What is FLOW?
What is FLOW?
Last we checked in I had just re-found my sense of up for the context of a particular moment for the 6 millionth time.
That UP really opened the floodgates. My nervous system softened, my eyes-refocused, my jaw re-integrated. Then, last week, I saw an image about how sound affects water, creating these elaborate patterns that vary distinctly depending on which note is played. What immediately followed was this question:
“If different sounds do this to water, what do they do to us???”
The image showed the difference between an A sharp, for instance, to a G major. The way you might sense the sound of a truck honking its horn as opposed to the hum of the clothes dryer.
So that sent me off vibrating for a bit. Walking home after taking my daughter to school, I checked in with sound for a moment. We live near a major intersection, and the moment I let myself listen, I tuned in to all the sounds around me, and the inherent MOVEMENT in those sounds. I noticed the cars, trucks, cyclists, school busses, leaves, wind all travelling. Through space. Behind me, past me, ahead of me. Above. This was extremely grounding, as I just stayed with myself and let the sounds come to me. Through me.
This reminds me of using one’s voice, and how the vibration for the vocalizing happens inside the body, inside the vocal folds, and that the air needs to be able to flow through and resonate, bouncing off our various domes and musculature and impressed upon to make the vocalizing happen.
As a dancer, this is so freeing because vocalizing is JUST MOVEMENT. And a vital part of integrating oneself as an expressive human – a skill I am still engaging with each day...
Agh and then tonight – adding in the heels for a bit of grounding in my group class. And noticing how that changes how my thighbones can rest in my hip sockets, how it puts more surface area of my feet on the floor.
And so now I’m bouncing all around between UP and SOUND and VIBRATION and MOVEMENT and SPACE and DOWN and BACK. And through this whole weeks-long process, this is flow. This is all part of my awareness and if I can stay easy, and stay up and back from just the awareness of this field, and myself within it, I might be able to stay grounded on earth and not fly off into the fourth dimension.
You know you’re in flow when it feels easy. So if it doesn’t, what happens if you just note what’s in your field of awareness, and let go a little? This can include emotions, hard conversations, annoyances, unplanned obstacles, sore muscles. Easier said than done, but on we go!
