Hey Chris,
When I was a young pup seeking to transcend the limiting pressures of my midwest Christian upbringing, reading Alan Watts was a revelatory initiation into the possibilities of expanding my spiritual horizon. After devouring Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse in high school my foundations crumbled leaving me raw and naked by my own little river. Several years later my sister gave me The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are and I was inspired to begin construction of a new foundation better able to serve and support my unfolding path.
Nice memory, thanks.
Sensing the movement from here to there, an embodied experience of time’s texture, is one way to participate as a field of artistic expression, but I don’t believe it’s just all about the journey. For me, awakening space as presence in each moment is another deepening into the sublime gift of art’s spirit. In this field time falls away and we are absorbed in an unbounded eternal resonance, suspended at the peak of an effortless leap beyond here to there.
Thanks Thomas...your experience mimics mine. It was a minister that gave me Siddhartha and I stumbled upon The Book later.
And of course, I think that what you are saying about awakening the moment is true and a much better way of saying what I was trying to say! I thought of your art when I was listening to Watts describe the dance.
thanks for this exchange.
chris, ever since your posting after the evolutionary salon in which you shared the phrase "shaping the moment," i've been contemplating that phrase and all it implies for the practice of opening & holding space. to me thomas's words "awakening space as presence in each moment..." give me a gift of some more excellent useful words for this practice-beyond-words....
You should see Thomas shape moments...if you want to get a sense of shaping space and moments, I highly recommend taking up juggling.
yes. i hope very much to see (& feel) thomas in action one day. there is something oh so wonderful about using a very physical visceral experience to expand an inner capacity. today is a snow day and not only did my son aidan and i go sledding in the middle of the day on a monday, but we did it on a big hill right above the cemetary of a baptist church where the folding chairs were being set up on some astroturf for a service later on. our cheap plastic sleds are so responsive ~ you lean just a little to the right and immediately curve to the left. at high speeds if you lean just a bit too long you spin out and roll over in a blast of powdery snow. only a perfectly-timed left-right rhythm would allow us to S our way down without wiping out or careening down among the gravestones. it was a sweet lesson in the careful disciplined timing of intention! (i also lost my cel phone and had to return an hour later with another phone in hand, to wander around listening for the faint ringing under the snow 
)
Lovely...there's something in here making me laugh about finding and responding to the call!
(muffled) rrring....rrring...
dig-dig-dig.
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is God. Don't you think it's time to get back to work?"
"God...Wow...Where are you calling from?"
"My Calvinist Branch Office."
"Oh. With all due respect, do you think you could transfer me to, say, one of the Sufi offices? Does Omar Khayyam have an extension?"
"Yes, he does, and I can do that. It's a free will universe after all. But are you sure?"
"...*sigh*...no, that's okay, I reckin i'd do well to trust Your database."
"We're pretty proud of it."
"Thanks for the message."
"Anytime."
(Exit snowy mountainside, with small choir on the astroturf in the distance singing How Great Thou Art)
Any ideas on the difference between opening space and awakening space?
awakening space is for me a subtler & richer way to describe opening space.
& thinking of "shaping the moment," i contemplate:
awakening the moment
awakening to the moment
inviting others to awaken to the moment
& i also wonder about the relation of the words "space" or "moment" to the idea of "the middle" as shared by ashley at easily amazed yesterday.
In my practice. . .
opening space = attunement, sensing deeply into a silent field below/beyond ideas and notions and judgements and embodied habits, getting out of the way, recognizing an essence of being.
awakening space = inviting forth and shaping a novel emergence, reaching out to unfold a creative flow, shaping the geometry of emergent consciousness, recognizing an essence of doing.
beautiful.
is opening space for you an opening practice, and is there a moment for you when this is complete and then awakening space can begin?
& do other people ever participate consciously in opening space with you, or is this an individual practice?
Once I open, I stay open, but there is a palpable shift when the invitation practices take over and energy floods into the opening.
At the Evolutionary Salon many, many people were holding space together, and I have had that experience often. Of course, most common is when I am working with Elders who hold the space continually. It does help to have maore than one person consciously holding open space.
Chris asks:
is opening space for you an opening practice, and is there a moment for you when this is complete and then awakening space can begin?
This question takes me to a place where language begins to get tangled in nots of knot-knowing...
Too lengthy for a comment box, my response is on my Webl, http://motionstone.blogspot.com/
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