Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Oct7

living in the material world

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I watched the second half of Martin Scorcese’s HBO documentary on George Harrison last night.  Inscrutable, whimsical, beautiful.  The dark horse, the spiritual man.

My take away is that he lived the improvisation life – he let himself be moved, changed, followed the call, dove deep, came up different.  The through line was looking for the deepest place that his music could take him.

I loved the image of him pulling Ravi Shankar along a path through the brush to the edge of the thrashing Pacific, and both of them gazing down into that wildness.

Have you found the deepest place that your _________(fill in the blank)__________ can take you?  Are you on the path?

 

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Oct4

contact

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I have been thinking about the emphasis on connection through social media.  And about the disembodied nature of those connections.  As a dancer, I can feel the remove, the disconnect of all of this faux intimacy.

It is why I think it is so essential to get out of the chair and into the studio:  back in the saddle, into messy, sensuous, fleshly meetings. Body to body.

I found this sweet old clip of Steve Paxton introducing contact improvisation at Jacob’s Pillow, and loved the juiciness, the workmanlike, diligent quality of the two bodies moving together. He talks about CI as a way of staying in touch, about the skin as an organ of transformation and transmission.

That is why between noon and 1pm every day, I pack it in and drive to the barn.  That is one of my “studios,” a place of practice and observation.  It is where I get in touch.  Skin to skin, hips to spine.  It is why I swim every morning.  Rediscover the long body, feel the body’s surfaces and deeps meeting in the soft water.

Where do you connect?  What is your studio?

 

 

 

 

Oct3

the feel of things

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There are certain sensations, certain sensory memories that are so deep and detailed that I can summon them up effortlessly, feel the whole sensuous shape of them here and now. They are touchstones, places of delight and grounding.

Recently, I have been playing with them in a more intentional way.  Not just thinking about them in passing, but diving in, relishing, savoring.  A kind of sensuous meditation.

Capprichio’s nose is the softest, sweetest place I know.

What is delicious to you?

Sep30

big

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Brandi Rivera riding Sanne in the performance of RIDE

Earlier this week for the first time in many months, I rode the Friesian, Sanne.  He is big in every way:  big character, big heart, and big mover.

I thought about the connection with my post on chaos, and how riding Sanne demanded that I find order within the initial chaos of the ride – the feeling of trying to contain all of that movement, and having to find a way to transmit it thought my body, not blocking it, but channeling it, diving into it and finding its rhythms – opening to it.

When I read Susan Casey’s The Wave, I was blown away by her descriptions of the surfers, the ones who seek out the biggest, wildest waves.  Casey is a visceral, brassy writer, and as she  follows the wave chasers around the world, they seems way out on the farthest edge –  playing with death.  The surfers open to the wave, what other choice is there, really?

What waves are you riding?