Simon’s questions – 2nd attempt

I’d been thinking about having another go at these anyway, but Paul’s post (and Orley’s comment on my last one) have inspired me

• What have you been doing (as practice)?

I said to Orley I’ve stopped doing my practice. That’s not entirely true, but it’s become much less well-defined, more diffuse.

I still drink cocoa (usually many cups) every day – cos that’s an addictive behaviour – and I notice this, but I’ve pretty much stopped documenting it.

I try and notice things I do instead of drinking cocoa to get the same effect. For example, when we had the 10 minute break in Monday’s class, I documented this in my notebook afterwards

“Went and pooed. Then walked out, round the woodpile, stood by the bridge, 2 swans passing – felt whatever it is in me that relaxes, relax”

I’ve stopped setting the dawn and hour after dawn alarms and the last time I spent a dawn hour in the church was 10 November. However the interest in dawntime continues through the dawnwalks – I can imagine doing at least two more of those. I also sometimes notice a song coming into my head in a dawntime way – especially if it’s one that’s already been sung there.

I post on the blogs – and I meet my blogfriends (Paul, Orley, Simon, Danielle & Courtney) on Mondays. Considering what needs to be blogged about extends some awareness of practice over the whole week. Sometimes blogging about something leads to another action I wouldn’t otherwise have taken – for example, after blogging that I’d bought a sari, I wore it to class the next Monday (and to therapy yesterday).

Having said the practice has diffused (in time and space) maybe in another sense it has become very precisely focused on trying to stay alert to the connections between my feelings, my movement, my shifting attention and how I’m relating to the space & others in it – in a way that expresses my original impulse to further research how I’d been exploring these things in therapy.

• Who else has done similar kinds of practices?

I still haven’t really researched this (and now I have official permission from Simon not to :- ) I resonated with the account of Tehching Hsieh’s work by Adrian Heathfield that you asked us to read a few weeks ago, but I didn’t follow that up. I guess I’m interested in practices that unite spiritual practice and art practice (that feels horribly pretentious “My spirituality is art . . .” “My art is deeply spiritual . . .”) so maybe better to voice it as a lesser interest in art practice that does not also work spiritually – or spiritual practice that fails artistically. I also have a strong hunch that practices which succeed artistically & spiritually will turn out to be deeply political. As I wrote that, Ai Weiwei (who I know practically nothing about) popped into my mind.

• What texts seem influential or relevant to this practice?

The two books I’m reading at the moment & seem really central to how I want to think about this are

“The Meaning of the Body” by Mark Johnson &

“The Feast of the Sorcerer” by Bruce Kapferer

Looking through my notebooks, I see I’ve also taken extensive notes from

“The Reproduction of Space” by Henri Lefebvre

• What do you plan on doing for your dpar project?

I now have a clear plan – so I’m not going to reveal it here 🙂

• Why is it important? (How might it matter? So what?)

It matters a lot to me: largely in the same ways that the Gestalt process this year matters. There are things I desperately feel I need to make more sense of, in order to be able to function adequately. This module feels like a space that really supports that effort. The presentation also matters to me as a gift – to my co-researchers and random passers by – and the written materials feel like a gift to my future self (the only person who might take the time to really absorb them)

• How will you do it?

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”

I am gathering materials

– some of which were created before I started the module (or even thought of doing so)

– some won’t be made till after the presentation

– some contributions from collaborators

– there’s also a “blue sky” element

• What plans have you made for documenting or producing ‘additional materials’ for the project?

Seem to have just answered this above 🙂