Nothing Profound in Theory

There is nothing profound in theory without practice. (Ruffle any feathers?)

It’s not that thinking alone doesn’t have power. Theory has its own magic. However, there’s a clear difference in thought and embodiment. And I want to explore what happens in effort.

Theory is fun, sure. It helps hypothesize and name. Yet, in the end, it will not be the name. The name is in the doing, the action.

It’s an interesting paradox. In my attempts to communicate what Ephemeral Movement is to me, or does for me, or could be for you, I often feel a large swath of space between what it is and what my words can emulate.

I’d like to believe that through the repetition of expression, something titrates into embodiment for the reader.

And, I do believe this is true to an extent. That’s a special kind of reading though. I wonder how often you feel you can absorb all the text you’re required or choose to consume a day? I find that I fall into a peripheral style scanning often.

I gave Ephemeral Movement it’s name out of my experience of the process of doing.

It’s fleeting moments, following without pursuit to any end except experience of the self through embodiment, to the world through experiential moving. The trail to the mountaintop, the trail of the movement, the trail of sensation. They all lead to some shape of relationship.

The embodiment process is where the profound can unfold. Through ligament and sinew the body is woven with the consciousness, detangled through each unfolding movement of intuitive impetus. When I dance the experience of Ephemeral Movement, it’s curious, free of judgement, following the sensations and forms that come with nearly no effort, like becoming seaweed or tree limbs blown in the breeze. I let all of me participate.

Or at least, this is the practice.

When I am practicing, I can have lots of epiphanies, realizations, phrases and mantras fold in to my movements. I realize my shoulders and neck are so tight because I’m carrying more than I need to. I find a tightness in my pelvis and I open towards it and through it. I stick out my tongue and roar. I find the simplest answers to the concerns I’ve been worrying over needlessly for days.

I often liken it to a trance, though the definition of trance doesn’t actually sum it up quite right. It’s conscious, it’s responsive to stimuli. I allow sounds to be a part of the process, my own and those in the environment. The light, the textures, the internal feelings and thoughts. It’s all information in the conversation.

We walk our destinies in a series of movements that often become habituated. How much of our lives do we miss in this habituation? I saw this quote recently about how time travel often captivates our concerns in how we might change the past/future for the better or worse, but why aren’t we talking about how we could change the future through choices in the now?

It always comes back to now, this moment, and how we can be in it fully.

Nothing is profound about anything until it is lived. What could you do in this next moment to feel more alive?

I can’t tell you what Ephemeral Movement is without expressing it through my own process of experience and the language that I have. I can’t know what it is for you or name it in your words. We can try to share our experiences, and there is power in sincere witnessing, significant value in being perceived which is a huge piece to this practice.

With anything, we have to just try and try again.

Which is why I am offering an in-person class for those interested in discovering their own experience of Ephemeral Movement as a practice. Check out my offerings page for more information if you’re curious. And keep following along as I bring more of it into my writing, and possibly, more material for you to try it at home, on your own time.

Of course, there will be some theory in class as I share about Ephemeral Movement’s epistemology. However, be ready for plenty of experiential exercises to explore embodiment, place, and creativity.