Saturday, March 18: The Big Picture

THE BIG PICTURE
There is sun out today and hasn’t been much lately, so the big picture calls for a walk before writing today. How’s that for projection? I call myself to head outside and walk around a little. That is the big picture: paying attention to life and responding in a way that makes life rich and interesting. And if that isn’t enough, a spider just came down to visit this screen. See you after the walk!



Back:

The big picture is that life is a fucking miracle, eh? Walking down to be near the creek, the sun, the early almost spring green in the grass and the baby leaves coming out, the sunlight on the flowing water, my standing there, alive, being able to see that, being able to know I am seeing that. Man, is that wonderful, or what?

And then, walking home, the mind, my mind gets busy with this and that and I forget the miracle.

Oh, well.

The big picture is that we are born into this world pretty much as blobs. We can suck and flail around a bit, and that’s it. We eat, we sleep, we poop and pee, someone thinks we are adorable and takes care of us and then we lie around and start the wiggling. We move this, move that, try this, try that. We have a brain that keeps track of what we do, that is looking for the big picture, that likes to make order out of disorder, that gets interested, excited even when we discover a useful pattern of movement. Hey, when we do this we can reach out and grab the toy. Hey, cool, this way rolls us over. That feels fun and we get to see a different side of the world.

The blob starts to get organized, we start to figure out how our pieces fit together, we begin to realize that we can set out to do something and do it. And then we spend other times not particularly trying to do anything, just exploring, just messing around, just trying out the equipment, playing with the possibilities.

And the brain keeps scanning and organizing. This possibility plus that possibility and we can pull a leg up under our butt, and soon we are doing some sort of crawling. Now we can really get around, really make a mess, really explore the world. This is cool, and we aren’t a blob anymore, we are a learning organism, a discovery channel, a miracle of change and experimentation.

So, guess what? That miracle can continue, we can explore, mess around, put our attention on discovery. This is what a Feldenkrais lesson is about, and it’s also what a good daydream can be about, or a playful conversation when no one has an agenda, or a day with children and then guide us back into our sense of wonder and exploration.

What can we find out new today?

What wonder full things can we see and hear and taste and touch and learn? What bigger pictures can we create in our brain, which is to say: what can we learn?

Who knows. We’ve got all day to find out.