Including the potential manifestations of our abstract thinking.
Remembering 9/11 and thinking about how we might act going forward to foster peace. That requires, I think, facing and responding and balancing some hard truths about ourselves.
Yes, I am speaking about myself, not just society at large.
I am not sure how much longer it would have taken me to notice this little bit of street art if we had not been sent out of the building for a fire alarm. We knew it was not a drill because the Secretary was to be offering cookies and photo opps next to the “holiday” tree — the one that looks just like the trees the Christians coopted from the pagans — and having everyone exit the building would interfere with those plans. Me, I am not particularly interested in desserts before lunch, and I already have a photo of me with the Secretary. I had time to grab my hat and coat, so I am enjoying the enforced break. The theory–since the fire department sent only one truck, and they let us start returning almost as soon as we evacuated, is that they burned a batch of the cookies for the party. Maybe this is an appropriate moment for the phrase “it’s all good.”
Thursday night, I took a dance improvisation workshop at Dance Exchange, the second in a series of three workshops. One of the exercises we did was in groups of two. The game was to do simultaneous improvisation. Without designating a particular person as a leader, each dancer was to try and stay in synchronized movement with his or her partner. When we were done with the exercise, some of the dancers talked about their goal having been to be in control of the lead or trying to push their partner past his or her edge. I had been innocently (or perhaps naively) unaware of these dynamics, as I had been seeking to find where the dance could be the leader rather than either partner.
After the workshop, when I was walking to the metro with the teacher and another participant, both of whom are performers in their 20s, I raised the issue of people trying to push others past their edge (I’d held off raising it in the group as it seemed too many were in a different space). I said that knowing that my partner was a lot less flexible than me, though lots stronger, and knowing his competitive edge, I never would have tried to push him beyond his physical limits.
The teacher said he liked being pushed past where it seemed like a good idea; it made him get to another place. I agreed that it is good to try to expand, to go beyond what we think are our limits. I have been taught, though, by my teacher John Friend, not to blow past my limits. Rather, in the practice of Anusara yoga, we seek to be intimately and exquisitely aware of our edge at every moment, and then expand it. The game with the partner using this paradigm would have been to find the edge and then see if the dance could expand it rather than to try and exert control or see if we could push our partner past his or her limits at our partner’s risk. When we operate in a paradigm of straining and striving, or we push for control or try to compete with ourselves or with others, that is where we get injured. I’ve had my share of dance injuries, I added, but to continue dancing through the decades, I cannot be blowing past my limits, though I am still growing. I was not sure that what I said felt relevant, but I could also tell that it was information that went into the thought mix for later.
Are you confident enough to face what life brings you day-to-day?
Perhaps I would find more credibility in the map if the well-meaning creators of the “U.S. Peace Index” recognized that real human beings who wish to live in peace and who are U.S. citizens reside in the District of Columbia (though perhaps they are not included because local governance of the citizens of the District are subject to the whims and opinions of elected officials from both the most and least peaceful of states and thus are governed by the whole map). It is of interest nonetheless.
