Catching On
It has been something of a marvel to me in recent years that my physical coordination has gotten significantly better. This change was first noticed in my early forties, about the time that the rest of my physical plant seemed to edge toward the other side of the ledger. In particular I would notice that if I dropped something with my right hand, I had a chance of catching it with my left. If my foot caught a root, I wasn’t likely to go sprawling, or even to lose my balance.
I think this has to do with spending less time in my head, where in my first four decades I hung out all the time, and thought so hard. But as I have learned to relax more, in the awareness that I am part of a larger reality and apparently thriving, my center of gravity has descended from my neck and shoulders toward my center. There is a point in the center of the body, about an inch or so below the belt, which the Japanese refer to as hara. It is the place into I focus my breathing when I need to settle down. It is the location of balance that absorbs the sudden burst of energy from the misstep at the root.
I have been delighted in my increasing dexterity for the past decade, seeing the incremental changes in bottles not falling to the floor or soapy dishes dropping in the sink. And then the other day, this path toward a more intuitive sense of awareness took a quirky little sidestep. I had picked up a thickish paperback book from a low table. As I lifted it up, it slipped from my right hand. I grabbed for it with my left.
Successfully, in that I caught the book and it didn’t fall on the table or floor. But not quite such a glorious moment in that I caught an edge of the book with such force, it gouged out a small piece of skin on the inside of the knuckle at the base of my large finger. No one fainted from my screams, and there wasn’t enough blood to actually slip in, but it certainly gave me pause.
It’s a fascinating journey, this thing we call life. It is a path that marches through us. Some of us embrace it and go with the flow, more or less. Others insist that they are in control, and maybe they are, more or less; for the time being. What has given me increasing peace of mind is that I don’t have to get exercised over every discrepancy in my picture. Not only that, but every time I reach a plateau and think that I have actually learned something, it’s true. But there’s always another lesson ready to learn.
The good thing is that the lessons these days seem more micro than macro, and while of even greater importance due to their leverage in an aware and accommodating mind, they come with less brutal instruction. So I cut my finger instead of pulling out my back. And what did I get this time? That sometimes it’s better just to knock down the pass rather than go for the interception.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.