by Lezlie Laws on December 12, 2011 in Move
It’s a rainy Monday here in Winter Park, land of the sun. Dash and I have been taking it easy, moving slowly from window to window to watch the rain, or a hapless squirrel scurry up the bamboo. I have four weeks of white space ahead of me, and after a weekend of getting the house in order and the laundry done, I find myself at loose ends. I read a blog last week about an experiment of living for 100 days with no goals. The writer said it changed his life–for the better. But I’m feeling a little like the Queen Mary today: they say it takes two hours to turn her around. I’m thinking it’s going to take more than two hours to turn myself around, after a full semester of chasing teeny, tedious goals. What to do? How to turn? My plan is to just sit for a while. And Dash is perfectly happy to doze while I let the turning take place.
by Lezlie Laws on June 13, 2011 in Move
Move. A big category, huh? You’re probably wondering what it even means. What on earth is Lezlie going to say about moving?
Well, I ponder movement a lot. At the very concrete physical level and all the way up to the metaphysical level. When you think about it, moving is what we do. We’re hard-wired for it. But to what end? You could ask questions like “How does my body move? Is it strong and agile? Does it function efficiently? Does it feel good?” Or you could ask questions like “What am I to do? What action is appropriate in each situation I’m in? How does my movement in the world make a difference? ” See what I mean? Huge.
As you may have seen, Breathe, Move, Write is the title of my signature workshop. This workshop is the culmination of years of study, years of writing, and years of deep physical practices. It represents, I believe, my final arena of teaching, the ideas that I am most passionate about. I believe that everything I’ve studied and practiced for the last six decades has led me to the insights I try to share in this workshop. Here it is in a nutshell: Breathing, moving, and writing are three “activities” that lead to understanding how mind, body, and spirit interact in any creative act. And ultimately, every move we make and every breath we take are in service of our unique creative potential. And even more ultimately (is that possible?), our purpose as human bodies and as human beings and as humans breathing and as humans moving around in all sorts of interesting ways, our purpose here is to engage in the co-creative spirit-impulse out of which everything (everything!) arises. See what I mean? Huge.
Now, by “moving” I don’t necessarily mean you have to become a super yogi and learn how to wrap your legs behind your neck. What I’m suggesting is that by simply becoming aware of how your body feels you begin to open up pathways to knowing how you feel emotionally. And it seems obvious to say that if you understand how you feel, you can “move” in the world with much more facility. With much more joy. And . . . with much more creativity.
So the art of moving impinges on virtually every aspect of our lives. Follow along with me as I try to explore just how.
Practice: Stand up and press your feet into the floor beneath you. Feel the outer edges of your heels as they meet the floor. Feel the ball mounts of your feet as they make contact. Now press your toe pads firmly into the floor. Feel the whole of the bottom of your feet. Have you ever really given conscious effort to feeling the bottom of your feet? Kind of nice, knowing you have such sturdy appendages to hold you up and move you around your world. Just feel that power for a moment and be happy you can feel something you almost never give attention to.
