CS Lewis writes (in Surprised by Joy, p.22), "One the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, 'I am what I do'".
I am intrigued by the space between freedom and confusion. In delineating the psychological space in which, whilst still 'doing', a human no longer is the same. (I am no longer what I do, not because I have ceased to do it, but because I do not recognise the activity).
If I do not know or recognise my actions, how are they changed?
Thinking some more about this woman's state, and wondering what it is that she 'knows' or that is now missing ... some language/script:
I don't know anything.
I don't know anymore.
Bagryana 'character' (off camera): What do you know of that time? What did you do?
I don't think I know anything anymore.
Oh, and on a bit of a tangent, the possibility of disinhibition in this 'state' is very plausible. At this opens up the scripting/language for rapid shifts/changes, whilst maintaining coherence through the woman's incoherence/confusion.
We are not merely the ones we know or believe ourselves to be. We all can leave ourselves; we are all able to be different and to immerse and transcend ourselves.
— Soelle, D. (2001). The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Fortress Press: Minneapolis. p. 22
In the post Merton, Bagryana commented (in that actorly way):
what is she remembering- birth? A child that is grown up and gone? A child she has lost? Has she lost her memory?
In short, I don't know. I think I am interested in the loss of her memory as a means of considering the development of the script, and to support (or allow?) the presence of the poetic/abstracted material ... as if it might be a rendering of her state(lessness) of mind.
The look of the poetic 'ultrasound' material certainly lends itself to the possibility of a child (in whatever context - gone, lost, etc), but I wonder to what extent we might leave this relationship unclear or ambiguous
As I developed my understanding of body awareness practices, I felt more and more unsatisfied with the way body theory focused on theoretical critiques of dualism and often demonised the “mind-body split.”
On the one hand it could become formulaic, and on the other did no justice to the experiential reality of this split, or the desire for it during the experience of suffering. The sense of alienation from the bodily self occurs, and can be a life-saving strategy as in the case of sexual abuse or torture.
The perspective of body awareness practices does not dismantle the conceptual nexus that links agency and dualist understanding of the body. Rather, it draws attention to the movement within the system that enables the system by virtue of exceeding its terms. Thus I find a volatility within “the body I have” which makes necessary a practice of encounter and engagement. In this difference lies both the possibility of freedom and agency, and its ruin.
Just as the heartbeat of my body and its distribution of oxygenated blood allows for any action whatsoever, it also threatens me with the possibility of losing all capacity to act. So, it is a profound dependency on the agency of the body that enables the concept of agency to describe the transcendence of corporeal constraints. Freedom is constituted in opposition to constraint and yet it relies on another level of constraining dependency.
sorry about the length of the quote... it's from Hellene Gronda's PhD. and i was just reading it. there's something in there that made me want to share it...
not sure exactly what, but perhaps it's to do with some sense of agency and paradox...
Ultrasound footage from heads and tails of Inert videos. In the context of Anamnesis, I definitely prefer the more figurative material (also worth noting that this footage is supposed to be tilted through 90 degrees to be viewed - but it doesn't make too much difference).
July 28th, 2008/1 Comment/Perdance with the body you have/+