Trying something different

This class we experimented and tried something a little different. The image that we were capturing was a classroom from our childhood. Just like usual we took the time to become fully relaxed. I have noticed that using water in the warm up is very powerful. With water I am always able to capture a specific sound, feel, smell, sight, rhythm, and sometimes taste. There is just something naturally soothing about the use of water when we are aiming to focus, relax, and let go. Is it ironic that we aim to flow as well?

And following the same pattern and following the same steps we captured an image of a classroom from our past. I captured my kindergarten classroom. My anchors were a shoestring, heater, and chalkboard eraser. It is amazing the amount of information that I gathered from the heater area. I could feel the heat rising from the heater and placed my hands out it. It was so comforting. The heater was located right in front of a window as well, and I could see the morning sun cutting through the blinds. This told me that it was morning and that it was in a cooler month of the year. My kindergarten class didn't have desks. We simply had spots on the floor with our names on tape. So when it came time for us to open a drawer, I moved to the teachers desk. I decided to open her middle drawer on the right. This is where we changed things up from what we had been doing. During the dip, instead of tagging anchors in the drawer at an elevated pace, tone, volume and energy, we took a calm approach. We simply remained calm and our bodies still. Instead of exhausting ourselves with that method, we moved our fingers very rapidly through the drawer tagging the anchors. The fingers were doing all the work as we tagged and traced the objects in a fast but calm state. If done correctly, the fingers really do start moving very quickly and burning energy. Once some time had passed and we had tagged our anchors enough we relaxed our gaze and allowed the drawer to develop. I found a stack of cheap, flimsy paper plates underneath my anchors and seeing them urged me to look up at the back corner of the room. There on the wall in the back-right corner of the room I saw turkeys we had made out of construction paper, our hand prints, and paper plates. This gave me another huge clue as to the time of the memory. With the turkeys on the wall and the heater on I deducted that it was around Thanksgiving. This blew my mind. Continuing on, one of my anchors was a red folder. Very bright red and that stood out because most of the colors from my memory were very dull and muted. So I felt compelled to open it. I zoomed in and flipped open the folder, expecting to find some crazy pieces of paper or grades. Instead I found it to be completely empty. I closed the drawer and harvested with the class.

The harvest really did become more and more detailed as I spent time with the objects and area in a out loud exploration. It really sinks in for me when I am vocal for the class and for myself. Small details revealed themselves during this time.

I wanted to talk more about the change in the dip method this class. It definitely worked for me. I mentioned during the harvest that it took longer for things to appear this way. But I feel like keeping the body in a relaxed state and keeping the energy there helped to open up other things. I felt more alert and drawn to objects within the image going by this method. It just felt like there were beacons lit up in the image for me. The other way I have felt more hesitation in identifying anchors or objects of interest, even though things were appearing quicker. The loud method usually has images flashing in front of me like pages in a book. Even though it took longer this way, the image that did appear felt more solid and not a flash. Isn't that interesting. I also like having another method for tackling this work because like Jon said sometimes you might find yourself in an area or position where it is not possible to do the loud method. I would like to try and practice with this some more to see if it is consist and if it offers any other insights compared to the loud way.



Some interesting things I noted:
*My first anchor I found myself drawn to was a shoe tying practice shell. As I moved to the object from across the room, I noticed that my attention was actually drawn to the shoelace rather than the holder the closer I got. So I used the much smaller lace as the anchor and not the original object I spotted. Interesting.

*When I opened the red folder during the dip I was surprised to find nothing inside. But reflecting on it during the harvest it made perfect sense that it was empty and reflected the teacher that I had. Interesting.

*I just wanted Jon to know that I took quite a bit of ballet in college as well. Anchors coming from the spotting for making a turn is quite genius and extremely relevant. It makes so much sense to me and thank you for sharing that.

This is a great read. I hope others will read it. I believe you will find Streaming to be a major part of your work Process.