Surrender and release

The moment I allow myself to be touched by an object is a moment to another perception of reality.

Hundreds of times a day, maybe more, I pick up items. I manipulate them to help me get through my day. Open door handles, flush toilets, wash glasses, slam cupboard doors, lever off jar lids, pick up bags, turn the keys in the car. If I were aware at these moments, I would likely find my fingers and palms gripping, my forearms tight, a corresponding tightness in shoulder joint, and probably other joints also.

So I play.

Allow the cup to call to me and reach out to connect. The cup, smooth, imprints its weight and texture into the palm of my hand and travels up to land through the centre of my shoulder articulation, a sense of weight cascading through my chest and flowing down to my sit bones. Now I have more sense of the space within the cup. The space within the fabric of the cup makes itself known to me, as does a sense of space between the cup and me. I imagine this as a somatic experience of the space within everything.

Perhaps this imagining is fanciful. Whether fanciful or not, my somatic experience is that the bones in my lower arms remain able to move and spiral, the space between them connected and communicating. Contrast this with the cup as my object that I hold - the space in my lower arms is hard. If one area of my arm tried to speak to the other there would be no opportunity for it to be heard. Communication is stymied. The outside of my shoulder joint aches slightly.

There is a moment of surrender and release to the cup. I take in the colour shape and reflections in the surface of the glaze. Surrendering to the cup tiny areas of my palms and fingers open, reaching. 

Allowing the cup to touch me. I am changing.

Influences are many in this exploration - Susan Harper, the work of Hubert Godard and Rolfers who have explored his ideas with me, the scent of long traditions of Eastern Arts is imbued throughout these experiences. Gratitude for life allowing me these opportunities.