hand again, this time receptively,
take your time. I breathe with her, yielding to her, yielding her to
me. She arrives at stability in alignment; in this moment she is
balanced and enduring. But who, or what, arrives?
There is benefit to seeing it happen 50, 100, 150… times over, class
after class. Each time, the experience of it becomes clearer and more
accessible. The pattern emerges.
. . .
Working through individual patterns, it is possible to fine-tune the
pattern composition of the entire room.
This is initiated by nudging mini-minds towards one-mind. Working
with one student directly will (sometimes instantaneously) tune the
students near her. Sometimes, all it takes is the thought to work
with a student or the movement towards them, and she will align
herself.
At some point, mini-minds begin to align themselves, tuning to each
other. It spreads as a wave, one student nudging the next. The mini-
minds are not required to be consistently present, as the scope of
the room extends beyond the walls. The time required for this is
variable.
For instance, in 3 years' time, the beginning yoga classes at the
YMCA are no longer true beginner's classes. Furthermore, it is
getting difficult to find a true beginner in this town. Specific
teachers and students are secondary to this shift. The level of yoga
practiced is in-forming itself.
This in-forming is highly intelligent and resilient. The mini-minds
are revealed to be tentacles of the one-mind, not the erratic limbs
they initially appear to be.
. . .
What if… pattern is not the intelligence, but a template, arbitrary
and assigned?
. . .
-What- in nature forms pattern? (Is it a pattern?)
. . .
Recently on NDS, there was a discussion, initiated by Gene Poole,
about the awareness one may have regarding change. When one is
focused on a subject, and change occurs within the field beyond the
subject, one will miss the change. By function of how focused
attention works, it will not be possible to register the change.
However, if attention is allowed to expand, then the range of what is
possible to register expands accordingly.
. . .
It is a Butoh workshop. We are learning to walk.
I stand with the other students at the far wall of the studio, our
stances relaxed. We raise our arms forward, palms towards our faces,
hands supported by wrists, as our fingers curl gently to the sky.
Eyes extend awareness to both hands as the eyes remain gazing softly
forward. The awareness of the hands is maintained as the arms move
out laterally to the sides, stopping at the edge of peripheral vision.
We lift one foot, peeling it from the ground, knee drawing up heel,
thigh drawing up knee. The leg slowly swings forward. We set one
foot, ballmount first, then heel. The weight shifts to this foot. We
lift the other foot, as it has already peeled from the ground with
the shift of the weight. The mind moves this leg moves this foot
slowly forward, weight shifting, until this foot, too, is placed on
the floor, ballmount first, then heel.
All this is held in awareness: my body, the weight of it, the skin of
it, the movement of it, the tone of it. I feel my connection to the
floor, the vibration to the floor from other footfalls and the
mechanical hum of unseen equipment. I hear the breathing and
shuffling of my fellows. I see my hands and forearms on the edge of
my vision, moving against the room beyond.
Not limited to the body, the eyes reach to the periphery, but what is
seen extends beyond it. Consciousness extends beyond the body.
What happens is truly remarkable.
Ground dissolves and space and time expands.
Every movement is discernable.
. . .
When the eyes fix on a point, the peripheral vision recedes.
When the eyes take in diffuse information from the entire field of
vision, the fixations recede.
What is possible when the see-saw relationship between these two ways
of looking is slowed and balanced?
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