Internal Gestures

Band: Back Street from the 1932 film.
Title: Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
(And yes I know in the original game it was just the last 4 words... I've changed the rules okay?)
Photo: "six more, already spoken for though..." by Don Solo.

This is my latest version of what began as the album meme. And yes I am still obsessed with it. But don't worry you only get to see a very few of the ones I make... though I treasure them all!

In the photo's description the photographer says "OK, so about month and a half later I have a couple more...." (his italics) so it seems like punctuality or lack of it is pertinent here. And this is all to do with some game called Portal which, because I've never heard of it, he seems to think I ought to "get off the internet. Seriously." What a sense of humour! It is apparently a "benevolent Weighted Companion Cube". In a photo of his original version of this object he says "I'm just a geek being a geek for other geeks.".

Well I seem to have been surrounded by geeks all my life, most of them haven't accepted me as a fellow geek though... for instance I was asked why I hung around the Maths Institute... the asker thought I was an arts student not a fellow mathematician... but of course being a geek companion has meant that non-geeks assume I am one.

Identity and especially identity via the groups one belongs too... ah... that always has been a tricky one for me. Anyway it inspired me to actually put something into my blog's "about me". I'd temporally deleted it some time ago... thinking I'd soon put something up and so months later I now have. ;-)

But I'm still struggling with group identity... I'm too influenced by other people when I'm in a group and as I value my own identity I'm having to refrain from joining in with lots of things... does that make sense to anyone else?

Anyway, this posting was meant to be about the "Internal Gestures" from "A Life of One's Own" by Marion Milner. She does mention that she finds them harder to do when other people are with her, so this solo, I mean solitude stuff is relevant. And she is also not assuming anyone else would find these specific gestures useful, but she is sharing the concept and giving her own examples as a way of writing about something she otherwise had no words to share.

1. Pushing her centre of awareness into different parts of her body.
2. Pushing her centre of awareness outside of herself entirely.
3. Listening just happened when on one occasion she put her attention into the soles of her feet. It also happens when she "sends herself" out into the hall or "sends herself" to stand near the orchestra.
4. Bored looking turning into delightful, blissful looking and feeling as she widened her seeing. This happened without a specific intention and is mentioned as a specfic state she got into.
5. Feeling what a chair was like by actively putting her awareness, but not her physical body, into the empty chair.
6. Discovering that ping-pong was much easier when she loosened her arm, instead of trying so hard.
7. Taking her head out of darning changed it from a chore to a blissful activity that she looked forward to. It also made her darning more efficient.
   
8. The difficulty of remembering to make these shifts.
9. Contracted versus open.
10. Pressing awareness out against the limits of her whole body til there was vitality in all her limbs and she felt smooth and rounded. She calls this "that fat feeling" - meaning it in a nice way.
11. Letting go of the need to have thoughts.
12. Putting her observation of where she was and what she saw into descriptive words whilst she was there could also open a door between her and the world.
13. Concentrating for 15 minutes on a mundane object in front of her could open her to it and make it anything but mundane! (I keep typing mundance...)
14. To give up, surrender, any goal or sign of success. In other words success through not striving for it.
    

If you already do one or more of these internal gestures you probably know what's meant, but if you don't its much harder to explain because these are really sensations, felt things. I'm a very gestural person so these are relevant to me.

In fact I've been surprised to realise that some people don't know how to shift their awareness to different parts of themselves. Actively putting my awareness into my feet is a very good, grounding thing. However unlike Marion Milner I'm not adept at putting my awareness outside of my body onto bits of furniture or to "stand" next to the orchestra... she mentions scaring herself sometimes whilst doing this... I've never found it scary to put my awareness into my feet but I can imagine it being scary to separate from one's body, especially in a crowd.

The nearest I've come to this sort of putting myself elsewhere is when doing journeys... either guided or free... but then I always attempt to do that in a really safe space, not at a concert!

Carla has just posted about "Creative Daydreaming" which is another way of journeying... some people have incredibly visual daydreams others have stories that unravel, or songs that sing themselves. I've had all sorts but what I would really like is a key, an "internal gesture", that guaranteed me this sort of experience.

Do you have anything you might describe as an internal gesture? If so, can you describe it?

Making Changes

Clifton Suspension Bridge with altered colour balance

I have now thrown out the sticky cards I mentioned in my previous post. The mixture seemed to be permanently unsettable.... Now in some ways being unsettable seems rather good to me. I'd rather not be so set in my ways. So I'm taking this as a good omen.

However one habit I'm not about to ditch is that of being interested in synchronicities.

A little over a fortnight ago I mentioned my passion for playing the album meme. I've carried on playing it in various forms. At one point rather than making up album covers from the three "randomly" selected pages I started to make a little book of them. Keeping the whole quotation rather than just the last four words, and as much of the wikipedia article as looked interesting. Then my software had an odd moment. It lost a page. By then I was on my 44th. The one that had been lost was 42. And of course 42, according to Douglas Adams, is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Using my browser's history it was easy to find the image and the wikipedia page again. The picture is this one of an otter, titled "Will do tricks for fish...:O)" by law_keven. And now going back to it I see even that is another little synchronicity as it reminds me of "So long and thanks for all the fish" another Douglas Adams book. The fourth part of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe series. (If your only experience of the Hitchhiker's Guide is the film, put that thought aside... the radio series was excellent and the BBC TV series was too. The film however wasn't.)

But the quote was lost... or was it. The page of random quotations just figures as a single page in my browsers history. But all it took was recalling a little bit of it to be able to search for it and fish it out of their archives. I remembered that it contained the phrase "follow your bliss". And the only quotation that comes up when searching for that is:

When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.

Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987)

This was last Wednesday. That day we happened go to the zoo too. We were in the seals area whilst they were being fed and saw their exuberance afterwards. This was from the underwater viewing tunnel:



A very playful seal definitely following its bliss and in sharp contrast to many of the other animals at the zoo that looked caged in and fed up. Animals all hoping that a door would open for them but not knowing the key.

Something about all this triggered a need to reread a book I'd read 20 years ago. At the time it was enormously influential for me. It's "A Life of One's Own" by Marion Milner, originally published under the name of Joanna Field.

In it she documents her attempts to find out what does indeed make her happy. Over many years she goes through a variety of different methods the most important being the keeping of a journal. And in particular a journal of what had really made her happy that day.

She notices that there is a big difference between what she thinks will make her happy and reality. For instance listening to music sometimes made her happy and other times did not. And its not the music itself that makes the difference but how she listens to it. She discovers what she calls an "internal gesture" that shifts her from a state of mind chatter, that gets in the way and separates her from the music, to a state of full listening. Last night I went through a couple of chapters of this book writing down the internal gestures she mentions. I've got to 14 so far. (I'll blog them later.) All of these internal gestures tended to shift her from a self-critical, self-conscious state into a more open, sensory awareness.

But often she simply forgot to use them. And other times on using them she got frightened and withdrew. So no matter that these were ways to her bliss she didn't always allow herself to use them.

So fast forward to today.

Today Leah mentioned that Carla had started a new blog - wings 4 you. What's more the current posting has the same quote from Joseph Campbell about following one's bliss!

And Carla is suggesting the keeping of a "Journey-Journal". I definitely prefer to keep such things private knowing that I'll censor them if I'm in anyway planning to blog them later. I already keep a journal but feel that something different is called for. Maybe my Incomplete Atlas is about to become something else... If it is I won't be showing my progress here. Sorry. Its just that its hard enough to allow myself to look inside, let alone open up to all the unknown lurkers out there!

And lastly here is one of the most fun things we saw at the zoo:



Update: Jim has just told me that last Friday it was exactly 30 years since the first Hitchhiker's Guide went out on the radio.

"What on earth is 42?" is an article on BBC news about it.

Altered Atlas

Whoops no post for over a week.... well one reason is that I've been making things and they haven't all worked.

I'd hoped to be showing you some cards I've been making using plaincards specially prepared blanks. I bought these blanks last year when I was considering making a more portable version of my soul collage cards but eventually found the format so different from the 5x7 proportions that it was requiring major redesigns of too many cards to be practical. I'd bought the type of blanks that can be sprayed with clear sealent to produce glossy finished cards.

Last week I printed up all the remaining coatable blanks I had (with photos not collages) and after a little experimenting set up the shed for a big varnishing binge. Unfortunately, and I've really no idea how, instead of taking the clear varnish with me into the shed I took a can of 3M repositionable spray mount. I'd given all the cards a nice even coating when I realised that it wasn't smelling right...

Now I don't know what I ought to've done at this stage but what I did do was got hold of the clear acrylic spray and covered over the cards again. I waited an hour and did another coat and then another hour and another coat...

None of the cards has dried with a smooth finish. Some are still sticky!

None of them are useable as cards. None of them look in the least like decently printed photos.

For some reason this disaster has spurred me on to have another go at an altered book. Last year I vaguely joined in with ArtsyMama's weekly lessons on altering a book.


Last year I'd worked with a spiral bound plain book rather than a real book. This time I've got an atlas. (Only 50p from the charity shop and wonderfully big - much cheaper than the equivalent size drawing book.)

I remembered that one was meant to prep books and went looking for the instructions. Being the internet ArtsyMama's direct link to the tutorial no longer worked but it is currently to be found on Go Make Something - you need to register to read this site but its got enough on it to be worth that small investment of time and effort. The article on preparing a book for altering says its a good idea to take out every other page. And to ensure that the tabs left in are of different sizes. So that's approximately what I've done. Occasionally I ended up deciding to keep certain pages because I liked them - or cutting out pages because I liked them and wanted to use them elsewhere - but mostly I went through taking out every other page. So now I've an Incomplete Atlas of Great Britain to work on.

What's altered in your life?

Comfort!

Today we finally ordered a new settee. The one we've ordered is similar to the one above though its a 3-seater.

It has taken us MONTHS, no YEARS, to decide on what we wanted.

The one on the right is the MFI version of one we'd been considering before Christmas (though in a lighter colour like the cushions). You can get it from John Lewis, which is where we'd first seen it, for £895. During the January sales MFI had it for sale at under £700. Now its currently on there at over £1100 (I think) - I questioned this since I could see it was exactly the same as the one John Lewis still has on for around £900 and she confessed that right now they are in a "price establishment" phase. And quite honestly do not expect to sell anything for the next two weeks or so until their prices come down again as "reduced" or "sale" or something like that... she also agreed that it was exactly the same as the John Lewis one, even if its not called the same thing. Its a sofabed and the mechanism is amazingly simple. But we don't need a sofabed, that would have just been a potentially useful extra. It wasn't a reason to buy it.

And when it came down to it, as a settee, the one at the top was just SO much more comfortable. Jim liked it straight away too. The ends have recliners built-in and he loves them! (So do I!) We saw it last week and went back and ordered it today.

In our sitting room we've had an extraordinarily uncomfortable seat for ages - its a futon and far too hard despite all the extra cushions I've made for it. I've been feeling desperate to get something more comfortable for years. We've even had the money earmarked for it for over two years... now we've just got 12 more weeks to wait as, unfortunately, that's the lead time on the one we've chosen. Its funny how I've been quite patient really, not buying one that wasn't right, but now we've committed I wish it was being delivered tomorrow!

What I've learnt from all this is that I now know that when we are struggling to persuade each other to buy something it means don't buy it! Wait until we see something that really is what we both want.

I've also learnt that one should never, ever buy anything from one of the big furniture places unless it is on sale. The rest of the time its in "price establishment" and no-one is expected to buy anything during that time.

Marie Curie Charity

On the radio this morning I heard Hugh Grant mentioning the Marie Curie charity. Their nurses had made it possible for his mother to die at home, with her family around her, rather than in hospital.

They have a "daffodil appeal" running throughout March.

The last time I heard Hugh Grant on Radio 4 was ages ago when he was doing his Desert Island Discs. I was immensely pleased that he had selected as one of his 8 records "The Flopsy Bunnies". This was a childhood favourite of mine too. I'm trying to remember now how it goes... We're a happy family, yes a happy family, and we live at the foot of the old fir tree... there's Flopsy, there's Mopsy - how could they be sweeter?, funny little Cotton-tail and Peter!... something like that.

Ever since I've had rather a soft spot for Hugh Grant... And since I mostly don't remember film stars names the simple fact I can say this shows he is up there with Clint Eastwood for me! (Johnny Depp would be in there too if only I didn't keep on getting him muddled up with Brad Pitt... and if you don't know how anyone can do that maybe you'll see how weird my memory banks must be... )

Anyway, this is all part of a big series of synchronicities that are currently running for me.

Yesterday I just happened to find this on YouTube - I found it looking for lyrics to go with a photo someone had put up on flickr of a bunch of sad withered red heart-shaped balloons. The video includes Hugh Grant in Love Actually dancing around.

On Radio 4 this morning he mentioned that it might be a cliche but the Marie Curie nurses really are angels. I went out to take a photograph of a daffodil to illustrate the Marie Curie daffodil appeal and it turned out itself to look like an angel too!

Sunday Scribblings - Passion

image - 'choosing sides' by Don Solo

Over at Sunday Scribblings the prompt this week is Passion.

My, not so, secret passion is that of playing with synchronicities... and I also love making art even though this blog hasn't seen much of it recently. So imagine what happened when Imelda, the GreenishLady, introduced me to the idea of album covers randomly generated via visits to three separate sites. Here was instant, if slightly mechanical, synchronistic art! All that's left for the budding album designer to do is select their fonts...

My only problem with it was that I always feel the need to respect people's copyright wishes and so I was very pleased when my first attempt came up with an image that was almost usable, I contacted its owned and got permission to use it here.

I played with the idea some more but was frustrated by the sheer number of unusable images that were coming up using the original search. Then I found this search. It produces a single random image from flickr's most interesting images over the last week and, joy of joys, it only picks ones which allow reuse with alterations. And so I've been indulging my passion. And here are the results!

The image at the top of this post, of the rather mechanical looking guys with an American football, are accompanied by the band name of "Gerald Salton Award". This is an award which the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) offers. Once, long ago, I worked in computing. I never belonged to the ACM though I went to some of their conferences. A couple of days before I made this cover, out of the blue, I got an invite to join the ACM - and I've not had any contact with anyone in it for 12 years at least! Couple this with the title that came up "More apt for passion" and the Sunday Scribblings prompt of passion and you'll see why I thought I'd better emerge and show you the rest of my collection.

You would like to see my imaginary record collection wouldn't you?

Oh go on. Its not like you have to traipse up to my garret and sit in an unheated room whilst I play you weird music is it?

And its not like offering to show you my etchings is it? Well maybe it is... but only a little...

Antithyra brings you See what was there. Image, Sunset, supplied by Mor (bcnbits)

It does seem to me to be worth seeing what is there... and I love that image to go with it. What do you think a leaky boat that is still afloat might mean? I've no idea but I wonder...

So everything was going swimmingly (;-) as I played this game when up came:

Still no future brings you "life isn't for everyone". With a beautiful image Three of a Kind, by mat.teo

Not very cheerful.

That night and last night I caught the beginning of Radio 4's Moral Maze where this week they were discussing suicide!

Add to that a rather morbid thought I had as I was bringing the washing downstairs. I was suddenly thinking about two of my friends who have died before they were 50 (Lee and Stefek). The phrase, "those the gods love, die young" came to me. I then put the washing basket down and caught my hand, painfully, on a a pair of wastepaper bins that had been left there to be emptied. These two bins are ones that we had recently been using as buckets to catch drips from something that was leaking... (though it wasn't a boat). I don't normally lash out at inanimate objects but this time I did. My foot contacted them and to my surprise I broke both of them. Later I realised I'd kicked the bucket - twice!

Luckily this was my next cover:

Richmond's first album is "There is time enough". The background image is
我和都屬裝的下午茶時間 by Lin-Chien-Wen

Whew! There is time enough! Thank goodness for that! But what about this:

Punjabi Cuisine sings "Our Adversaries Are INSANE". Image, Kinderdijk. by Pσrcelαΐηgΐrl°

This reminds me of Don Quixote. And it wasn't the first reminder I'd had of it recently either. I don't know the story well but it does seem to be about illusion and disillusion. Sanity and insanity? Though how can one tell if one is sane... (and don't say anyone sane would stop at one album...)

The original soundtrack?, Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, "build the furnace, besides."
Image, Ice swirls by Chubby Bat

So does it make sense to build a furnace near ice? Maybe. And besides yesterday I went to a glass blowing factory and actually saw (and felt the heat of) furnaces whilst they made glass things... glass is a lot like ice isn't it?

The full quote which that title came from was:

A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. Part2, III
US (Russian-born) novelist (1905 - 1982)

So we are back with suicide again... thanks...

Glodok give you "earth in every country". Image is "Sunrise at the top of the world" by Gail Johnson

This one is back to the ice theme again. It was the rich which are the scum of the earth in every country according to Chesterton... Once upon a time, unless one lived amongst snow, skiing was a rich persons occupation. These days though almost everyone seems to go... except of course the starving... and the truly poor.... so maybe it is still a definition of richness?

Surely its time for a fun album?

Castelfiorentino bring you "Serious when people laugh". Image is Energia by .Playadura

Although this might seem to be a little lighter than the others that quote in full is:

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

Okay I can take a hint, as long as its repeated often enough, so lets get serious about this...

Anthrax (the disease not the band), presents "The stars and sun". Image is "OSA Sunset #2" by peter bowers

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, and to work, and to play, and to look up at the stars and sun.

Henry Van Dyke

Truly life and death are different sides of the same coin. Without one we do not have the other. One's death is guaranteed from the moment life starts. We maintain our life only by bringing death to other life forms, its all part of the cycle of life. And if we take it a step further maybe there is case for saying one's death is imminent from the the moment you were first thought of:

The rather cumbersomely named band: University of Kentucky College of Design have just released "You First Thought Of". Image, The Phoenix Palm Rises From Ashes by JPhilipson

Are we into reincarnation now? Or maybe Intelligent Design... I'm certainly amazed at what comes up at random... have I strayed into the twilight zone?

Boisney present To the Twilight Zone. Image, Golhaa menge Haalatu mieeba, by Millzero Photography ( 99% low fat photography)

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices -- to be found in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling
US actor, producer, & screenwriter (1924 - 1975)

By now, if you have come this far, and I bet very few of you have stayed the course, you will be hoping for something to cure me of this passion:

Rick Goddard's latest album is Refill contained the antidote. Image, Goldfinches; Carduelis carduelis by phenolog

At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.

Emo Phillips
US comedian

To make your own album covers:

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Find a random interesting photo on flickr that allows manipulation using this link: mikelietz.org/code/flickr-ccgettr.php

If you put it up on flickr then do tag it: "cd cover meme" and add it to the CD cover meme group.

More Sunday Scribblings inspired by Passion.

Sunday Scribblings - Sleep (and / or Teeth)

Over at Sunday Scribblings the explanation behind this prompt is:

In honor of Natalie Goldberg, who I am going to hear speak tonight about her new book, I have chosen a prompt from one of her old books, Wild Mind. Here, in her words: "An area not written about much -- but which once thought of becomes a rich vein -- is sleep. Try it. Write about sleep patterns, sleepless nights, sleeping in the day; how two brothers sleep together, two lovers; sleeping outside, beds you've slept in, sleeping on trips, in foreign countries; no sleep. What is sleep, anyway? It's like the old trick of saying your name over and over again until you don't know it anymore. Sleep is the other half of our life, the underbelly. We should explore it."

As Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind and also Writing Down the Bones used once to be favourite much used books of mine how could I resist joining in again this week.

---

Sleep touches me and I fall deep, deep into the the blessed depths of deep, deep sleep

I find myself awake in a dream, knowing that I dream and choosing to continue to dream the dream I'm in

Again I'm falling, tumbling, spinning

With no fear - I do know that I dream - I let myself simply go where the dream takes me

I arrive at what could be an expensive hotel but that I know is a private hospital

Still I refuse to move my body, let the dream take me where it will

I hover through the corridors and into a doctor's room

My body is deposited by two chairs

I wonder which chair is the doctor's chair and which the patients

As its a dream, and I know that I dream, I hold this thought but do not act on it

Now I am lying on a couch
The doctor has arrived

He is dressed in a blue boiler suit
He looks like a plumber
He take a screwdriver and uses it to inspect my feet

He says "The quantum threshold of the ganglia has reached a base point,
"We will have to operate with an acetylene high oxy-propo-butane transformer,
"Its clear that the psycho-physiological bubble is about to burst"

Finally I say:

"You don't expect me to believe any of that do you?"

He says nothing and motions with some plumber's tool towards my feet

"Well at least you got me to speak." I say

"I'd better get changed" he says

He returns wearing a tweed suit, looking every inch the country doctor,

Except that he is wearing rose-tinted spectacles.

"Hold this" he says handing me a bottle of snake oil.
He is leering above me and I'm feeling uneasy yet hopeful too.

The dream fades into black.
I am still aware.
I know I'm asleep.
I hear the body breathing.
I feel the body asleep.
I wait for the next dream.

I'm swept up into the clouds. I'm flying. I am still lucid and still choosing to be passive. A passive component of my dream. In recent lucid dreams any intentional action has broken the dream and sent me straight to the black space between dreams. This is the only way, at the moment, that I can maintain both dream and lucidity.

I let the dream carry me to the top of a mountain.
There I fall asleep in the dream and let myself just dream once more.

---

More Sunday Scribblings on sleep and/ or teeth.

Say it with Roses, Hearts and.... Marmite!

What a wonderful Valentine morning - Jim had baked me a fruit and nut bread to make up for the lack of chocolates - I'm avoiding sugar this year and have so far kept the resolution pretty well! But also 12 red roses!!!

I'd really hoped to get the "I Love You" Marmite for Jim before today, but hadn't manged to find it until we went shopping at Waitrose today. Jim says it smells of Champagne, but to me it just smells like Marmite.

I hope you all got something to your taste. I made this mosaic from the hearts I spotted over the last few days.

This is what I did for my neighbour, using a photo of one of her cats and written in lolcat:

Mala Popper Corns

Jim has recently become enameled with Eggcorns. I'm still attempting to distinguish them from malapropisms and puns...

Sunday Scribblings - Fridge Space

Inside my fridge, very little lives
It is dark, except when I open the door
Inside my fridge, are too many olives
They smell like sweat, and Mediterranean gore


A tiny poem for this week's Sunday Scribblings prompt of "Fridge Space" which appealed to me because on flickr last month, a group I enjoy, called the Monthly Scavenger Hunt, had on its list - "Inside my fridge" so I had the illustration already!

The other image that it brings to mind for me is the David Bowie song, Space Oddity, about Major Tom:

Here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.

Its the tin can that does it and the cold fridginess of space... brr...



I know its ages since I Scribbled along with Sunday Scribblings, and I'm not promising to become more regular either! Read more posts inspired by "Fridge Space".