The Crucible

Posted by Jeanne Barrett on August 24, 2014 in Uncategorized

Crucible:

* a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to high temperatures

* a place or occasion of severe test or trial

* a place or situation in which elements interact to produce something new

Intensity and trial come to us all, hopefully.  In other words, we are called upon to interact with life in a manner that yields new experience.

Using the above definition, provided by Lord Google,  as a structural web:

1.  a container.  Our sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, awarenesses are a series of containers.  Breath connects the container inside with a broader container outside.  We are contained by the wider world, and by the conditions in which we live.  Containers within containers.  The less we interfere, the more connected the containers become.

2. ah, the severe trial. Our perspective, sensory reliability, and refinement in awareness, our entire integrated  instrument of self, responds to all of life’s activities. Demanding activities call upon us to extend beyond habits of protective stabilization and/or collapse, or combination of both.  We all have our unique style of habitual interference, and unless we know better, we go full force with habitual means. But,when life becomes more demanding, our best use of self is needed. We can learn to  see this like a slow motion video, observing ourselves in the rapids.  Am I compressing or expanding, resisting or assisting?  Can my breath connect me again?  Can I allow new solutions?  Where is my choice at this moment so I can allow fresh experience?

3.  which leads ideally to the 3rd definition:  creating a brainstate in which elements formerly seen as contradictory are now working together, due to a broader view.  A severe trial can expand the container of possibility.  Using Alexander tools of dynamic non-interference, spatial thinking, unity of self, we improve the instrument with which we solve problems.  The container changes, so experience changes, and connection beyond the container changes.  Expectation gives way to a curious welcoming.