Stop to Start — A Moving Inquiry On a Flower's Opening
Monday Magic: Noticing Habits and Returning to the Body's Rhythm
Hi, I’m Faye, welcome! In this space, we get weird and wonderful and sometimes naughty on the path to personal empowerment. And we do it through the language of movement. We move from prescriptive to expressive. From obedient to deviant. From copied to embodied.
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This week, I took a pause from the crazy whirlwind of activity that had been my life for the past couple months and sunk into a slower pace. I basked on the porch and noticed the flowers that had sat in wait all winter, slowly yet decidedly pushing their way through the soil. All different shapes, colors, sizes. All at their own paces. All in different states of opening.
We are like this. Though perhaps sometimes it is hard to see in the hustle and bustle of things, that we are indeed this same sort of organic process. That our bodies, when released from the conditions we place on them, are movements of organic pattern.
“Nature—human nature included—is an organism, and an organism is a system of orderly anarchy. There is no boss in it, but it gets along by being left alone and being allowed to do its stuff. That’s what the Chinese Taoist philosophy calls wu wei, which means—not ‘doing nothing’—but ‘not interfering with the course of events.’ Not acting against the grain.
Now this is the time to introduce the… word, lǐ, in Chinese… which had the original meaning of the markings in jade, the grain in wood, and the fiber in muscle. And it’s usually translated ‘reason,’ or ‘the principle of things.’ These are not very good translations. The best translation of lǐ is ‘organic pattern.’” — Alan Watts
To tune back into the organic rhythms and patterns of our bodies, it’s useful to have a bit of a reset in the form of a pause. And that’s what this week’s prompt is about, which you’ll notice is now called Monday Magic since, in this space of slowness a lot of changes that wanted to happen revealed themselves.
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Something I paid a lot of attention to is how often our action (or lack thereof) comes from habits of thought and movement; we do what we’re programmed to do and don’t question it. Perhaps some of us could use a new operating system?
We think about what we “should” do and do that, or we just do what we normally do without pausing to notice what we really want. Like the way we grab the same snack at 3 pm whether we’re actually hungry or not, or how we bob our heads to music, fearing how “weird” our dancing is, or how we insist on sitting in our dangerously comfortable pits of despair, victims to our longing, rather than taking the first step to meet it.
Here’s the thing: your body is beyond brilliant. It knows so much more than you think it does. It knows how to organically move in response to a stimulus (like music, or being touched, for example) but often we cut off this movement potential with our habits.
We WANT to move like wildfire, but we think we are a flame that should be smothered. And that’s what shows up in our movement. A song hits us in the hips, but we’re afraid to dance in a way that would express that, for fear of being seen. We WANT to writhe in pleasure on the floor, but we think that would be inappropriate.
The body’s desires are honest, innocent.
We have the choice to free ourselves from the habits that bind us. And it begins with noticing and allowing whatever arises, moment to moment
The practice: Stop to Start
Here’s the process:
Find somewhere comfy to settle in where you’ll be able to lie down, breathe, and listen, undisturbed, for 10-20 minutes.
Read the poem below, A Flower’s Opening
Listen to the guided body scan
Keeping the poem in mind, hit play on the playlist linked below the body scan video. You can shuffle or not. Play one song or many. The intention is for you to learn to sense your body’s response to the music, while imagining your movement as the organic process of your body feeling and revealing whatever it needs to right now.
Remember: Observation > judgement is the main thing here. Intend to notice when you feel a sensational impulse to move, and to let any thoughts that may follow just keep on floating.
A Flower's Opening
Is anything more honest
than a flower's opening?
Her slow revealing.
Plump buds waiting, teasing,
whispering,
“I know you want to
know inside me.
I know your longing.”
And there she goes,
and there you wait,
and the birds all the while are chirping,
sharply this moment,
(they must like what they see),
and the sun goes on shining
even when clouds seem to obscure it,
and soldiers of stems and leaves
find peace in the garden,
guarding her delicate secret till,
one warm afternoon,
she spirals open,
reaching for you.
Her nectar, an offering.
Her heart, your fruit.
Daffodils with two layers of petals,
lush and colors spiraling.
Newly bloomed pale yellows and
centers of rich egg yolk.
Daffodils bouncing with the breeze.
A hawk flying into the distance.
(where is she going?)
High pitched tweets,
whistles,
vibratos.
A succulent mountain,
creamy green
flat leaves
and prickly bits up the edges.
The things themselves,
unassuming,
What are these stems
growing daily taller?
Membranes folded into themselves,
Their mouths,
crevasses opening,
hungry to reveal
another mystery.Body Scan
After your practice, take a moment to reflect.
How does your body feel after this movement practice? What did you notice while you were moving? What thoughts or emotions surfaced? How did you respond to them?
I invite you to share any insights in the comments, or if you prefer to remain private, a direct message!
P.S. If this practice felt foreign, or like a reach, keep playing with it. It takes time and practice to learn to trust the rhythm of your body. I also suggest revisiting this practice a couple times a week:
Yawn the Body Open: Embody your Unique Rhythm
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ICYMI: Last Week’s Practices:
To Become Our Longing is To Touch the Ineffable Thing.
Your Secret Selves Hold Golden Threads of Wisdom
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