original post June 13, 2014

Pondering Question: What is my experience of inner self flowing through bodyspace to the outer environment and receiving back, outer to inner?

A small group of us explore our perceptions of inner and outer through movement. We’ve each taken thick coarse string and marked an inner circle and then a larger outer circle around that. We play with how we move between the spaces. Then we take art supplies to express and discover from another perspective.

One story of Inquiry/Observation

A few days after the exploration I settle down to write, sitting with the finished art page in front of me. I remember I started with the intention of a clear demarcation between inner and outer, between my boundaries and the external. But as I laid bits of paper down on the page no clear line expressed itself. Even at the end, when my deliberate mind wanted to draw in segmenting lines I didn’t oblige, realizing the impulse was preconceived agenda and not the actual truth of my experience. Probably we are all less boundaried than we think we are. No clear lines of inside-outside on the page reminds me of several dreams I’ve had where the walls of my house disappear. Only a small line of a foundation wall reminds me of inside and out.

Playing with art supplies I was absorbed with cutting out patterns from origami paper to express something of vision, doorway, complexity, and organic structures both linear and changing. I only had a vague sense of why each piece went where it did, often just moving them around until they seemed in their own right spot. The paisley curl resonated as an apt center. The moth on the upper corner invited my curiosity to know what is outside me. It beckons me even though it also represents the mundane and often overlooked. The three large shapes- lines every which way- indicate situations that occupy my attentions, two outside my imagined shape and one ingested.

While we moved in and out of our imaginary self circles I witnessed myself walking round and round, quick jumping in and back out. It was my turn to keep track of time and needs of my co-explorers so I was distracted, awareness of the room predominating. I wouldn’t give myself fully to an exploration that took me internal. Observing this habit in myself I deliberately overrode my momentary truth and stepped inside the inner circle. Sinking down on my knees I folded into child’s pose, just my fingers on the outside edge connecting “me” to the outer environment. I wanted to close off the outside, to go completely into listen mode. Yet right away I stood and hurried myself out again. I couldn’t find an organic in-between. I was jumping between, not flowing. Timekeeper had a job to do.

I am a woman of time. Time to write this experience down. Time to get to class. What time are you going? Coming home? What are we doing next? When can we talk about “y”? All these references to how space is broken up into categories. In defense of myself I say this is how intention is carried into action. It’s how priorities really take place instead of being ignored. But my use of time goes deeper. I’ve used it for security purposes, to provide structured orientation in the face of the unknown and when my perception of chaos threatens to overwhelm me. Clock and calendar time are my buoys. They mark a channel for passage, designate safe harbor, and provide anchor points. The habit runs deep even though I now understand that my perception of time as a limited commodity undermines my expansion. Instead of savoring the moment that’s already here I’m gulping it and racing into the future.

If I slow down I can hear what am I learning right this very moment as my fingers strike the keyboard. Discover how an image and memory of inner-outer exploration devolved into this exposition on time? Is time what marks inner and outer space as separate, as a progression across time instead of simultaneous life? Is the self I think is out, or in, just perceptual shifts of limited awareness?