Building up joint Impressions

Working with M again today.

Something has switched over in him. I would say that he has recognition- awareness of meeting me in the fullness of his personality and being.

Before he had built up- over the last four years- this somatic awareness of receptivity in his ability to accept and work with therapeutic touch; to redistribute his body schema by putting his attention into the circulatory pulsations of his body as it began to open up through touch.

Then recently there has been this move to use the spasmodic pulsations of rigidity and release as a kind of valve that allows for joint attention and for the moving of his limbs- especially his arms- as I support yet do not implicate the movement itself- more wait to "hear" this transition between rigidity and give-way and to follow through the lead of the limb itself as it softens into flow- a flow that is downwards, across, back and then, through these gravitational pulls, it learns to transmit this into upward motion as well.

Intentional movement then is not simply a mind program that is carried into actualisation by a willing but servile body. It is the catching in of opportunistic falls and dives- more like surfing on the body's own propensity to fall, to redistribute and to catch itself into configurations that pool and condense potential until another surf arrives and the wave - between up/down, side to side, forward/backwards, becomes an encircling embrace and at a certain speed, what appears as interruption or stasis becomes the gathering points to the circulation itself that- accordion-like- condenses into near negation only to unfold as the body stretches out and the organism breathes.

Because we have been working for so long with warming the centre; the belly and lower back as the power-house to this unfurling, the extensor movements through limbs, perception, and voice is now beginning to accumulate depth and speed and- like spring flowers- to literally tumble out across the earth. There is this broad and wide-ranging recognition that is the situatedness of M and myself exactly where we are in the room amidst waves of unfolding significance- that can be touched, heard, sung, seen and alluded to in countless contrasts from week to week. In other words there are story- lines and song-lines; riffing off the tap tap tap of the clock and marking the sound and the absence of sound, the trees with and without leaves, with and without birds; enquiring into their stories and those of the lives of voices and brief incursions that reach us not by any effort on our part- but simply because we are where we are and are present enough for long enough to notice these comings and goings in relation to our own co-witnessing.

I am beginning to "Tell the story" of M  to M; the changes- not in terms of better or worse as a linear progression of increased functionality, but simply in terms of there being more of M present and available for me to read trough his articulated rendering. And yet I am emphasising his presence all the way through this process- the actuality of this presence that can be redrawn back to the centre- core and M's ability to reference the extremities of sensation and feeling states back to this centre- core and so to have the capacity -the willingness- to stay with the pattern as it unfolds. This for me is the core of M's awareness, his intelligence and his clarity of feeling and sensing. At the heart it is the key to his being able to begin to rest his body into mine and that in turn is a key shift towards integration and experiencing his body as one whole in relation to mine and to others whom he is in close caring relationships with.

I am then telling the story back to M of his body; how the two becomes one and the one becomes many over and over again in every person- who are the same as him, yet unique unto themselves.
So that, yes we all have two hands and two knees, two feet and two ears and, yes we all have this one belly. Then I talk about food: nurturing - sustenance- warming intake; chicken soap, gefilte fish, chicken and chips, chocolate and the difference of our likes and preferences; the uniqueness of our nurturing style and yet the undoubted nurturing we are all in the process of acquiring- him and his brothers and sisters, and his parents and me...

Then I tell him later- after having followed through this treatment into the Somatic Touch Education he is so familiar and receptive to, how that, yes the complexity of every movement in his arms and hands and legs and feet is derived and sourced back to his belly. And at this point in the treatment I feel him pouting and collecting his belly under my hand, guiding the depth and duration of the contact so that I integrate this central depository through his chest, his shoulder, his head- esp back of the head and neck- then throat and face- then into his arm and hand and back through into his lower abdomen, hip, lower back, leg and the very particularities of his upper thigh, his knee the sides of his lower shin, his ankle and the base of his foot. And I am feeding through the story of his turning twisting body- according to his responsiveness to this precision touch- as it rises incrementally and falls in pulsar waves to activate this turning upwards movement or this stretching elongating prone movement. For what I am realising is that there is no absolutely static position but rather this gradual translation through one point of reference or in-dwelling and the next that unfolds as it catches into a response in order to create the articulate framing of a mobile body. This mobile body desires this movement at the precise moment as it occurs. And this occurrence is never absolute and finite- as if occurring in a single plane, but is a multi-dimensional unfolding of layered accordion-like gills that power one another through a combined and accumulative momentum; a momentum that suddenly collects along a mid-line where the idea of uprightness is imagined even as it is never totally arrived at but is falling, cascading and rising, flying in counter rhythms as the on-off beat is continually reconfiguring its point of occupancy.

On-off touch and sound articulation, calibrates this same energetic double loop that powers falling and rising simultaneously against the grain of one another. Uprightness- like consciousness- is configured along the mid-line of this double move. It seems to be there- stable and fixed in real matter and situated through the logic of position, but in essence it is this fleeting cross-hatch continuously reshaping against the grain of its counter-part.

Shared attention and shared witnessing is this. Its source of vigour is a renewed enquiry that is a physical kinaestethic touch orientation that transcends its own limits to become the patterning of occurrences that work in counter-point to what has just been.  Alertness and settlement are the two configurations that are never totally stable yet when primed to a certain pitch, become the motivation for a sense of "Just-so-ness". They are experienced as a certain placement- of high finely tuned balance or low widespread letting go into gravity. One is vertical, the other horizontal; together they attune us to ourselves and to one another as an orientation through space and time.

Language and physical mobility, emotion and meaningful gesture, unfolds around this core of growing certainty that is free enough to explore the unknown on the back of what has been established and is a moment later, given up and re calibrated.

I am working with M in the suspended space where he lies cross-ways upon my lap with his head and feet resting in the indents of well-places hard-curved cushions. This allows for minute or sudden shifts in the depth of a given support and this support; my legs under his torso and my hands under his neck and at various places on his body, becomes the touch pads that read and assess his level of contact - or communication into this mobile ground which consequently adapts to give more tonality of support or less- and so he too adapts to rest further into momentary areas of holding or to bounce /stiffen out of those resting enclaves.

So the ground and the space of action becomes a continuously recharged and reformulated interaction- until only the interaction or relationship is there hovering above and around these proximal pulsar meetings. And then I too withdraw- disappear as a strongly presencing entity; fade out yet remain witnessing M as he fills out and claims the space as his; literally fills out and thickens and becomes whole. And I as Caregiver, become pure background;  the ground that speaks only when spoken to. His voicing comes through and his lips begin to pucker and shape sounds. There are different levels of guttural moaning, humming, and more staccato brief shouts. Then all is silent again save for the ticking clock and the birds out the window on the now bare leafed winter tree.

I tell M that it is nearly time to go. I count to three and then prepare him by telling him I will now lift him back into the chair. This is a ritual departure that he is used to and I sense him listening, preparing his body for the jolt of movement. We do this in two stages- so that at the first level he is sitting on my L shaped leg/knee and resting his side and his head into my shoulder. Then I heave him up carrying him in my arms and resting him back into the chair. His arms and hands are responsive and reach for mine as soon as he is settled into the chair- rather like two light balls that when reaching the ground bounce up again. There is a flicker of a smile around his mouth- but it is so brief I  am not sure if I am imagining it or not. Perhaps it does not matter whether it is imagined or really there. For the imaginary if truly entered will  in the next moment be truly there. I in fact wholly believe in this smile and so I feel inherently that it is occurring whether it is manifestly so or not. It is a smile Between; the smile of the one issuing forth out of the two and becoming one; the enchanting contradiction of unity and separation at the heart of all contact- of our languaging made possible through our embodying into relatedness at the point of our feeling exchange.