Void

It is shocking to me that my last entry was July 2009. Much has happened in the intervening months. It seems impossible that I have been and I am still going through such restructuring in my life- yet this is where I am. In Gestalt, there is a phrase called 'creative void', 'fertile void' or 'zero point'. In Presencing Institute's Theory U model, it is the bottom of the U process- the 'Letting Go'/ 'Letting Come' point. Reading about such moments and experiencing such moments are somewhat different. I am experiencing both zero point of void- where much of what has been seems to have been obliterated and where the ground is, for now, totally unstable. At the same time, I am also faced with a series of 'letting go'- being reflective for a moment, I feel that there are many levels of letting go with life itself being the ultimate letting go. So this is praxis. What of 'creative adjustments' themselves? What of 'creativity' itself. Theoretically, creativity SHOULD be at it's most fertile- it is not my experience right now. I intend to take myself into solitary retreat over the next few days- I wonder what, if any answers will emerge.

Source

I had a skype conversation with my partner a few days ago and he described a profound experience of co-creating a series of movements with someone who was not a dancer by training. The conversation left me full of feelings about so many aspects of relating and relationships. One of which is my sadness from being aware of how my own capabilities and capacities as a dancer has diminished over time. Time and physical deterioration is actuely felt by me as limits to expression. It is beyond words how frustrated I feel when I 'see' movement in my mind but my body cannot give it the fullest expression it demands. That evening, after the 'conversation', I danced and moved in my flat for about two hours and realised the loss of 'vocabulary' but not necessarily 'language'.

Today, he sent me an article by Rodin describing Balinese dancers and dance. This was my response to him:

I find this article thoroughly enjoyable, surfacing a feeling/ sort of insight
dimly in me since you described your experiencing with xxx...you often speak
of beginner's mind- this also applies to movement- which is my reading of
Rodin's writing...so it loops back to Arawana's work- The Art of Making a True
Move...so it loops back to the only picture I have- of me, in motion (I had no
idea the picture was taken)...and- that evening, after our skype text about
your communion, I moved and danced in my flat for about 2 hours...exploring
relationships between influences of past 'training' and flow and creativity and
form and 'true' or 'authentic' movement- their relationship with source- not
just source- but where is the source/ wellspring in my body and how the 'where'
relates to the 'what' in expression, charge/ discharge, energy, quality...

What I omitted was...and the realisation of loss- how much has been lost through time and premature pruning of green shoots of talent- way, way, back then...so now, I wonder, given what is and where I am now, what remains? What is possible?

EPP in London- 11.3.09

At last, after waiting for 2 years almost to the date, we got together with two others to continue the Embodied Presence Practice work in London. It was amazing to be able to move with a couple of other people. I felt it took some time for me to tune into the group- tuning inwards was easy but tuning into the wider emerging field was much more difficult. I found it difficult not to get into 'head mode' and, perhaps because of the long wait, to make the most of this precious time we have together by creating or doing 'stuff'. I felt that when we sat in a circle at the end and worked with gestures/ true moves there was a very different quality about the gestures and I was more able to move with what was truly emerging in the moment between us.