Movement and Wave Dynamics

I am grateful for Josh Schrei’s exploration of this topic in the Mythic Body Course. It has greatly influenced deepening explorations with my clients.

Movement is the essence of life.

There is a constant wave dynamic that is moving within our bodies, our stories, our personal and cultural mythologies, our communities and ecosystems. Even our thoughts have a wave pattern. Cultivating our capacity to listen, feel, recognize and understand movement is an important and emerging way of knowing.

Below are some explorations that we may consider during Somatic Explorations.

Chinese Medicine

Everything is described in terms of Qi. The Movements of Qi are:

  • Ascending

  • Descending

  • Exiting

  • Entering

Qi is then divided into two types of Qi:

  • Yin - Stillness/Slow/Cooler

  • Yang- Movement/Quickening/Warmer

Five Emotions are defined by their movement:

  • Fear - Steady, Moving Downward. Unless frozen. Watching the moment of water, we can understand fear.

    • Fear transforms to wisdom.

  • Anger - Moving Upward and Outward. Unless repressed, then it becomes pressurized. Watching the growth of vegetation, we can understand anger.

    • Anger transforms to benevolence.

  • Joy - Flickering Like a Flame. Ascends and Descends. Lack of Joy is descending. Watching the movement of fire, we can understand state of joy, elation, mania and sadness.

    • Joy transforms into the virtue of propriety or right timing.

  • Worry - Knotted in pathology, giving/circular in health. Participating in planting, harvesting and watching the transitions of seasons, we can understand worry.

    • Worry is transformed into integrity.

  • Grief - Descends. Observing the descent of autumn time as we fall into winter, we can understand grief.

    • Grief transforms into righteousness or knowing the value of life.

Yoga

Prana (life force) moves in 5 ways:

  • Ascends - Rising

  • Descends - Roots and Anchors

  • Draws in towards the Center - Contraction

  • Radiates our from the Center - Expansion

  • Connecting - There is a connecting force between everything.

Martial Arts Traditions

  • Spiraling

  • Packing

  • Splitting

  • Drilling

  • Crossing

Other Movement Explorations

  • Stillness - pure potential. Source. God-Head. Goddess.

  • Pulsing - the pulse that exists like the breath, the heart, the day, the lunar cycle, the pulse of the seasons, and universes. Expansion and Contraction.

  • Musing - To be moved by. Inspired by the Muse to speak, to dance to sing. A dynamic force that could be understood in terms of its dynamics and directional.

  • Animating - an aliveness that flows through as its becoming.

  • Emerging - a constant movement of change.

  • Outpouring - from a single point.

  • Magnetic. Pulling together, Eros.

  • Play - a dance. Coming together, twirling, release, intermingling, glimmers, sparkles.

  • Bending - often towards. But also as not to break.

  • Dismemberment - to be torn apart.

  • Dissolution - Melting Away. Sometimes a process of decay, like in the dying process.

  • Collapse - like a Black Hole. Often sudden.

  • Rising and Falling

  • Intensifying and Escalating

  • Decreasing and Diminishing

  • Rising and Rooting - Like a Tree. Related to Nourishment.

  • Movement like Water - Slow, liquid, containing all shapes. Octopus Energy.

  • Blowing - the movement of wind.

  • Churning - like the ocean or the spiral of a galaxy

  • Coiling Around a Center

  • Swallowing/Vomiting

  • Bursting Open/Gushing Forth

  • Cracking Open

  • Constructing/Collapsing

  • Expression/Restraining

  • Heating/Cooling

  • Harnessing

  • Journey/Return

  • Unregulated/Regulated

  • Bending and Swaying