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Body Alchemy

  
  

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illmatic
08:41 / 20.01.03
I nicked the title of this thread from the book “Chaotopia” by chaos magician Dave Lee, excellent interview with him here . It’s a phrase that can encompass a wide variety of practices – from sexual magick to martial arts, fasting and detoxing through to scarification. It seems to me that working with the body in whichever way is an essential part of modern magick. I’ve had several powerful experiences that have involved some sense of reconnection or re-understanding of my body. I think the absence of bodywork from earlier “paradigms” can be linked with their emphasis on transcendence, leaving the pleasures of the body behind for the dubious delights of the Astral Plane.

With this in mind, I thought I’d start a broad discussion on this constellation of ideas and practices. What practices have you used and how useful have you found them? What is the relationship between your body and your magick? Does this relate at all to mortality and ageing? What are your thoughts on the subject of chakras? Why did body modification resurface at the end of the 20th Century? Thoughts please, on any aspect of the body that you want to talk about, from sex to self-mortification.

I’ll start –with the more “mundane” stuff – just keeping fit generally has a beneficial effect. I’ve often noticed my mood go through the roof after a burst of running or swimming. Sitting at a desk all day, I find stuff like this an absolutely essential contrast. Also, working with my senses has been vital, and great fun – concentration on a certain sense, or aspect of it, for a week or more, serves to snap me out my internal dialogue on a regular basis. This in turn helps to show how farcical some of my ego’s petty concerns are, and gives me a greater sense of choice in dealing my moods and emotions.

Perhaps one of the profundest insights has come from Tantra, (commonly (mis)understood, as just being sexual magick) - that is, that thoughts, emotions etc - are simply the side effects of metabolism, or being alive, just like sweat or faeces. Rather than seeing identity as something with an existential staus to be debated, it\'s instead seen as a product of metabolism. \"I am, therefore, I think\" rather than vice versa.

What about you?
 
 
Papess
11:59 / 20.01.03
Illmatic, I love you dude. What a great topic!

Just last night I was pondering a piercing for myself as I do not have on my body except perhaps in my ears, but I do not use them much anyway. There are reasons I do not pierce my body though, one of which is becoming a little out-dated.

One reason is because it immediately sets one apart from everyone else. It is a distinguishable mark (and I am also refering to tattoos) that is, for the most part, permanent. However, given the number of people who do have piercings and/or tats, makes me wonder if this really matters anymore.

The other reason is chi/energy related. Differnt spots on the body correspond to different states and/or stored information. For example the navel is asscoiated with will, where the lines of the world pass through. If I pierce this spot, I believe it will alter the "reception" so to speak. I am wondering though, can this alteration be done magickally so that it is actually beneficial? Put some intent behind the piercing, after all, that pain is also an excellent prompt for gnosis.

Posture is something I like to play with. Different postures certainly produce different effects, releasing different information or experiences stored in the body.

Also, Mixmage's handrunes a an excellent example of applying magick to the body.


Just some quick points because this topic is of interest to me. I do have to fly at the moment.
 
 
illmatic
07:50 / 22.01.03
May: I love you as well, sugar. Thanks for replying.
(thinx: unlike these other bastards!)

The whole piercing and tats thing has been very interesting – it really blew up in the 90’s. I heard it made the couple who put out Research: Modern Primitive millionaires. Right place, right time. I wonder why it struck such a chord – at a guess I’d say people want a sense of connection or contact with something a bit “deeper” than standard consumer culture.

Is the navel/will connection something from Castenada? If you do have this association with this spot then I guess piercing it will change that – perhaps you could do it as an experiment and tell us all about it!? I associate the belly with Fire (which I suppose is pretty wilful) in that it’s where all the digestive acids consume and convert food into energy. It’s kind of like the powerhouse of the body.

I like your comments on posture – can you expand? I like the idea that we store memories in our muscles as much as our brains – reinforces the fact that the BodyMind is a unity, not two separate entities.

Reminds me of Reichian therapy as well – I’ve been doing the exercises in this book for a couple of years now and I’ve got to say they’re absolutely amazing – they let loose a lot of emotion and bring out some very surprising energetic experiences - to say the least. I don’t think I’ve finished them in any sense (let them slide for the last 6 months due to taking up Martial Arts) but they’re very powerful and I’d recommend them to anybody. I might expand on this and some of Reich’s ideas in a subsequent post.

So who else is going to spill the beans? I’d really like some more like some contributions on this one. I think working in some way - any way - with your body is absolutely key to magick. It Reinforces your mortality and humanity – which is perhaps why we spend so much of our time fleeing from it – reconnects with emotion, and makes you healthier (and sexier). I think there’s depths and depths in our relationship to our bodies that I’ll be unpacking for the rest of my life.

So – comments?

(Synchronicity patrol – after starting this thread a comment by Gypsy Lantern reminded me of Peter Redgrove’s book The Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense – and the connection between Barbelith and the placenta – see thread for an extract – you don’t get much more biological than the birth process after all!)
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:50 / 22.01.03
Kind of connected to this thread topic, I was comparing martial arts notes with a Karate black belt the other day, and got on to the subject of how martial arts training conditions you to think along certain lines which can carry over into other areas of life.

We both commented on how regular sparring can effectively change your attitudes to confrontational or difficult situations. For example, if you're under pressure in a work type situation, you can quite easily find yourself tapping into the same set of mental/emotional tools that you access during a sparring session. This is probably connected to the idea that whoever you are sparring against, the real adversary is always yourself and your perceived limitations.

Similarly, in Pencak Silat, almost from the very start there is an emphasis on fighting multiple opponents. You become conditioned to dealing with stuff happening all around you, sometimes having to fend off several sparring partners at once - switching your attention from one opponent to another, and from one direction to another, while remaining relaxed and grounded in your centre of balance.

This seems to build up a kind of 360 degree awareness, which has a definite effect on how you deal with situations outside of a martial arts context. I think the process of this is related to that idea in NLP where a persons language is linked to their emotional responses, i.e. "I feel this is right", "this looks right", "sounds right to me", "I think this is right", etc.. how the way you talk about something is connected to the way you experience it. You might describe a busy workload in terms of things coming at you from all over the place, so it follows that if you're conditioned physically and mentally to deal with attacks from multiple opponents, then the mental/emotional skills you've developed will carry over into other areas that you conceptualise in a similar way using language.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
10:08 / 22.01.03
Illmatic

Great post, much room for discussion here.

Putting aside chakras 'n' so forth for the moment, I'd say that for me the core of Body Alchemy is just learning to 'like' my body - I've been 'body shy' for years and am only now beginning to come to terms with this and doing something about it. Regular exercise, going to the dentists' etc., - all things I shied away from for years, using a variety of 'excuses'.
 
 
illmatic
10:27 / 22.01.03
This is probably connected to the idea that whoever you are sparring against, the real adversary is always yourself and your perceived limitations.

I can relate to that! As a newbie to Martial Arts I’ve found it sparring the most challenging part of the class. When faced with genuine aggression in sparring I found it very surprising – though ultimately it’s rewarding because you got to be able to deal with this sort of thing if you ever have the misfortune to tangle it up outside the dojo. The whole self expectation thing came into play while sparring as well, in that my self-image as a newbie limits me against people who very clearly think of themselves as Martial Artists.

The verbal/body connection rang a few bells for me as well. I’m reminded of the contrast between vivation or connected breathing (as written about in Dave Lee’s book – see link above) and the neo-Reichian therapy given in the Hyatt book Both work from a position of doing deep relaxed breathing to get you in a more emotionally open – energetically charged state. Reichian style stuff then works on the specific tensions experienced through physical exercises, while Vivation breathing works by re-conditioning the linguistic “tags” you have for these tensions. I’ve worked with both of these (though the latter only two or three times) and they both seem to work fine, so it seems there's more of a link between the verbal and bodily than might be first apparent. I wonder if this is maybe a limitation of Reichian stuff – conditions you to view tensions as blocks to be broken through (not to knock it too much though – it’s still amazing regardless)

Another interest contrast between breathwork type stuff like the above and martial arts is that with breathwork being flat on the back, it increased my body awareness, it hasn’t done anything to condition posture and movement in the way that martial arts do – though both are heading to the same place. The Reichian work aims to release tensions accumulated throughout childhood etc – and the Martial Arts I practice (Hsing I) aims to keep you moving (and belting people!)in a fluid and un-conditioned way again, as in early childhood.
 
 
Mike
10:40 / 22.01.03
Happiness is the pattern of sensations that your body has been sending to you the whole time, you just weren't aware of your body enough to be aware of the happiness. Happiness is part of the true human condition, it isn't something you have to find, it is something you were born with - now all you have to do is find your self.
 
 
Mike
11:04 / 22.01.03
http://www.solarraven.com/chanbuild.html
 
 
Mike
11:19 / 22.01.03
"Being grounded helps you stay solidly in your body. When you are strongly connected with the body of Earth, you are more aware of the sensations and energy flows in your own body and all the details of the world around you. This helps you respond to the world in a more immediate and appropriate way. You will stay in the present moment, letting the past be and trusting that the future will be even better." http://www.solarraven.com/center.html

There is a lot of good stuff on the solarraven site, although its a 'flea-bitten-white-witch' kind of site. However, whatever your beliefs, you need to be balanced, centred, and grounded.
 
 
illmatic
12:32 / 22.01.03
AoG - excellent point, and it has the virtue of simplicity. Perhaps just looking at your body in a mirror and observing reactions could be a starting point for this work.

Evy - I like you point about happiness - ties in with the Reichian stuff for me. You tend to get in blissful states quite easily, and I woindered several times if these feelings of intense happiness are in some way a "natual" response, perhaps how we felt in childhood (some of the time anyhow). Doesnt last long after the exercises unfortunately. Will check out the link when I have time.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
12:45 / 22.01.03
Illmatic

re: postures, etc. There's some good stuff on evolving yr own postures, mudras, etc. for magical workings in Steve Wilson's rather excellent Chaos Ritual (Neptune Press, 1994).
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
13:10 / 22.01.03
Great topic!

Not sure how relevant this is, not having much in the way of magical knowledge, but along aog's point of learning to like my body, and learning to find new uses for it.

I've been learning trapeze for about a year, and it has utterly changed my relationship to my own body, and to other peoples, to physicality in general. And by extension to how I see and experience the physical world. (it's the first time I've seriously worked at a physical/expressive practice. )

I see/feel a different person now.

Various things: I've *experienced* how utterly my body is tied into my emotions, my headspace, how these all work together, and begun to view myself much more as a holistic entity. I've also learnt that I can train and teach my body to do things I'd never have imagined, that it has capabilities and talents all of its own, and that often in this discipline, letting my body lead is the way to work. (for someone who's been very head-driven, and then heart-driven for a long time, this has been a major discovery)

Also how being up in the air and coming back down to the ground feels, emotionally, I'd guess, (feels almost a spiritual thing, something I'm not very in touch with/would have been loathe to admit to a year ago) and noticing that I'm much happier with the moves that head downwards, even if they're more dangerous, difficult than the stuff that involves standing on the bar/working upwards. Hard to describe but something inside and outside of me seems to veer towards those moves. An inclination/desire for grounding maybe?

As someone working on themselves and others through pyschotheapeutic/counseeling channels, this has totally revolutionized the way I work...

I'm also definitely much more aware of the energies in the room/of the others in my class than I was a year ago, can feel the tension in one of the girls, the excitement in another.

(our class is only 4 and our teacher is very focussed on teaching us to be a group and to tune into each ohter, so we do quite alot of meditation, trust work, - (a great part of this being working with acrobalance - in which one person acts as the base on which the other one balances/handstands etc.... being physically bound to someone else by trust, responsibility has been an amazing process. ) )
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
13:49 / 22.01.03
Oh, 'nother one, is dancing... there are moments (this happened to me last friday) where the combination of movement, sound, lights, heat, takes me completely somewhere else... not sure where, but as I say, this happened briefly on Friday, in a club, stone cold sober (aside from probable nicotine poisoning ) where I felt like I disappeared out of my body, it almost felt like watching it from somewhere else, watching other bodies passing through it.

As I say, with very little magical background, I have no paradigm for working with this, and I certainly don't have any control over it, but it's something that happens very occasionally, when I hit a certain intensity, and I think relates to breathing, movement, and the sound/rythmns and lights... the sensory stuff from outside and what's physically happening inside seem to fuse and take control at some point.

(and feel slightly barmy mentioning it...)
 
 
grant
14:25 / 22.01.03
Dancing's great that way, yeah.

One of the things I noticed while doing the LBRP during the "Modern Magick" book thing (now stumbled, alas) is that it seemed to get me to the same place as tai chi, only more... internally, in a way. There was a definite overlap.

I'm more used to tai chi and like it better. The self-defense thing is a bonus, although the LBRP-type stuff seemed more fitted to out-and-out meditation/magick work.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
14:35 / 22.01.03
Bengali, excellent post!
Personally, I don't think having a magical paradigm necessarily helps in just getting into an 'easy' relationship with yr body - it can even be a distraction. Interesting that you mention trust-building exercises, as it helped me cohere another point I was going to mention about Body Alchemy - that of taboos (both personal/social) about how/where we let others touch us. Just thinking, I was in this trust-building group a while back and the facilitator was getting us paired up and exploring each other's hands. The guy I was paired up with later said that was the first time he'd touched another man's hand in a context which wasn't about shaking hands or macho strength games.
Thoughts, anyone?
 
 
Papess
14:52 / 22.01.03
Hi Bengali! Circus Arts, right? Me too

I can relate to: "...letting my body lead is the way to work. (for someone who's been very head-driven, and then heart-driven for a long time, this has been a major discovery)...

Not that I have ever been particularly head-driven, but if I do start thinking with my head, such as analyzing or rationalizing, it almost always gets in the way of my body's intelligence. It does take alot of trust in oneself/universe (ego abandonment), to push the body beyond it's generally perceived limits. As one of my teachers used to say: "Flying is easy. Just jump and miss the ground."

Great advice, eh?

The posture thing I happened upon quite by chance myself. At the age of four, I would curl up with my palms in my eye sockets and project myself out of my body. Twenty years later, I learned that this is an actual yogic posture called "Elephant pose", (If I remember correctly - 20 yrs later is 10 years ago, just about.) It became apparent to me that at the times when I achieved gnosis or altered states, I would usually use a posture or hand gesture to do this.

ANother example is using a certain posture as I fall asleep to aid lucidity, especially during a spontaneous nap or to assist "gazing". The posture is lying on your back with the right leg bent so that your foot touches the inside of the left knee, hands behind the head. I found this posture in the shamanistic nagualism of Castenada's work with Don JUan.

From DOnJuan's teachings, another thing I found that directly effects my physical body, is developing my dreaming body. I will have to think more about it to write on it more, but using dream practices such as finding one's hands, becoming aware of one's surroundings while dreaming... tightens up both the dream body and the physical body. Essentially, one should be able to change their body by just dreaming it.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
14:55 / 22.01.03
Grant
regarding the LBRP/T'ai Chi crossover. I came at it the other way round, having done the LBRP (and other variants) for a while before getting into T'ai Chi (now lapsed, alas) and I found doing T'ai Chi/Qi Gong (sp.?) better for grounding/banishing/opening, so started using a banishing sequence formed from T'ai Chi/Qi Gong movements. Hard to describe - easy to do. One thing I have found useful is to rehearse ritual movements (sign of osiris slain, risen, etc.) and just be aware of how those movements affect breathing, sense of body in space, etc.
 
 
Seth
18:59 / 22.01.03
BiP: I get that when I dance sometimes. It also comes when I play drums, especially when I'm not afraid to be extremely physical. But then I don't believe it'll do anyone any good to sit behind a drum kit without thrashing seven tons of shite out of it. Djembe is also fantastic, especially if you wear it round your neck, freeing up your legs to move. There's something especially intriguing about the latter, as the drum feels like an extension of your body. Playing djembe taught me more about endurance than anything else I've encountered.

Here's one that people on here might be able to help me out with. I can't turn my shamanic inner heat off! It's like I'm constantly boiling over. I've always exuded heat, even in winter, but it's become nightmarish over the last couple of summers. I walk into work drenched, which makes me grumpy, self-conscious and uncomfortable until I've cooled down/dried out. Even in winter I'll find myself sweating uncontrollably. Is there anything I can do to sort this out?
 
 
Mike
19:38 / 22.01.03
Having a magickal paradigm can make you a little arrogant/detached. Even if its just a vague belief that energy is higher than matter the effect can be the same, the body starts to lose value to you. Have you ever felt like you could be free if only you didn't have to drag your body around with you? The moment these thoughts start to settle in, even sub/unconciously, they begin to weaken your union with your body. Your body is your grounding, its the biosystem that makes everything you do real. Even your magick becomes real through your body. If your union with your body is weak, your magick will be weak.
 
 
cusm
20:01 / 22.01.03
lying on your back with the right leg bent so that your foot touches the inside of the left knee, hands behind the head.

Hey, Hanged Man pose! I use that one a lot too, for much the same purpose.

I've worked with Tai Chi for about 5 years now, and that has definitely given a greater sense of body energy. The push-hands exercise especially, as you develop a fine sense of both your own body and that of your partner. But doing the forms, they are very meditative to practice. Your focus becomes completely one with what you are doing, and you are the movement. Body and mind are no longer seperate viewpoints. You are motion.

I get that dancing sometimes too. If I click right with the music, my body moves in unconscious response to the music and other dancers. The ego can step out and watch it, or just enjoy the bliss of it.

On the other hand, I've always had some wierd Turrets like problems with body and vocal, um, studdering? Its hard to describe. Kind of like internal energy is often cranked up too high for my physical system to handle, so it spills out into unwanted movements. Its often linked with words from the internal dialog as well that get "stuck". But as the words are visualized and abstracted as energy, the body is brought back under control through management of that energy. Its one of my prime reasons for studying magick and the lot, to get better at dealing with this "problem" and getting it to work more for me than against me. So, what was once more a sudden twitch now comes out more as an almost dance like wave of the hand, followed by some immediate internal energetic centering and circulation. So long as I keep myself in a constant state of zen like focus, I'm perfectly fine. No problem, eh?

On the up side, from having to deal with all that and all I've lerned from it, I can give one hell of a backrub
 
 
Mike
20:15 / 22.01.03
rofl!
 
 
arcboi
20:33 / 22.01.03
Not sure if this is relevant, but I recently caught a cold which appeared to do some very strange things to me. The only way I can phrase it is it completely 'upgraded' my head. While I had it, my brain seemed to work faster - it could make connections and links faster than before. I had a lot more energy. I also kept seeing these very odd blue flashes for some reason. Strange stuff.

Anyway, post-cold, some of the effects have passed but I'm now much more confident and assertive as a result.

When the psychic powers kick in, I'll post again. World domination will swiftly follow (as soon as I choose a fancy costume....).
 
 
gravitybitch
00:58 / 23.01.03
Here's one that people on here might be able to help me out with. I can't turn my shamanic inner heat off! It's like I'm constantly boiling over. I've always exuded heat, even in winter, but it's become nightmarish over the last couple of summers. I walk into work drenched, which makes me grumpy, self-conscious and uncomfortable until I've cooled down/dried out. Even in winter I'll find myself sweating uncontrollably. Is there anything I can do to sort this out?

Hmmm. I'm generally warm when I get into work, but that's due to me hiking up a somewhat steep hill... I usually just sit at my desk and collect myself for a few minutes before starting whatever is on tap for the day. There might be a strictly physical cause - how's your blood pressure?
 
 
· N · E · T ·
04:34 / 23.01.03
I've found Vipassana Meditation to produce an almost opiate-like high. I also use self-hypnosis and autosuggestion to make my fingertips tingle with relaxation. And whenever I am bored I start practicing pranayama, which suddenly removes the boredom.
 
 
Seth
04:35 / 23.01.03
I've never had a problem with it. What physical conditions could cause it?
 
 
illmatic
10:08 / 23.01.03
Very interesting to see such a diversity of posts. Reminds me how much I love dancing as well. I find if I've not been out for a while I tend to be self-concious (not hard being 6'4") till I slip into it. Not sure how I can judge this, short of an OBE, but I'm convinced that this lack of self conciousness is when you're dancing better, look better as well. It's one thing I kind of regret, now the whole house music/rave explosion seems to have died right down, that's there's less opportunities to dance all night. Seems less on the agenda but just getting mindlessly drunk has crept back in.

BiP on the flying trapezee - your posts reminded me a little bit of Reich's stuff again, he did some work on the fear of falling - not so much in terms of fear of heights, more in terms of letting go - a specific exercise would be just to try and let the top half of your body fall from the waist without catching yourself and note your reactions. (Without holding breath or tensions). Seems to relate to our fears of giving in, of release, that we inhibit ourselves against. Perhaps there's some relationship here.

Trust must play a huge role in this sort of work as well. Takes us from our relation with our own bodies to how we act with others. I saw a documentary recently which detailed a therapy programme run with very violent prisoners in a South African jail - they were allowing themselves to fall backwards (off a table maybe, can't remember) and be caught be their fellow inmates, similar to stuff I've seen in Christian baptism. You could tell it was incredibly powerful esp. for guys like these, who'd been seriously fucked up.
 
 
Mike
10:39 / 23.01.03
> I recently caught a cold which appeared to do some very strange things to me. The only way I can phrase it is it completely 'upgraded' my head.

Try sneezing and blowing your nose more often and sniffing less. This way you are clearing negen (negative energy - please remember this, I won't always bother to explain) out of your nasal system, which although simple, is crucial to the bodies control of nutren (nutral energy/chi/prana/whatever).

Every time you sniff and swallow, you are drawing that negen back into your system, every time you blow your nose, you're thowing that negen away with the tissue.
 
 
Seth
22:46 / 25.01.03
My blood pressure is 129. My pulse is in the early sixties. My blood oxygen level is teetering between 95/96. Not bad for a smoker, but I still sweat like a pig and want to know why!

They checked all that out when I went for a gastroscopy on Thursday. It's not an experience I'm likely to forget in a hurry:

I'm not the kind of person who gets upset about my health, so waiting for my appointment was a pretty relaxed affair. I was asked whether I wanted sedation, which I turned down. It would have meant that I wouldn't have been able to go to work that day or the next, and I couldn't even really afford the taxi back from the hospital.

Maybe I should have opted to be sedated. Gastroscopy is extremely unpleasant. They spray your throat in order to numb the sensation of the tube going down, then put a tooth guard in your mouth to prevent biting down on the cable. The feeling of something alien entering your body is bizarre, but it's when you start retching on reflex that you start to panic. The bile starts to surface, and you realise that you genuinely can't breathe unless you can find a means of relaxing and overcoming the fear.

It was fucking weird: I felt like I was an animal at the VET. Being held down by a couple of doctors while a nurse tries to calm you down, stroking my arm, telling me "You're doing really well." Meanwhile yet another nurse had a little hoover in my mouth to catch my saliva and bile. There were only two things I could do in the end to be able to work with what I ws going through; I focused on my breathing, staying as relaxed as I could; and I told myself that it was just another initiation, a symbolic death and rebirth.

It's not often that I encounter such a number of fears associated with my body. My bodily functions on display to a room full of strangers - the doctors having some kind of hidden, secret knowledge that I was not privy to - not being able to breathe - something alien entering my body in such a painful, uncomfortable and intrusive manner.

Thankfully I'm used to working with my fear, turning it into a resource and finding out more about myself. It seemed a relevant enough story to mention here.
 
 
penitentvandal
10:55 / 26.01.03
Abduction!

I once had a similar experience in hospital, having my chin stitched up after cracking it open on the concrete outside a pub while out drinking. The local anaesthetic wore off halfway through, but, being a total sissy and not wanting another needle inserted in my chin, I just kept quiet while the nurse did the stitching. Suddenly I found myself going all Morrison: being taken into a strange environment, having metal implants (stitches) placed in my body, etc, etc. Very interesting.

I think it would be interesting if we, as a society, chose to concentrate more on the initiatory aspects of medical procedures - Hermes is the god of medicine, after all. Maybe it woulfd help people heal faster, or heal on a psychological as well as a physical level. I dunno..

I'd like to umpteen the comment about dancing. I've had a couple of experiences of doing magic in nightclubs: there's something about dancing around in a frenzy to loud music that just seems conducive to certain types of spell for me.
 
 
arcboi
11:09 / 26.01.03
Try sneezing and blowing your nose more often and sniffing less. This way you are clearing negen (negative energy - please remember this, I won't always bother to explain) out of your nasal system, which although simple, is crucial to the bodies control of nutren (nutral energy/chi/prana/whatever).

Very interesting model Evy. I thought it was a case of the chemical structure of my brain being altered in some odd way. Although the effects have mostly passed, I'm working on retaining that state of mind by pure determination.

There was I reading up on NLP and doing magick to achieve similar results - and a cold comes along and does all the work for me. Did I mention I love this universe?
 
 
Mike
11:54 / 26.01.03
Its a wonderful and awesome place really, isn't it? :-)
 
 
Rev. Wright
22:25 / 26.01.03
my physicallity has always been a fundemental part to any esoteric understanding of reality that I have had. I was supposed to have been born disabled and through unconscious energy healing from my mother I have been left without any major disfigurment.

I still battle with the emotinal body and physical body overlap, but hey thats the realm of exercise that needs more attention.

Expressionless your heat issue may be to do with your metabolism, like mine it may be fast, thus plenty heat and weight gain around the belly.

My most recent physical awareness is my reptilian tail. I have been gaining familiarity with the ancestoral appendage through dancing. Conjuring the sensation of it, using it to guide the flow of my hips and fluidity of motion. Has anyone else had any experience with this part of their spinal cord?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
22:58 / 26.01.03
May: well, I'm a total beginner, but yeah, already hooked on the acrobatic side of Circus Arts ... want to try and find an actual acrobalance class, as what little i've done has been amazing...

Just noticed this in yr original post, Illmatic:

I like the idea that we store memories in our muscles as much as our brains – reinforces the fact that the BodyMind is a unity, not two separate entities.

And this is definitely another thing that I've experienced through trapeze. It's an *idea* I've always subscribed to, just1 as I've *talked* alot about how often we resist connecting with our bodies/seeing ourselves as embodied entities, as this involves connecting on some level with our mortality/limitations.

But trapeze has allowed me to experience these things.

Eg, I *know for a fact* that having just had a months' break from trapeze, my body still remembers the moves, whereas my mind doesn't nearly as well, and my heart is scared, worried about *trying* to remember, nervous about falling off, hurting myself.

And know, from experience, if I just trust my bodily memory, I'm fine, and that some part of me knows what I'm doing.

This has taught me much as Illmatic describes, that I'm a holistic entity and that I can let different parts of myself take charge at different times, depending on which knowledge I need in a given situation.

And has connected me with my embodiment in a new way, one that isn't dancing or sexually based.
 
 
Seth
22:58 / 26.01.03
You calling me fat, Will? I'll kill you and eat your bones!

You may well be right there, mate. Anyone familiar with ways of dealing with that?
 
 
FrootBroot
02:10 / 27.01.03
I'm a dancing fool. One of my favorite movement practices is based on the work of Gabrielle Roth. It is freeform dance/movement that moves through a sequence of five rhythms.
1.flowing (like improvised tai-chi)
2.staccato (sharp,forcefull,linear,percussive)
3.chaotic (let go,give birth to a dancing star,get mad)
4.lyrical(light and free, a toddler's ballet)
5.stillness (be still)
Find a different piece of music (or make your own) for each rhythm.
Play the music in sequence and let yourself dance through each rhythm. Try to let your breathing match the rhythm.
You can do it anywhere you have space and music. you can do it alone or in a group.You don't have to be a good dancer, or even coordinated because there is no wrong way to move.Just be sure to use your whole body.
I have had interesting emotional experiences moving in rhythms that I don't usually choose to move in.
 
  

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