Listening to my inner space generates an experience of “muteness” . . . When I try, I do not perceive much. My organs feel fl at and very mute.
To me, this kind of insight seems as meaningful as any other insight concerning our bodily sensations and states.
I will now turn to the fourth topic, which is concerned with the inner world, that is Breath. Breath is a signifi cant topic in many ways. All the participants wrote a
lot about breath. Being attentive to one’s breath seems to be the fi rst step towards bodily consciousness, and breath also seems to lead to changes in a person’s physiological, physical and mental states (Klemola 2005; Parviainen 2006; Shear
& Jevning 1999).
If focusing on my breath generates a pink feeling for me and I like it, it is just fun! I am waiting for a pink feeling.
. . . As his/her hand settled down softly into a light contact on my sternum, on the surface of my body, my breath changed immediately. It shifted sharply to move my stomach and left my chest hollow, narrow, stiff and lifeless. It felt like it had escaped, retrieved from its touch. A superfi cial consent to touch! My body told me that it did not want to open up to touch, that I did not want it and did not trust its comfort. My breath had a powerful and obstinate manner of controlling my opening to or shutting out the situation.
Breath is still a clear movement, human and painless. I notice that I think about whether communication among human beings were so clear; in, out and wait. And again.
It must be quite obvious by now that the topics are interconnected. It is diffi cult to fi nd an account that would be just about one topic. Bodily sensations are connected with breath, breath is connected with thinking, and so on. In a way, all the topics are interconnected.
Connecting
However, there is still another meaning to “Connecting”. Here, it means relationship between body and mind, and fi nally, between a person, other people and the world.
In interpreting the accounts that seem to fall under “Connecting” I have tried to honour the complexity and richness of the meanings that are embedded. In looking at Body-Mind Unity my intention has also been to focus on the movement between bodily consciousness and mental refl ections, and to contemplate on the possibility of seeing these modes of consciousness as one. The following account is, to me, a beautiful example of this movement:
I become warm and sweaty, energy is bubbling in me. Play arises from somewhere in my body.
It starts with a clear description of a bodily state, that is, being warm and sweaty.
The next part, referring to energy, is still clearly connected to physiology, but it also contains another level of meaning, “energy bubbling” is almost a metaphor. To me, it refers to a holistic feeling, to a feeling of vitality, of the life force (Klemola 2005).
Then, the last part connects body physiology and this holistic feeling to a cultural concept of play. This is, to me, a rich and complex expression that connects cultural and situational knowledge to a bodily sensation. It is a poetic expression that evades explanation and analysis, and tells about human experience in a way that only poetic language can.
The following account is, for me, quite poetic as well. It begins with a statement that describes a situation, a condition that the person experiences as awareness, in both the mental and bodily senses:
Awareness of everything that I still must have time to take care of today pounds and weighs. Every cell gets fi lled with worries and things, and it feels heavy . . . If I feel that my body is full – it is full of worries and responsibilities, that feeling is a concrete sensation of being full. Would I be empty without tasks, worries, responsibility? Is my existence thus, about being full? What if I tried to be empty? . . . If I were empty, would be light? Would I fl oat?
I see quite a loaded existential question embedded in this account, in the Sartrean spirit. It is grounded in the bodily sensation of feeling heavy, but it also contains a metaphorical sense of being heavy, or full. Then, this sensation and idea of heaviness is being connected with the concept of responsibility, and all of this is being contrasted with emptiness and lightness, again in both the literal and metaphorical senses. Citing Lakoff and Johnson (1999, 50–52): “Our conceptual systems and linguistic categories consist of metaphors that link our bodily existence with the way we think.”
Finally, the participants wrote about connecting to others and the world:
Today I was able to concentrate on my own bodily sensations and still observe the environment more than usual. Am I more open or more careless? In a way, it feels free. There is no need to doodle. The inner and outer worlds settle into quite a good relationship without eff ort.
It feels good, when dance and one’s own movement . . . feel real. “Real” can be of course many diff erent things . . . Sensing each square centimetre of one’s own body and the other’s body,
warmth. Simplicity . . . It also feels good to fi nd a way to be honest to oneself and not to go along with something that is not important to oneself. Now I feel strongly that only in this way I can also be in true connection with other people. In dance and elsewhere . . .
The embrace – the embrace and touch of the world. The world carries me, it touches me, it enters me and becomes me. I am in the world, I am of the world – air and earth. Now I am sitting on the ground, it pulls me towards it, into its lap, deep, into sleep. It presses, invites, thought of death, darkness, end – under the ground but still in the sky, in the air, in a dream – dream brings me belief, love. Dream. Plunge. I plunge into a dream, fl oat and glide. I withdraw from the earth, from death . . . The will to live, to continue, the will to caress the world, its continuity. I am part of it, I breathe it, it becomes me and gives me life and strength . . . Air, oxygen, wakes me up, strengthens me. Creates a will, a desire to be right. To do right. To take care of the world. To take care of myself. To be good. Towards myself, the others, the world. To be good and alert.