I take a much needed break from the thesis and plan a moving exploration at the park close to where the young Edwardian girl sat in the 1900s (see blog archive; Water, Spirituality, People, Place and Community). I plan to move with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s explorations in the ‘Dynamics of Flow: the Fluid System of the Body’ (1993), while always being aware and noticing the 5 stages from standing (stage 1) to front lying (stage 5) in Fraleigh’s ‘Land to Water Yoga’ (2009). I go to a yoga class first with Danielle my guru and Spanish co-voyager; in yoga (after just leaving the computer and a section on breath and fluid) as I move with flow through sun salutes, the sun gleaming through the patterned glass window creating a kaleidoscope on the floor, I am drawn to an awareness of the breath that flows around the body within the fluid system; the breath that flows around the body in oxygenated blood; I feel breath in my blood as I flow like a river in sunlight…
‘The fluids in the body are continuously flowing. There are three main pumps that power their movement – the heart, the “tissue pump,” and the cranial-sacral/coccygeal pump (traditionally referred to as the cranial-sacral rhythm). Their movement is also facilitated by breathing…’ (Bainbridge Cohen)
‘Breathing further supports the returning of the fluids’
‘The force of breath also aids the movement of the CSF’
‘CSF is produced in the ventricles (spaces) within the brain and flows in channels surrounding the brain and spinal cord and then passes into the dural sinuses (between the membranes covering the brain) where it is emptied into the veins which return the fluid to the heart’
(Bainbridge Cohen: 1993).
(CSF - Cerebrospinal Fluid)
The above passage by Cohen, well just excites me, firm evidence of the relationship between the brain and heart through the flow of fluid. Danielle nearly always begins class with sitting taking time to feel the body and breath, while nearly always taking a moment to drop the head to the heart ‘taking the brain energy to the heart’ and focusing attention there… in the heart centre… ‘Improvise with swing-like movement, rising and falling and rebounding, and feeling the pull of gravity and then the pull of the heavens – ever-flowing and continuing.’
‘Feel that there is a flow toward the heart and a flow away from the heart and that they complement each other. And observe how that flow is influenced by the breath.’
‘Our fluids respond immediately to vocalizing and music.’
(Bainbridge Cohen 1993)
I arrive in place already drawn to the flow of fluid through my heart and head, and the breath that flows in fluid. I look around at the landscape and begin to think creatively, I’m tempted to sacrifice exploration and make, create but I resist that temptation as my attention lures to the water, its trickles and ripples, its folds, its downward flow and its reflection, the giant green trees reflected on the face of the water as clear as a mirror, assisted by the sunlight light… I’m aware of the colour green surrounding me, green the colour associated with the heart chakra. Aware of the air, the breeze, the breath in the air, on the water, aware of the sounds of nature, of earth… people pass by and look at me, look at me inquisitively, children ask their parents ‘what is she doing?’ I tell them I’m exploring water – inside my body and outside in nature… I want to ask them to join me, ask them to move with their inner and outer waters, ask them to share and see what I see in water, I want to tell them what I’m discovering through the study, I want to ask them to love their water, look after it… Acorns fall from an acorn tree and the tree I sit under looks thinner than it did 2 months ago, its ferns browning and I am reminded that autumn is near, I am reminded of the cycle, the fluctuating continuous flow of life, of the earth.
I move… I write… and I play, and I sit, and I listen, and I watch, and I smile… I see my reflection clearly in the water, I play a game with my reflection we hide, we seek, we look and smile… I think here moments of creativity begin to enter… The breath a wave, rocking and swaying, breath in the spine, like movement created from the breeze on water… heart… heart opening… heart smiling… head following, flow in the head creates ripples in the spine and down to the sacrum, a pool in the sacrum… sacrum a strong based in sitting, the base, the earth on which the upper body flows freely… sounds… sounding… sensing the vibration of sound inside, sensing the ripples in my fluid created by the sounds I make… I hug myself, I hug my body, my blood… beauty… beauty in movement… spirit… I feel spirit all around me moving through me… I am of this world and this world is of another, everything in and of this world was created of another… my soul, my spirit smiles… I feel alive in the world, in my body… a joy to be alive… to breathe and move and flow with the water, with the world…
There was joy and spirit felt in moving, play and curiosity… calm and rest… but what brought me most joy in all of today’s experience is that as I was catching the reflection of trees, and the light dancing around on the water like an angle (http://vimeo.com/28720965), a dog began running up and down the stream with great glee. His owner, a family and young girl calling him back but he was too drawn to the water to obey. The young girl was also drawn to the water and longed to cross its stepping-stones, she was told no but the water pulled her heart and she too could not submit…
After watching the dog and young girl calmly and peacefully find joy in water, yes the dog is running energetically but he is not in distress there is a sense of clam in his joyful play, while the young girl crosses the stones with clarity and calmness. I reflect further on how they were drawn to the water and am remained of reflections I wanted to log early in the investigation when taking my niece on several occasions to the waters side - she is so drawn to the water, there appears to be a gravitational pull between her and the water. My niece is 4 years old an athletic little girl but near water I feel it is a need for her to be near the water, to explore it, to feel it, to touch, to look, not a sign of her athletic ability. At the barrage where the boats come into the bay from the sea and at the beach on a rough day, I try to call her away from the waters edge, for her safety not to disrupt her inquisition, the natural pull, her need but she is pulled back like a magnet, so much so it is almost visible to see (see video documentation... not uploaded yet…), and I think of our home place in water and how water is ‘too deeply rooted in the human heart to be able to disappear…’ (Lloyd-Sidle & Henry-Blakemore: 2009).
Children and animals may not be consciously aware of the deep-rooted water but because of their lack of inhibition they are able to follow their heart and the gravitational pull toward water when near it. As adults, fully developed into land creatures, although the water is still unconsciously rooted in the heart, the conformity of ways makes us less likely to dive in the water and play, explore (I guess this can’t be said for surfers, swimmers, divers and so on but these actions do take place in an organised way) to be at one, at home with the water…? I feel that when adults pass and see me prancing about on the water they think fruit loon… or maybe secretly, inside they want to join me but are afraid of looking a fruit loon themselves, or too shy, inhibited, codified… Or maybe I’m not giving adults enough credit for their knowledge and sacred value of water inside and out? I encourage all adults next time you are near water to cross the stepping stones, honour the pull deep in your centre, let loose, open your heart, play, explore, or just sit with your feet in the pond…
‘Its beauty and mystery draw us like an invisible magnet. It seems that near water we discover a profound feeling of rest and clam, a sense of identification where the eye, the heart and the soul are fully engaged – we feel truly and completely at home.’
(Lloyd-Sidle & Henry-Blakemore: 2009)
See video documentation ‘Movement Exploration 6 Part2’ to observe the dog and young girl… please view both video documentations in ‘Movement Exploration 6’ to observe waters ability to reflect and the moving exploration reflected upon here. 
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