Looking Within the Garden of the Mind

We are what we think. Are the stories I tell myself about life useful? Am I happy? Courageous? Productive? Look beyond the shadows these stories cast upon me and others. Plant new seeds in the garden of the mind. Changing thoughts shifts actions. New stories arise. Now is the time to begin. Am I listening Patrick? Are you?

Them Changes

Well my mind is goin' through them changes.

Buddy Miles

Impermanence - everything changes.

Notes change - sounding different from the attack, as they sustain, and as they decay.  Apply various types of vibrato and the notes change more.  Invite other notes to play at the same time and any individual note sounds totally different depending on the surrounding notes or harmony.  Not unlike people in that way.

Thoughts change. 

Times change. 

People change. 

Tastes change.

Life is change.

Many of the changes are random. Yet there are changes we can direct.  Such as our thinking.  The information we take in or not.  The food we eat or not. The people we engage with.  The practices we undertake.  Are my actions serving my aim?  Are my words in harmony with the world I wish to create?  Am I aware of the precious moments with loved ones that may leave this life before I finish this sentence?

Photo by Neal Fowler

Questioning My Practice

    While organizing some piles of paper these past days, I twice found the question on different papers "does playing with intensity have to involve muscular tension?" If I've written it down twice, this question must arise frequently enough to need attention, Last night I decided to address this question in my next practice.  What does "playing with intensity" mean?  I thought I knew, but as I looked at this question today, I quickly became unclear.  When I play, I am releasing sound. Then what does it mean to release sound with intensity?  Is it volume, emotion or both, even more?

As I began my practice I looked to answer this question.  An answer was not arriving and I was not sure that one would.  The word intensity seems to imply tension, but then tension gets in the way of playing.  Perhaps I need to better define intensity. The dictionary says - exceptionally great concentration, power or force.  Then I recalled playing basketball as a young man, when finally after years of practice and playing I could make a move to the hoop with power.   Why this arrived in my mind then I have no idea, but I sensed I was onto something.

Making a power move in basketball while intense required control, strength, grace and intent. Mind and body connected for one purpose.  Now apply this to guitar.  Release the power of the piece being played.  Perhaps think of it in terms of energy - release the energy of the piece, using right effort.  Even release the emphasis on the hands while playing.  Let the whole body, mind and soul play the notes.

How to access this power?  How to find the power without tension and find it consistently?

I began working with a few musical phrases, then moved onto the piece Senseless Loss.   Using the Alexander Technique directions I had a good sense of my body but something was missing.  How might I apply Missy Vineyard's Negative Directions?  The obvious one was I am not playing with power.  Then recalling that the basketball move required my whole body I played with directing I am not playing with my whole body.  Progress was being made here.  What I have noticed in the past and once again today with negative directions, is that something happens in the brain.

I can not explain what it is, a disruption of habitual thinking, a different neural network kicking in or a combination of these and other aspects.  I do know that when I uses negative directions the body and mind behave differently.  In Alexandrian terms we are psychophysical beings. When the mind changes so does the body and vice versa.  By using AT principles I can work on my overall use, I can change.  More explorations to follow. Stay tuned.
   

Photo by Shaheen Lakhan

Slowly I Turn

The old Vaudeville skit - Slowly I turned ... step by step ... inch by inch just flashed into my mind.

This is how change enters into my life - slowly, thought by thought.  Am I directing those thoughts? Thoughts come and go, many of them unnoticed.  But when I slow down, observe the flow of thoughts, and interject what I want or even need to be thinking, well then life gets interesting.  Possibilities open.  Habits now stand a chance of being redirected.

Beyond slowing for the various moments of our life when we pause, I need an ongoing slowing to watch and direct those thoughts.  To step out of the race to check items off the list and ponder, even evaluate what, how, I am undertaking an action or process.  When the what is guitar related, I have a clear sense of directing the how, but in this afternoon's practice I found myself asking why I was pursuing a certain exercise.  When I clarified the why, the internal struggle relented.   This was accompanied by a slowing down of thinking; better focus on what I was doing. 

However this remains a process, not an event.  Step by step ...

Waves of Change

I am not compressing myself as I type is the direction that just manifested as I moved toward beginning this blog post.  So easy to become lost when catching up with email, Facebook, etal after having lost power at home due to nasty storms in this area Friday night.  Wishing that I could have again began my day with a dip in the Atlantic Ocean and Qi Gong in the surf but alas live moves on.

I have found that vacations at the beach is a wonderful opportunity for me to devote more time to all the pursuits in my life that nourish me.  Meditation, Qi Gong, exercise, music, and the Alexander Technique coupled with an environment that inspires hope and joy throughout the day.  Awed by the sheer immensity of the Ocean, I am invited back to the present moment.  How can I not be inspired to think "up" when the sky is so beautiful? How can I not be inspired to think "forward" when I have time to reflect, nourish, and be with the people who mean the most to me? Allowing the stress and strain of everyday life to float away, while allowing waves of reflection to fill my day.  How can I not think "Wide" when the horizon is nothing but life sustaining water? Not only the ocean of unimaginable width, but also of a length that spans between continents and is not "fixed" in a position?

As my arm reaches through the water, I notice my length as I swim.  Floating I sense my spine, subtly shifting and adjusting to the energy of the ocean moving about me.  My sense of the space about me heightened.  A space that is alive with energy and life forms I can not sense.  The ocean expands me as I respond to the moments of it's waves.  I like to stand in chest high water and while directing up allow my hands to float up as if I were playing the guitar. I have been playing with AT in the waves like this for years.

This past week, I have added the negative direction - I am not playing the guitar, as I play with my arms in this manner in the sea.  Part of the beauty of this experiment with bringing my arms up in the ocean is that due to the waves constantly pushing against and shifting my feet and torso, I can not being my hands up in a habitual manner.  The ocean's inhibition of my habitual use of this action is light, fun, and free.  After several days of this, I introduced the thought - I am playing the guitar, while bringing my hands up through the surf.   Just enjoying the possibilities and being open to this inquisitively playful experiment positively impacting how I actually do play the guitar.   Smiling, floating, and continuing to direct as the waves splash about me. Ahh, wishing I was back there now, but grateful for where I am.

In the  evening, when I approached my guitar I thought of how might I incorporate these experiments of movement in the ocean with how I bring my hands and arms to the guitar.  I found myself thinking, now how did that feel?  Laughing as I saw once again the trap we all fall into when applying the Alexander Technique, perhaps more clearly this time than ever before.  I do not need to access what the "freedom" felt like, but to access that thinking that led to this freedom.  To pause, inhibit, and then direct my thinking.  Currently my use of negative directions is bearing fruit.  I am finding that introducing the " traditional" AT directions, after the negative directions for instance - I am not compressing myself - offers a different and perhaps clearer path to my movement freedom.

The search terms I used in searching for a photo to accompany this post also turned up photos of ice.  Chuckling as I thought may my movements be like waves of freedom, not stuck in my habitual frozen patterns.  I wish this for all of you also.  How are you experimenting and introducing change with the Alexander Technique?