Emotion in Motion
Emotion
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Emotion 〰️
I don’t know how it is for you but most of the time when I move my body; I have a feeling about it.
A motion emotion. Big ones, cat-cow cat-cow, again and again on the mat. Jumping on the bed. Running on the beach. Making love in the ocean. And little ones, eyebrows raising, tapping a finger, looking from here to there.
As humans, we tend to make something out of this phenomenon, this feeling about a feeling, and many of our questions arise from this experience.
Am I okay?
Are you okay?
Is this okay?
The okay group of questions we can call these.
Then there are other groups, the ones that arise from the answers to those questions:
Are you like me, and if so, in what ways?
Are you mad at me? Are you hitting on me? Do I want you to?
In what ways am I unique? Do I want to be unique? Does that make me weird?
Who gets to decide?
And then finally the wider circle sort of questions having to do with animals and trees and planets and aliens and the cosmos, in what ways do we differ and how are we similar and how much do my feelings matter in the scheme of those things?
We start in the smallest place we know - me and my body and my mind/feelings and their relation to each other and then we move out from there to you and yours. The possibilities have always been endless and so, in order to comfort ourselves and be able to continue as a species, we invented science and god. We explained the things we could explain by noticing what happened when we moved this over there or when we set flame to wood versus rock versus our own finger. We might not have named what happened as emotions, but we were drawn toward some motions and repelled by others. We liked how some felt and didn’t like others.
There remained a gap; questions arose that we couldn’t answer. And when we couldn’t answer the questions through scientific inquiry, we found god. God worked to explain things we couldn’t explain any other way.
I’m proposing that this is where art came from - a bridge was needed to connect body and soul, mind and spirit. And to connect you to me and us to everyone and everything else. At first glance, this may strike you as a bit lofty, and it did me when I first thought of it. I said to myself, interesting that what you’ve come up with is a way to declare that one of your favorite things is the essential ingredient to humankind’s well-being. You did not consider whether war was the bridge or money was the bridge. And yet you stayed committed to the notion that a way to move from one to the other was the missing link.
Wow. You, Dulcie, and your band of writing warriors are the most important thing on the planet except for air and water and maybe ice cream. Your solipsism has taken a turn toward narcissistic grandiosity at a new level. But here’s the thing, I believe it. I believe that art is the way in and out of the mess we’ve made because it translates one person’s experience to another person, and once we recognize ourselves in someone else, we are not inclined to do them harm. At least not intentionally. We have created a new ingredient inside ourselves that can be shared with others.
Now that I’ve gotten that out there, I can back up to the starting place with a bit less rev to my engine.
I go back to the title, Emotion in Motion, and that helps me remember what it was that I wanted to speak to, that our endeavor to write is deeply linked to our emotions, and our emotions are inextricably bound to motion, ours and others. And what is so cool about uncovering that and spreading it out is that we get to make choices all over the place about what motions we do. Not only do we have a lot more input into how we feel than we might have realized but we also get to use both of those things, motion and feeling, in what and how we write.
I’m convinced that creative energy will, eventually, be what saves our sorry asses. I revel in this in part because creative energy is what makes me feel the most alive. I recognize that I am only me, and because of that I can’t infer anything global from my preferences. Still, if I am willing to acknowledge that built-in limitation right out front here, I can invite anyone who feels similarly to join me on this ride.
Rilke gave us this writing prompt, “...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”
I intend to take some time this Spring to do that, to describe things with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity. I’ve avoided this kind of writing for the same reason that I and many others avoid this kind of living. It makes me feel vulnerable to criticism. It opens doors and alleyways to haunted houses and demands that they speak their piece - what are you made of and why are you here, hunkered down in my back yard? I’m unsure that I am up for the assignment.
So the question I am posing to myself is the same that I’m posing to you. Why would I bother to travel to new places and meet new people? Why would I try some food that I’ve never had before or read a book by some unknown author? Why would I try to learn how to play pickleball? These explorations all have the potential to reveal something unpleasant at least and perhaps even awful. Painful. Boring. Embarrassing. Right? But I do it and we do it because there is something intriguing about the unknown that calls to us - hey take a peek here - and we’re hooked. So I am in love with creative adventures even before I have them. And they are often what I like to write about as well.
But I don’t favor slowing down and digging about in emotional mud especially if other people will see me do it. I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing and I wouldn’t say I like to look weak. That’s really why I stay away from that kind of writing. And that kind of living. And I’m not currently making a case to change that as much as I’m interested in creating a usable method to go there and live to tell the story. To tell the story well. To tell it well enough that I’m glad I wrote it and maybe even be glad that I lived it or at least that I lived through it.
And I think the key is motion. Movement. If I can trust that whatever I feel I don’t like will change if I … whatever, it’s not nearly so frightening. Whether that means cat-cow cat-cow till I arch and sink like a rubber band, or it means drinking more electrolytes to replenish my stock of tears that has been recently depleted, if I can believe that emotions are in motion and I get to have a voice in how and when that works, then I’m a lot more willing to have them. And write about them.
If I believe what I’m saying, then saying it has a great deal more value, at least to me and maybe to others. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. I may have mistaken this for weakness, weak-mindedness and a danger zone. At least for now, I’m not thinking that.
The Key is Motion
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The Key is Motion 〰️
WOW First Sunday is May 1st from 2PM to 4 PM EDT and it’s FREE!
Dulcie Witman will be our speaker and she will be referencing the above blog during her session.
Register now on Eventbrite or join us via ZOOM — this Sunday, May 1st from 2PM to 4 PM EDT.
See you there!