Moving Stillness
In the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about the transitions between different states of being. I’m thinking…
How do we consciously move from activity to stillness and back again, fluidly?
Can we be still while physically moving? Can stillness be enlivening?
Rooftop Sunset Views of The Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn City Skylines
I recently travelled to Brooklyn, New York to visit a family member, and what struck me from the moment I stepped off the plane, onto a crowded subway platform, and onto a series of busy city streets was the feeling of movement that was so different from what I typically experience in Montana. It felt like stepping into a river with a strong current that catches you unawares. That first step knocks you somewhat off balance. You feel displaced. You may even take a step backwards. Yet, with each step afterward, you adjust to the river’s current. You place your feet with intention. You anticipate the power of the movement. You adapt to the flow of the moment.
My first day in New York felt displacing. The sheer number of people around me, the way spaces are constructed, the architecture, the aromas, the sights, and the smells were all different.
I’ve travelled many times before, so this was certainly not my first trip to a larger city…. However, this may have been the first time that I was embodied and slowed down enough to notice….a different version of something I’ve been coming to realize for decades: The spaces around us shape our internal landscape.
On this trip, I found myself rapidly moving between states of extreme movement to immediate stillness, or from dissociation to rich embodiment. I would ride trains to places then find pockets of calm in nature only to be rushing down a crowded street to then find myself standing in a subway car simply staring into space. It felt like stepping into a river and then standing at its banks, over and over. In the past I may have blown past this experience, too numb to internalize it.
This time, I took the time to notice nuances.
How is our way of seeing informed by the stories we tell about ourselves?
I have an idea of myself as a sort of “country mouse” character who feels most at home in the mountains and valleys of Montana. I love wide open spaces. I feel most like myself on the trail or floating on the surface of an endless river. I say to myself: “I could never live there…in all that chaos.” I like to believe that cities simply do not suit me.
Since I grew up in Montana and have chosen to live my life here, I’ve grown accustomed to the wide wild spaces all around me. I love that I could walk down the street with my arms outstretched and never touch another living being. Yet, while it is true that this place swims through my blood to the depths of my soul, I know…. this story I tell that I could never be happy anywhere other than where I am most comfortable is also incredibly limiting.
It says to the world: “I am who I am and can never change. Don’t change me.” It builds walls around who I could be.
It denies a level of inner confidence that may say, instead: “I can be anything, as long as I’m me.”
I surprised myself with how easily I adapted to a different way of living while in the city, even in just a short time. Riding the subway became natural and easy. I no longer felt the oppressive presence of so many people around me. For a time I felt at home with this new pace and way of living. I didn’t expect this adaptation to surface so naturally…
Space itself is a shifting commodity.
What struck me most upon returning to Montana was the incredible amount of space all around me. Houses are bigger. Less people crowd the streets. I can easily lose sight of a single living soul by stepping a few paces farther into the forest.
In the city, my bubble of personal space adjusted, and I was suddenly comfortable with strangers standing right next to me. (This would be absolute madness at home). Spaces were tighter and more compact. You find you only need one or two tables on the sidewalk to call it a restaurant, and you only need a couple of free feet in a crowded park to build a world of your own.
In Montana, with only one or two people around, you can feel watched or on display. In a city, with so many eyes on you at any given time, you can feel completely anonymous.
How does our actual seeing change, depending on where we live?
I once heard a story about a person who moved from where they grew up in the country to a larger city, and she noticed that she looked much farther ahead on the street than her friends did - as if she was still looking out to the horizon. Her friends who grew up in the city learned to look closer - anticipating objects to step over just below them or noticing the almost hidden entrance to that building just beside them. The actual physical distance they were accustomed to was different, and so, they had two completely different visions of the world around them.
On this trip, my relative told me city locals can always tell who is a tourist because those people are constantly looking up and around them. I found myself either doing the same - wanting to look up to the mountains - or cultivating a look of close stoicism in an effort to blend in.
My question around these ways of seeing is this: How can we be sure we are even seeing the same things as the person who is standing right beside us? And, if we are having two completely different experiences, how can we trust ideas of “fact”, “truth”, and phrases like “I saw it with my own eyes”.
Someone I trust once described this dilemma like this:
You open the refrigerator door and look in.
You notice the slices of turkey, the milk, and a jug of yogurt first.
Your friend opens the same refrigerator.
However, they notice the eggs, the kale, and the cans of seltzer.
You both opened the fridge but you are prioritizing completely different things.
Two different experiences of the same set of objects. Two completely differing points of view around the same experience.
I wonder….if this is happening all around us all the time (and I believe it is) then why don’t we spend more time explaining what we see and where we are coming from? Why do we rush to conclusions and just assume we all approach a given situation from the exact same foundation? I think we need better transitions…
700 Year Old Bonsai That Died After Being Moved From It’s Home in Japan to The United States
Adaptability is an asset.
On this trip, I practiced embracing differences. I didn’t try to do all the things I do at home or hang out in the same spaces. I wondered, instead, how do I bring myself along into this different way of living?
I asked myself, in this new place, “What are the ways I am the same?” and “What are the ways I am different?”
I am coming to know that the center of who I am never changes.
That person values experiences. She feels deeply. Loves loyally. She admires exploration - mental or physical. She seeks understanding, not knowing or fact. She needs movement and stillness. Loves solitude. Wants to connect. She thrives in nature. She loves beauty, changing light, and play. These things, among others, stay the same.
Everything else can change: How I dress. What I think. Where I live. What I do. Who I know. What I make.
Someone I greatly admire and respect, Angel Collinson, once said “I belong to myself, wherever I am.” That is the way I would like to be living. I would like to be confidently at home at the center while being free to be fluid. I want to flow from states of movement to stillness with ease. I want to remove the hang ups and stuck places that feel like record skips along the way. I’d like to be content in who and where I am, no matter where that is…..even while working for more, even while wanting to change, even while growing in multiple directions.
In my art in this moment, there’s a contrast and concert between movement and stillness.
My figures fly over cliff faces, jump their bikes, or race on skis down steep mountain faces. They also stand in stillness, contemplating their journeys. This exploration of how we can achieve an inner stillness through movement has captivated me for quite some time. I like to call my hikes “moving meditations” because I find an inner stillness in that type of movement. For those who hate to meditate, this can be the only way to feel it - a sense of calm inner knowing….an “okay”ness at the heart of everything (perhaps that’s called acceptance).
These days I’m working on cultivating fluidity - finding stillness that’s enlivening and movement that calms. I’m learning to step into life’s current and flow right along, going fast, going slow, or spinning in eddies round and round. What does this mean for my art??
I’m not sure ….
How lovely …
…. Let’s find out together!
