by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
When I was a boy, we used to spend time on the ocean in the summer. As long as the tide was in, we would be in the water swimming. There was a pier that had a railing that you could dive off at high tide. I used to love to dive and tuck as I hit the water. Curving back underneath myself I would pass through a still point where I felt weightless, hanging upside down and somehow free under the water. Then the moment would pass, I would surface, swim to the dock, climb out and repeat the process.
That moment of freedom can be found in other ways; in the pause at the top of arc of a swing, or all forms of disorientation from spinning around, or rolling downhill. I’ve heard it said that spinning until you fall over is the earliest experience that children have of altered states, and one that is nearly universal.
Having landed in a human body, how fast we seem to want to let it go, to seek out disorientation, to escape. But is this what it is really about? Let us change our point of view, from the adult looking in from the outside that see’s a child letting go of the outer world, the visual orientation of place, perhaps the psychic orientation of family, school, social structures, perhaps even loosing basic conceptual orientation in the dizziness of the tumble, or spin? What is happening from the child’s point of view? She is actually finding something else, finding that still point at the bottom of the dive, or the top of the arc, or the center of the spin, a place of stillness in motion, of spirit in matter, a place to connect back to her soul and a deeper sense of self that is left when the outer layers have been released.
He is losing something external, but finding something internal. In our society this is considered play and forgotten as we grow up. But what if it is more than play? not the prelude to getting drunk or high, but to meditation and prayer. Not simply a way to let go, but a way to reorient and remember something else.
As an adult some one once suggested that I try spinning on a dance floor, though you can do this anywhere you have space to hold your arms out straight. Hold one arm out with your thumb up, focus on your thumb and start spinning. Let the space around you move and blur, keep focused on your arm and thumb. I find that I have changed references, I am still while the world spins. If I let the world go, I am fine, no dizziness, just a joy of being in my own space. I can spin as fast or as long as I like. When its time to stop, close your eyes, and as you stop moving, focus completely on your own body, your core, and drop your awareness down through your feet into the earth. Center and ground, or ground and center.
If any aspect of your awareness is still spinning, let it go, out into the room, bringing all your attention in and down. Its not hard really. You will get a physical sense in your body of what it means to center and ground, to release the mind’s engagements with the swirl of the world around you, and be present and alive in your Self.
Once you have found the still place again you can open your eyes and choose what and how to engage with the outer world.
Finding your core and center is more than just physical. It is also emotional, energetic and spiritual, a practice leading to that essential level of being from which we emerged into human form, that deep place of stillness, of power and ease, of certainty, the “peace that passeth all understanding”. You will learn to let the world go when you want to, or when it has gotten too crazy or strange to deal with for a time and you have no choice. If you try to hang on then it is like trying to focus on the room when you are spinning at speed. You know the feeling.
We can also do this another layer deeper, inside, with our own emotions and thoughts. When they are agitated, spinning, tumbling, there is a center inside/underneath them that is always still and calm, where you can focus and ground, and let them fly off into space, clearing, releasing, transforming. Sometimes the hurricane is outside, and sometimes it is inside, but there is always a deeper center that is still. With practice you can always find it, as it is always there.
Having a physical feeling for reference, it is easier to learn the energetic, spiritual practice, releasing external orientation you drop into and stand still in your Self. You are now oriented inwardly in a way that is present and true no matter what happens in the world. Like many places, once you know that it is there you can call it up when you need it, inviting it to come to you even when it is hard to let go and find it yourself. It will come, as its always there, always a part of who you are. After all its where you came from.
(© 12/2013)
