Organicity

Morning coffee with the Schwartzs.  Our conversation waxes, wanes...Yoga, Taoism, Mormons, Brigham Young, Zen Buddhism.  I'm in Boulder, Colorado it's 7 am and lovely.  Todd’s keen sense of freedom intrigues me, I love his perspective.  I say something about someone or something, and he asks through a wily smile,

“Yes, but how free are they?”

Such a beautiful and important question.  It gets me thinking how the same gesture or action can be of different source.  Two people seem as if doing the same thing, but each coming from a different place. 

Not what, but where from? 

Freedom, boundedness, Taoism.

I feel what made Ron Kurtz’s teaching (in Hakomi) so powerful was that his being had fully incorporated teachings of Taoism.  Not as a philosophy, but as a felt sense and true movement. This felt like freedom. He showed how to go with the currents what was already there.  In his work he called it the principle of Organicity.

I think this is what the Egyptians must have also done when working with generating energy and potential through their pyramid structures.  Somehow there was a mass understanding of the way (Tao).   Their culture and activities displayed a practical consciousness of the way of energy.   It’s interesting to feel into a culture of people who collectively understood that humans were not the center of the universe.  It seems, somehow they knew we were beings with an organic lineage…energy conductors.  Agents of some larger transmutation in a living system.

I find joy in remembering that there was a time and people that did not build structures or themselves to keep energy out.  Nor was their function to try and control or commodify energy.  Instead, they knew how to be in harmony with the natural elements…in accordance.  I can’t help but feel as if in my own study and traveling that harmony and accordance with natural energy is part of what I’ve come here to understand, to embody.  It is no wonder, Rolfing (Structural Integration) has recently come up. 

I’ve heard some people describe the Rolfing work as placing the body more in accordance with natural laws of the world…first being gravity.  And some think, that when this is integrated into a structure, more natural harmony emerges.  Seems right on, or at least makes some sense, enough for me to enter into the quest of it. 

As I deepen into my path (Dharma), I am more clear in the belief that we can live as a true instruments of the earth in a modern/ancient way.  I am interested in reclaiming these organic rights.   I’m also curious about what true function feels like, and I want to know if I can approach the mechanics of the universe through embodiment.  The more I carry on, the more I am interested in others who are living this, or interested in approaching that balance. 

As I reflect on how this has arisen in me, I realize that this has been inspired by my mind waking up; my mind not willing to be owned by anyone or anything else.  But now, I see this quest has moved into a place of accessing Mind beyond mind.   “My mind” has become an instrument of perception and sense, rather than mechanical projection.  I wonder about mind beyond projection…perhaps conscious materialization?   I realize I’m in gooey territory here.  Magical thinking makes me sea-sick…and yet I sense there is some validity in this potential.  I seek to maintain a clear distinction between talking and thinking of stories about this, and true embodiment.  For guidance, I turn to people and cultures wiser than me. 

For today, I come back to the wisdom of the moment….these friends, our coffee, our talk.  I come back to the wisdom I perceive in the mountains of Boulder, the morning Flat Irons glowing rust hue.  These mountains speak without words.   I write and accept my vessel as a channel, and desire that in this life my body might serve as a resonate harmonic chamber for universal song. 

Allison Distler