Please write in a few sentences how you relate to this statement and then write 3 examples from your experiences that this is true.
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my Somatic Blog
http://wan-tee.blogspot.com/
I really connected with this quote in relation to the Joseph Campbel's "hero journey". It makes sense to me that, just as infants need to differenciate their limbs to be present in their bodies, people must be able to distinguish themselves and feel their own unique selves before they are a strong member of the society as a whole. Just as the heart nurishes itself before it nurishes the rest of the body, a person must nurish themselves in order to nurish their communities and environments.
ReplyDeleteThe procss of differentiation and integration is like movement and occurs in waves. It coincides with the cyclical nature of everything. We're in a constant tug-of-war juggling new ideas, in new places, with new people--while trying to retain a conception of ourselves, a deep rooted understanding of who we are--and still incorporate our past experiences, learned ideas, and familiar people into our ever-evolving being. It creates a picture in my mind of expanding and contracting, opening up and closing in. Going out and exploring the world and always coming back home to that place within us--our core. Threre's a cyclical nature to all that we do.
ReplyDeleteThe example in class of our relationships with our parents as we grew up resonated with me in that I feel like we're always expanding and contracting in our relationship. I often think about how I want to be everything my parents Are Not--and at the same time, I want to embody all that I love and appreciate about them. I find that I'm constantly trying to see myself as someone different from my family... and then I'll turn around and notice something about me that essentially IS one of them.
I feel similar in my relation to the culture we live in. I constantly feel the need to distinguish myself as an individual in society by acknowledging what it is that makes me different. I almost feel the need to differentiate me from all the things I dislike about our culture. Thus, I often Define myself by my identity as say, a feminist, an environmentalist, a lesbian. I essentially construct who I am by explicitly stating what I am not--and my sense of being then depends on that identity. I no longer want to put up these boundaries, construct who I am with labels and identities...I'd rather simply be Me in all that I am, as a constantly changing being in the midst of a constantly changing culture.
Lindsey, thank you so much for sharing. I really like how your response oscillated between the microcosms and macrocosms of life.
ReplyDeleteWhat good is a should as a shoulder? How much power can it contain? How much force can it hold? The shoulder can only gain its true power as it understands and relates to a part of a greater whole. It is attached to a neck, an arm, and a back which together compose a larger body still.
Likewise, we earthling creatures are each individuals. We are unique and have special abilities just as the shoulder has the ability to offer something to the body that the knee cannot. So how can our awareness of a larger self empower us to become more effective? And how do we realize this? Just as the shoulder does, through an awareness of our center? If so, I highly recommend, when you have the time, to contemplate you belly button. And, if you have more time still, play with your nipples.. or someone else's with their permission of course.