THE MAGIC OF STRUCTURAL AND TEMPORAL INTEGRATION

Marcel Proust, the author of “Remembrance of Things Past” has a passage on his view of time in human life as being so much more vast than the space we take up. Now he was an incredible writer and sent out these long, beautiful melodies of words into space and time. But, here’s the passage I am taking issue with, however beautifully stated.

"But were I granted time to accomplish my work, I would not fail to stamp it with the seal of that Time, now so forcibly present to my mind, and in it I would describe men, even at the risk of giving them the appearance of monstrous beings, as occupying in Time a much greater place than that so sparingly conceded to them in Space, a place indeed extended beyond measure, because, like giants plunged in the years, they touch at once those periods of their lives - separated by so many days - so far apart in Time." 

How beautiful yet wrong this is.

First in fact we occupy only this present moment, an infinitesimal gap between past and future. But we occupy in space about 62,000 cubic centimeters.

Beyond that fact, is our experience of the larger “body” and spirit that tells us we are in fact continuous with all the space around us. Science tells us that our atoms are continuous with all the rest of creation in space, just a bit uniquely arranged. So from the standpoint of both spirit and science, our bodyspace is actually infinite.

Besides, we access our sense of time only through this body in space – with the sense known as “chronoception.” 

And through bodywork we may help open a window not only into a deeper experience of the present moment, but, through the miracle of conscious and unconscious memory, our clients may connect with parts of themselves that were involved in past experience. We can evoke moments from the past - ones that were so beloved by Proust - who can thank his body for the taste and aroma of a cup of tea that opened a window for him that ultimately gave rise to the 3,900 pages of "Remembrance of Things Past"!

Another great writer, Walter Benjamin, said, “only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past.” The same holds true for an individual affected by significant touch (what I call Deep Massage). There are times in our lives from which we haven’t fully learned the lessons; others we haven’t fully experienced because we didn’t know how to process them at the time; and others still lie forgotten, but filled with the insights and power that often populate our dreams.

Through the space of our bodies, bodywork touches those times in our lives that, when activated consciously or unconsciously, infuse our lives with deepest meaning.

For a redeemed person, all the moments and spaces of their life are then accessible, the present receiving all the fullness of its past, body, mind and spirit aligned in space and all of that contributing to the fulfillment of our destiny in the future.

So we can see the unity of structural alignment helping to give rise equally to alignment in time – with all our past moments contributing to the magic of this infinitesimal and infinite present moment in which our whole life is lived. 

As I was writing this, I found another quote from Proust that I fully embrace: