I Feel Carried by the Fog

The fog is present these days as the temperatures are slowly rising. And the earth is starting to awaken from its frozen sleep. These deep dark nights of cold and ice and motionless energy are slowly transforming.

Oh yes it is Monday, I have started drinking a coffee a day three days ago and already I feel electric. Why? Well I also sometimes have the need to break rules and be a bad girl! By the way I hate all kinds of labels: bad girls, good girls, macho men, performative guys….

But I love the fog. And because it is Monday and 16:20, (not an ideal time to start writing the blog, but I couldn’t start earlier) I am sitting here in the studio and writing today’s blog about the fog.

You may think that I am repeating myself, but as you must know by now if you have been reading me, I love repetitions, in movement too, because we all know that a repetition is actually not entirely possible. It is always a little different. And this fog is definitely very different. I have had long walks these past days in the fog, in the forest as well as in the city. And I have collected dew drops on the tips of my hair, sticking out from under my beret. In the photos you can maybe sense the magical atmosphere through which I have walked and which have enchanted me in my inner world.

I feel carried by the fog! The air is sensual in a fog because your skin can feel its touch through the humidity. My nose is happy in this air as it collects the smells of the forest. I feel as if I am smoothly caressing the space filled with fog, by walking through it, inhaling it, collecting the humidity and feeling its cool on my face and in my nostrils. Then I get this feeling that I am carried by it.

The whole of the walk from that point on, once I had walked uphill and arrived at the upper plane where the fields are turned into a gliding-in-the-fog-kind-of-walk. Being carried by the fog, by the space, by the trees and the sun which managed to shine through the thick white air. 

I wonder if there will be fog again tomorrow morning…

What has that to do with the book? Oh yes, I had the intention since yesterday to write also about my writing process. I am really pleased with myself, because this week I worked well on the book. I managed to finish one more chapter and also added a couple of paragraphs to my “somatic dialogue meditations”. Mainly I was working on the textbook as I am now putting together all lessons from both cycles. So I had to go back to my notes and somehow synchronize them. I am taking the second cycle as a base and into it I am inserting the comments and exercises from the first cycle. 

Going back in time. I have listened to two past lessons, both recorded two years ago. It is always fascinating and irritating to listen to oneself. During the 1st cycle I had taken the time to listen to all the lessons’ recordings and do the transcripts myself. Can you imagine? all those hours I had to listen to myself. It may seem like a torture, and believe me it is. I wonder how the participants were not fed up hearing my voice. I definitely was fed up with my own voice. I really had to discipline my inner judgement, because sometimes I found myself making comments to myself, criticizing my tone, my energy, moments where I get passionate (completely unnecessarily). But I guess after half way through I managed to alienate myself from my own voice and I started listening to it as if it was another person. 

During the second cycle I was lucky enough to have our lovely program assistant Zeynep Camli, who did the transcripts for me. I felt sorry for her, as she had to hear my voice twice (she was present during the live lessons and then did their transcripts from the recordings). So I was lucky. Therefore after two years listening to some lessons stirred up memories in me. But I am less critical of myself now, because looking back I now know that then I did what I could. It was what it was. And now I am different, because the whole program not only provided an embodied learning for the participants but also for me. 

Listening to my speaking, to Beliz, to the comments of the participants actually taught me so much last week. It is not that I learned something new, but I had forgotten some subtleties. I think that some of the lessons I will listen to again, because from there open doors to other spheres.

Then of course I thought, oh now I have to really hurry up and write and finish the book, so that my colleagues can read it and remember. This work is so layered, it constantly transforms and what was years ago is different today, but when you listen to what was, it revives in today. I don’t know if this makes sense?

However this weekend I was writing about a lesson and then its analysis and there  I wrote the following: “When we create the time and space to work on the floor in a horizontal position we can with time accept and learn that we are supported and carried by the floor. Through the simple contact with the floor while we work on the horizontal plane we can experience the necessity to unhold and to nestle into ourselves as opposed to carrying ourselves.

We should be able to nestle as much into ourselves as we carry ourselves. Both should become positive habits.” 

It somehow resonated with me in the forest: the necessity of both carrying ourselves and being carried by the floor or the space. That is, we can hold and control our movements and avoid interaction with the space, the floor and the air, but we can also learn to nestle into ourselves and allow ourselves to be carried by the floor, the space and the air.

Practicing the being carried version of the movement opens us to a vast world of sensations and connectivity in our body. We stay in the movement and in a quality of unholding, which allows us to be active but not completely. So we can feel our weight nestling into our structures, but also the energy that moves us, so that we don’t become too heavy.

This is what I felt with the fog. I was carried by the fog, and could rest in my body although I walked 10km, uphill and downhill. 

This sensation of being carried can also be transferred to listening… Now I am really developing this idea here for the first time. 

When I listen during a conversation or a dialogue, I can nestle into my own ground and let the sounds and words of the environment carry me. Which means that I don’t have to be too focused on listening, but let the words and sound reach me because they carry me. 

I think I have to think about this idea a little bit more, but I can see the image… Allowing oneself to be carried by a fog of activity, visions, sounds, words…interactions….

Well, before I get too carried away, I will share with you of course all the photos of my walks. This time, there are many. 

Meet you next week,

Stay well and try being carried for a change.

With love

B