I was deeply touched, first by a dance performance by Tate McRae, and again when choosing to transcribe the words shared by John Butler in an interview by Iain McNay. (it's the voice over in the dance performance). As we step into this Memorial Weekend I invite you to entertain stillness, engage presence of mind to truly BE in the experience and have an extraordinary time. Find things to do that engage you completely for sustained periods so your ability to be there, just be there, starts to return. If you're near Houston/Montgomery I can help this happen! Come dance!
I run, I swim laps, and appreciate the level of stillness created in my mind from the endless monotony of these activities.
I also LOVE how the multi skilled task, of teaching a Nia class, demands I must go to an intensely silent place in my mind. The experience feels like I'm at the center of a whirling storm of senses, thoughts and feelings. I'm in a silent still place with the constant flow of potentially distracting random, unique things occurring constantly (music, moves, ideas, people, expression, noises, memories, nervousness), a well of inspiration I can draw from at any time without feeling the necessity, or desire, to "attach" at any time. It's a fabulous "vacation of presence" for an hour and I'm rather addicted!
Transcript from "Stillness - dance performance"
"When you find yourself deeply absorbed in just doing something, whether it is making an airfix model or painting a picture, whatever it is, see if you can see the really moving part of the experience is when you are so absorbed with it, for a moment you loose all sense of yourself.
The other thing is because we feel so unsettled, if we did have the space, we need distraction to draw us out of how we actually feel... so the point is.... One thing is to create space by bringing less into our lives so we have more space to enter into things. And the other is to settle ourselves enough so we can actually enjoy being there in the experience… All the stress, agitation, tension we feel, shaking in the heart, the tension in our nerves from being constantly over stimulated, means we constantly need to be distracted from that thing.
When you are really attuned to what is going on, life is utterly exquisite, it’s extraordinary, everywhere you look…. Far more extraordinary than it looks, you understand, the real depth of it comes from how we feel when we enter it and that is what makes it exquisite... That capacity to feel what we are part of. That stillness comes when you are utterly immersed in what you are doing… your mind is not arriving to disturb the stillness in the heart so …. we say….
If you want to know stillness move until you are unmoved by it!
Even if you don’t do that, find things to do in life that engage you completely for sustained periods so our ability to be there, just be there, starts to return.
What moves you to stillness? What speaks to you from this performance, words, interview? I'm curious to know and appreciate what you choose to share.