Finer Dipping

Dipping Class 3

Softer version of Dipping - useful for really any situation for practice/process, but especially for times when in a tight spot, or don’t have much space or privacy to work.

Main alterations: closer, tighter, longer span of time while softly attacking.

Relaxation exercise
Enter prompted space, “I wonder what I see; I wonder what I sense” - Childhood classroom. Establish large anchors in room to secure spatial imagery.
Spend short time drawing these anchors closely, allow 360 view of room to unfold.
Sit down at desk. Take time to take in the sensory aspect with breathing.
Open desk; Explore whole area generally, take breath, start dipping. This dipping is equally quick, but quieter, more precise and contained, like peeling a banana or painting a model plane, engaging fine motor imaging. Explore anchors.

Notes: Jon mentioned that anchors were inspired by establishing a “mark” associated with ballet. This is a very good image, and the kind of metaphor that clicks instantly. It is a reference point. Head leads, then body moves toward.

Details: only open to detail when you’ve found and anchor. Then when dipping, when you focus, you can feel it, sense it, smell it. Soft focus helps create a more “general” sensing, and it allows the other senses to come into play, reducing the stronghold that the visual typically has over us. The visual is a great tool, but it really is only a tool for inviting the other senses.

Value: a lot of what comes through in terms of imagery does not have specific value, especially in the beginning, but it comes through over the course of the process.

Great takeaway: objects are really revealing, sometimes even more than an event.

Harvest: I’m learning how incredible the harvest is after doing the work. When you’re in the work, you really can’t analyse it; and I’m learning that if you’re doing it right, you won’t feel inclined to analyse afterward either. When I really feel like I’ve connected into it, the image becomes vividly living. I can look away, I can take some time with a thought, or even a conversation, and then look back to the image, and it is still vivid. I’ve found that often the emotive evocation is still there as well. Jon said that when we have to articulate it to ourselves and to others in the harvest, this is often when the sensory vividness, those images really come through, crystallizing. I’ve experienced this again and again to be true.

The slower exercise was a lot more effective, engaging and approachable than the louder dipping -- however, I understand the value of both. Coming from a singing background, I’ve learned that you have to start with the gross first, and then come down to the fine and refined. You kind of have to establish a scope for the work, otherwise, you wouldn’t know how to get specific, because you wouldn’t know what too large, broad and diffuse looked like. The finer dipping felt a lot more intimate, and wasn’t as shell-shocking to the relaxed body as the grosser version. I think it depends on the person. For those who are really, really in their cognitive mind -- which I often am, the grosser version I think could be helpful, because you’re forced (like a full commitment) to get over yourself, and whatever the cognitive mind believes “about” the experience you’re having. The fine dipping is maybe more aligned to people who are kind of already operating on the liminal, and elicit sensory feeling through very little. Then again, the grosser version could help strengthen these people’s boundaries, such that it becomes easier to manage the feeling, rather than a forever slow-burn that they are just victim to.

Once the desk was open, the anchors came through in their general outlines more easily. Having more time than 90 seconds, I felt the images come through in a much more personal way. First, boxes of crayons -- I remembered the colors of the boxes, the lineup of the specific colors pretty closely. Once in harvest, observing my the left corner of my desk, I realized that not only were there a couple of pencils there, but that their presence were extremely vivid, such that they called my tactile/sensory engagement. While harvesting, I felt autonomically called to run and roll my fingers over the brand-new pencils, unsharpened, and I could feel the edges roll with direct somatic response, and the colors came aflame. Then, there appeared the single green/black pencil. When I picked it up, it was like a mood ring, as the colors changed according to the warmth of my hand. Once in this space, this particular detail sent ripples of memory through the rest of the imagery. I remembered how much I loved school. But instead of just saying that, the words were just accidental to how my joy came to the surface. There was a quick and fleeting moment of grief in nostalgia about it, but it opened a clarity about not only this work but so many other aspects of my life and my relationship to learning. I’ve been coming to terms lately with how much I love learning, but somewhere along the way, I felt the pressure of collecting learning as information, and feeling the pressure to be some authority on that learning -- having to “do” something with the information. This has left me confused about the thing I love. It was as if the pencil assisted me in reclaiming the smallest joy about the learning process. That I am able to love a process, rather than needing to make it a profession, become a professional, become important. I sense that learning was where the world really first came alive to me. During the dipping and further in the harvest, I could smell the fresh paper, I could smell the pencil shavings and especially the dirty/clean silver graphite. These sensations anchored me into the chair and beginning my harvest with the class, I realized I could feel the cold of the chair and of the desk -- I could sense the newness of the staple that held the pieces of paper in my desk together. I could follow the “J” of my name at the top of the paper and really, really understand what I was feeling when I drew it.

Most significantly, the work has been calming down my cognitive mind. At first, Jon’s response to my longer post was really hard for me. I felt like there had been a misunderstanding -- as I am really inspired by this work, and want to give support to its significance and sharing into the world. But I learned through that event that I am not the teacher here: and this is a great realization. In order to be a teacher, you have to know when you’re not the teacher. You have to be a student to really enjoy life. Since this event, thoughts are really just ephemeral impressions, and it takes some effort to call them further in, or to indulge them -- I have a choice about them, whereas before I didn’t. I felt like a victim to my thoughts. Even more, they pale in comparison to the images, the anchors and the embodied sensory experience of this work.

Finally, this was the first time in the Co-op, where I did streaming work and I felt “I can do this. I am capable of this. This is my process”. I’d only had one callback through the co-op, and it went horribly and it felt humiliating. After that, I ran. A large part of my running was that I didn’t feel like I deserved any of it. I sort of understood the work, but I definitely didn’t know how to develop a process. But this is the first time, in Thurs’ class where I could understand how to really embody and develop relationship to the work. It was also the first time that I could understand the universality of it; meaning that I could potentially pick up any script and immediately know how to start entering into its image.

Anyway, I’m really inspired by watching everyone’s process in this work. Even when we do it incorrectly, it feels valuable. "Sometimes objects are really revealing, sometimes even more than events." I sense that when I can connect that object as my own body, it will reveal a lot. See you folks soon.


Regards,
Joshua

Sometimes we must be less in order to n]ne more. The teacher/student button switches back and forth with alarming regularity if you become humble enough to embrace it. I struggle with it. Many people misunderstand my certainty as certainty. It’s not, I am only a believer but open to receive the higher purpose....the betterment Of the Process. I loved your story about pure learning....the joy of it. Perhaps that state is the most highly evolved. What I love about Streaming is that the Cognitive mind cannot make sense of it. Love this post!