The nature & body-based art collaboration of Lily Gael & Lisa Wells, Body Habitat project, has a summer event. July 25th to August 2nd, 2010, we're walking on our own (4) feet from Corvallis Oregon to Portland Oregon. We begin in Corvallis with a parade. Walk into Project Space, a Salem gallery, Tuesday July 27th @7p for a presentation. End in Portland Aug 2nd @ 6:30p @ Performance NW - presentation & discussion. Join us blogging, Facebooking & presenting.
Walking is medicine. It is good for my soul and my soles. It heals me. I slow down and I feel apart of what I see. We were made to walk. A slow steady pace to get where we are going. We were designed to walk from place to place through the year, following food and shelter. Our bodies thrive when we walk. Our souls shine.
This medicine has been stolen from us, co opted, removed from our realm of knowing. We walk for exercise, we walk for health, we walk with purpose. But we use wheels for transportation. The world is too big to travel on foot. Everything is so far away and there are no bathrooms en route. So we hop in the car again and isolate ourselves from the world. We fall into believing that the measure of happiness and health is a corporate measure (we consume things, we medicate, we heal with the latest craze or health food, we believe that we will be happy when... when our teeth are shiny and white?). But the measure of happiness and health is found in our souls and our soles. Our bodies can thrive simply by being given the opportunity to walk and be out doors. Simply to move at our natural pace and be our native selves.
I'm struggling these days. Life has tossed me a very heavy weight to carry. I don't want to tell the story here. It is painful. I'll tell it some day when I am less raw. But I what I will tell you is that I can find relief and sanity when I walk. Knowing what to do next comes to me. I can deal with the latest crisis that lands in my lap, and then go to my room and cry and weep and call a friend. Walking is my solace and connection to the divine. I hear the voice of reason when I am putting one foot in front of the other.
Thinking about walking from Corvallis to Portland. Planning our route, or possible routes and our time in miles, but not planning the adventure. Can you plan an adventure?
I went on Lone Twin webpage http://www.lonetwin.com/about.htm and lolled around in their lovely, crazy thinking. Looked lightly at what they’ve been up to and what projects they are creating right now. What’s coming up. What they are thinking, what they are talking about, this is what interests me.
I do not like the word “interests.” Doesn’t really mean much since I can be interested in the finale of a TV show like Lost and I can be interested in being part of the serenity of my dance community. What does that mean then?
Excited is a big word. A word full of connotations, of other meanings, or subjective, personal, erotic, birthday-party meanings. But my body lighted-up, my blood feels closer to the surface when I think about Lone Twins work, and their thinking. I yearned. I wanted to call the airlines to purchase a ticket to Heathrow. I’d jump off the plane and walk to Brighton. A long walk but the thought of how long it would be brings even more energy into my body. At Brighton I’d search out Lone Twin headquarters, their studio. I’d just go there. Find the building, knock on the door and say hi Lone Twin, I’ve come to see what you are thinking and doing today. Is that being excited? Passionate? It’s definitely different than interested. Interested doesn’t move my imagination or my body. At least not right away.
Excited, passionate Conversation grows adventure. Body to
mind to
speaking to
body to
mind to
speaking.
A particular kind of round conversation. A big talking and listening.
Collaboration creating. This is part of transformation that we, the planet & planet inhabitants are in. And it is also The Why we are in transformation. Collaborating is one of the best double-duty activities, the medium and the message. No new thought there, just another application of McLuhan's ideas. check out Marshall McLuhan @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
No one can actually co-opt the collaboration process b/c you do not know how to start it without being in it, and you can’t be in it without also starting it/process. If someone tries to co-opt a collaborative process, their very act of co-opting it changes the nature of it. Corporations try to co-opt collaboration and that is why the creations of corporations tend toward Flatness. They are not really the result of 2 or more independent realities. They are the result of a relationship with themselves; oh! Corporate belly-button contemplation. Collaboration is Round, with no beginning or end.
Body Habitat walking is only the place where we collaborators choose to stop and look. Look here, what do you know?
Even riding a bike is to fast to take in the details of the world around me. When I walk I notice the smell of places. I notice the details of the flowers in bloom. I see and hear birds everywhere. Hoping on fences, poised over porches, floating on power lines and chasing each other. I notice art. Everywhere there are small and large bits of art. Art in the composition of a garden, in the placement of a found object, in the love and detail of how we arrange our world.
And I saw about 6 other walkers around Corvallis. I walked to the bank and to return books to the library. It was warm. I took the dog with me. I was thirsty and purchased myself an iced soy latte but then felt guilty for the plastic cup and consumption I didn't really need. I'm feeling the need for a deeper fast. A time of non consumption. A dropping, dropping, dropping further in to find what is essential and what is non essential. Walking helps.
