SPIRIT OUTLETS IN BODYWORK AND LIFE
Last night in yoga our teacher illuminated and elevated our appreciation of imperfection. She read a passage that profoundly affected our practice. This is from "Blood and Thunder" by Hampton Sides.
In describing the Navajo Indians, Sides writes,“…And they were never finished. Navajos hated to complete anything - whether it was a basket, a blanket, a song, or a story. They never wanted their artifacts to be too perfect, or too closed-ended, for a definitive ending cramped the spirit of the creator and sapped the life from the art. So they left little gaps and imperfections, deliberate lacunae that kept things alive for another day. To them, comprehensiveness was tantamount to suffocation. Aesthetically and literally, Navajos always left themselves an out.
Even today, Navajo blankets often have a faint imperfection designed to let the creation breathe - a thin line that originates from the center and extends all the way to the edge, sometimes with a single thread dangling from its border; tellingly, the Navajos call this intentional flaw the “spirit outlet”.
In the advanced Zero Balancing class, “Alchemy of Touch”, we explore that each fulcrum (high quality held touch) can act as a container for a transformative experience. Each experience we facilitate as therapists is a “made place” (ultimately made by the client). Like a rug or a sand painting, it is created out of natural materials. In the case of bodywork/art, this natural material is the living bodymind.
As such, like the Navajo, we need to welcome this work not being “too perfect, or too closed ended” so we don’t cramp the spirit or sap the life from our own or our client’s experience. Every time I find myself expecting perfection, I notice I’m not breathing fully!! Imperfection gives us the breath we need - spiritus.
Therefore, in the facilitation of this living art, we need to not be too together for our own sake as well as for our clients.
• If we try to be perfect, we will work too hard. “There is no effort in what is divine,” said the philosopher, Simone Weil. Perfect is a problem, not an aspiration.
• If we welcome imperfection in what we do, into these enhanced containers for experience we facilitate, then there will indeed be a spirit outlet.
• When we embody healthy imperfection, it sets a therapeutic example for your clients. They may then experience a profound relief from their pressures of perfectionism.
When we’re too “together”, there’s no room for spirit to get in or out!
