Mind And Matter – Some Reflections
08/12/2010 - By Margit Galanter Reflections on Gregory Bateson and Moshe Feldnekrais, particularly on the necessary unity of mind and matter. (Mind-Body ; Self/Environment)
Earlier this summer at SEEDS, I was re-reading Gregory Bateson, particularly his discussions in Angel’s Fear about the necessary unity of mind and matter. I have been roiling all year at his spot-on articulations of the sacred, his vast framework of ecology, and his perspectives on human/nature/culture. Some things he wrote stick with me as I fumble through life, through beautiful sessions with clients, through searching in the dark in the dance studio, in awe of the surprising mini-forests, the power of oil that rises to the surface, and glacial movement.
To humbly paraphrase, Bateson spoke of competition & of the world’s need to “move forward” and rush. As one lives and investigates the surroundings, one uncovers the “matrix,” or a motherlode of unknowing out of which new partial answers get chiseled. There is a push to try and solve; it is so hard to sit in this unknowing, “where angles fear to tread.” This place is both infinite possibility and its converse, an infinity of corruption, destruction, and challenge, as well. Uncovering then, can create a kind of panic as we chisel away, and as Bateson calls it, a deep epistemological panic. When I see the exhaustion on Obama’s face in the media, when I catch myself rushing ahead of my own physical comfort, I can take a kind of recognition-breath at the panic. I can even get solace that someone once really stated what it is.
How to move with assurance, with sensitivity, see the shimmering qualities of the beings?* How to choose the joy, rather than the ambition, and the ambition when it brings joy? How to be able to make choices clearly, cogently, and from the gut sense of your own truth? I think our physical intelligence is a big key.
To quote Moshe Feldenkrais: “Without movement life is unthinkable.” & “If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.”
Feldenkrais, like Bateson, spoke of the necessary connection of mind/body, and his method consistently proves this unity as something we can reclaim through very specific and gentle acts. Oh, lord, we have been fractured! Each time the news lies, or we sit for too long, we have to integrate it somehow. We are our own motherload! To experience the poignant and beautiful relationship of our own embodiment and awareness is an incredible thing. And it is an analog to the relationship between our self and the environment, the thing-beings present amongst us in the form of rocks, buildings, and even dare I say it, computers. They have character. My computer asks me to feed it a little too often. Fortunately I have studied enough movement that I can remind myself from time to time to take breaks.
The necessary unity of mind and matter invites us to move away from the pervasive view of quantity into the rich terrain of contrast, pattern, and relationship. Let’s talk.
*At SEEDS Festival (Somatic Experiments in Earth, Dance, + Science), Margot Lystra and I came to some terms that became the core principles of the work we were doing in dance and design- “thing-beings” hit on one of them, “shimmering,” another. Read more about our Treehouse Project here: http://margitg.wordpress.com/archive/dance-and-design/the-treehouse-project/