The Art of Writing 5 - Sensing your length and depth
Our orientation to gravity is central to life on Earth.
Every movement we make is shaped by the contour of its force.
Do we consider our centre the middle of our pelvis or is it really the middle of the earth?
Our weight falls 6,000 kilometres into the centre of the earth. Our elasticised bodies bounce out of there to walk within the sky (It comes down to the ground!)
Jordan Whitt via UnSplash
Our weight flows through endless layers of living forms, from the moss and lichen on this rock to the life that thrives in water and soil. Even single celled organisms have a body that can sense their environment. The feeling of those senses is spread through the fabric of their bodies in the same way that it is in ours. It’s that animate consciousness .. the sense of our animal body that we share with all life on earth.
Our presence is felt through the crust and mantle to the flow of molten rock in the core .. If we listen to our contact with the world as an animal .. what can we hear .. ?
Writing is the expression of our contact with the world. This lesson this blog refers to considers the role of our feet. It’s not just our movement through the world ..
Our feet are like ears .. capable of the most spine tingling sensitivity ..
How Soon Ngu via UnSplash
They are connected by the long bones and resonant inner spaces of our body to our actual inner ears.
We are a miracle of interconnected segments entwined and enclosed yet open to the vast spaces of existence.
Our feet, on the earth are a voice of our presence.
Shlomi Platzman via UnSplash
So this lesson considers the differences between our feet and hands through exploring the movement of your toes in a variety of orientations. How do your feet connect with your pelvis?
How does our pelvis ‘propel’ us? It’s twisted in two directions at the top and bottom just like a propeller. Does that make a difference? The head, chest and arms connect from above and the feet and legs from below. How does that relate to the double spiral arrangement of our body?
Created using the Visible Bodies App
In the last lesson our writing exercise considered what was central to our lives. This one considers what supports us ..