Accessing Experiencing

 

‘Experiencing is privy to the lived embodied experience of present moments of now moments. Of key importance here is the idea that it is our lived body which participates in lived experiencing and is always already in relational interaction…. Thus when describing accessing this lived experiencing, any present moment may serve as a potential access point for inquiry‘ [Miecat Inc., 2016, p.4, 7].

 

This indicates quite clearly, that the emphasis on the present mind & body amplifies our relational capacity to the space, the object [artistic or other], those we are interchanging energies with and self. Whilst seemingly obvious and relatively easy to articulate; staying present, open, curious and without judgment calls for an acute awareness and finer attunement to self. Accessing experiencing was first brought to our attention after moments of entering the space. In the centre of the room, there were brightly wrapped presents with our names & a postcard attached. We were told to collect our presents and to be with them a little while longer. Here we were given some time to notice how we were experiencing.

 

In the Miecat glossary, it states that ‘experiencing has to do with the ongoing stream of embodied feeling or felt meaning which flows constantly within us. This might include: bodily sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and behavioural activity; multisensory awareness of memories; pre-reflective and non-verbal imagery or sensations such as sound, smell, touch, texture, movement, form or colour' [2016, p. 4]. When attending to this experience with curiosity and without expectation, the dance of heightened sensations were surfaced, allowing for a deeper connection and presence to ‘the moment.’ While cultivating this stillness, I sat deeply in this holding space, prior to opening the gift. Some of the things I noticed was; the mystery and intrigue of not knowing, the textures, the body memory that was responding to the familiarity of this process, the memory that fills my mind, the curiosity that sparks a bodily reaction of excitement, increased heart rate, the imagination that dreams on all the possibilities, the textures that cross over, the sounds of the ruffling beneath my fingers, the fragility of not knowing how to handle the object, the blurring colours, the noise that fills my ears when tearing the paper.

 

'I unwrap. It’s a shoe. It has sunset colours' [Kowitz, Feb 13, 2017, p. 1].

​

This simple, yet overstimulating process of accessing experiencing altered the way that I entered the space each morning and ultimately the way I entered into each procedure. Stretching time, drawing in, something so simple allowed for such a shift in perception and belonging.