To hear a spoken version, click the link below:
I remember an instance when I was playing the piano. Suddenly the touch of the keyboard on my fingertips turned into something special. I was feeling the heaviness of the piano key stronger, and I was more conscious of the motion which had to be made by my hand. This shift in perception made the exercise more enjoyable. Soon after, I started to catch more of those touching experiences. A doorknob felt heavier, the computer keyboard was giving me meditative calmness, and the car’s gearbox had a specific feeling into it as well. I began a play of remembering how the objects from my surroundings feel. That became a part of my everyday experience.
If we zoom out from this specific touching example, we can observe a broader pattern here – people can develop connection to certain types of experiences over time. Those situations have something shared. In my case, it was touching that constituted a common denominator. Along with building connection to something, people create a particular meaning around those experiences. Those instances become a part of their day. They appear cyclically, interchanging with day routines.
For an artist, these experiences constitute a genuine creative material. They are sparks which surprise throughout the day. They can shift one’s state of mind allowing a new mental space to emerge. Enjoying these moments and then bringing them back and adding to the state which was present before is an act of creation. Those spontaneous moments can be thought of as Leverage Points (from system’s theory). One does not need a distraction from a difficult emotion anymore because he remembers that those rewarding, and still integrated, sparks will appear substituting an addictive behavior. Reality becomes fulfilling without a need for an intentional intervention. That, which appears is what one wants.
There is a kind of a meditation experience in which the separation between two parts of the body disappears. To give an example, if someone has his hands intertwined, as is recommended by many spiritual schools, he may start to lose a sense of feeling the left hand by the right hand. They merge together.
Alternatively written:
A meditator is sitting on his meditation pillow. His mind calms down more and more allowing the eternity to be experienced. Suddenly, he cannot distinguish the left hand from the right one.
It is interesting how the perception in general can change throughout one’s life. I remember a period when I started to feel the smell of my fingers and the fingers’ nails differently. They were bringing about beautiful flavor. Before, I perceived my body scent neutrally. I combine this change of perception with positivity and consciousness which are growing within me. I honor my body more now. Also, there is an identification at place, and a compulsive tendency apparent out here – sometimes I smell my nails as a reaction to stress.
And now something for an imagination…
A couple sits in front of each other. The room smells of a delicate flavor of mutual acceptance. There is no external oil diffused inside the place. Two people are studying the textures of their hands, then arms. Subtle energies accompanies the process. Both of them stay with their personal interpretations, thoughts, feelings within which the past is brought into light. Some parts of themselves stay unrevealed in a direct way, only through eyes - in an abstract form. There is an ongoing wandering about how much to uncover, and how much to work through within the boundaries of one's own self. What to reveal, why to do that, or why not. And what are the motivations of doing so.
The presence of thought-mind seam crazy given an intimate situation. But it is a kind of Touch. This is touching of one’s own self. The connection to one's own psyche allows for moments of deeper, longer instances of Silence and Unity. Touching of the bodies stimulate further psychic material to go onto surface. One’s own self, with its habitual behavior, can be seen more clearly in the presence of another one.
By touching slowly, mindfully, one trains himself in observing sexual energy. It’s an intentional frustration of the need of release.
One has to know when to stop this training in order not to be incomplete for too long. Still, delayed gratification is most rewarding part of the process.