Sunday, September 03, 2006
Dancing Outside the Body
I was running late. I needed to get going, take myself across town, go shopping for clothes (finally, after putting it off for months. I dread going shopping, and will postpone going until it is absolutely mandatory.) I had decided not to do my "practice" this morning, but simply dash out quickly before I changed my mind.
But, as I stood in the kitchen swallowing my many supplements, something stirred along and within my arms. I realized it was "the friend," giving me a gentle nudge. So I went into the living room, and began my movements, slow and sweet.
And then it occurred to me to do something I have never done before. Now, I have often "danced in the subtle body," and indeed this is what I think of as my morning practice. My "dance," which I have described before, consists of subtle movements which cause a kind of "blissful streaming" along the arms and face and other places, sometimes delightful, other times totally rapturous.
But this was different. As I lifted my arms, it seemed as though my energies (still ecstatic) swooped upward and outward. It was almost like being out of body, yet I was well anchored in my physical self. Partly it was "imagination," a mental event. But it also had a quality about it of expanding, of entering unfamiliar territory, as if I were taking energetic leaps like those warriors in the Chinese movies who fly through the air toward the opponent, in ways we know are impossible for the merely human.
I was not really out of my body, but in ways it felt like it. I wondered why I had never tried this before.
I finally managed to pull myself away and go off on my mission. (The shopping trip was a disaster. It was not my day. I found nothing at all, and came home tired and empty handed.)
But, as I stood in the kitchen swallowing my many supplements, something stirred along and within my arms. I realized it was "the friend," giving me a gentle nudge. So I went into the living room, and began my movements, slow and sweet.
And then it occurred to me to do something I have never done before. Now, I have often "danced in the subtle body," and indeed this is what I think of as my morning practice. My "dance," which I have described before, consists of subtle movements which cause a kind of "blissful streaming" along the arms and face and other places, sometimes delightful, other times totally rapturous.
But this was different. As I lifted my arms, it seemed as though my energies (still ecstatic) swooped upward and outward. It was almost like being out of body, yet I was well anchored in my physical self. Partly it was "imagination," a mental event. But it also had a quality about it of expanding, of entering unfamiliar territory, as if I were taking energetic leaps like those warriors in the Chinese movies who fly through the air toward the opponent, in ways we know are impossible for the merely human.
I was not really out of my body, but in ways it felt like it. I wondered why I had never tried this before.
I finally managed to pull myself away and go off on my mission. (The shopping trip was a disaster. It was not my day. I found nothing at all, and came home tired and empty handed.)
