Mind/Feet Connection - Walking Meditation
Robbie Jackson, started laughing at my feet. He just could not believe the shape and distortion of my high arches. That was my first encounter with a culture who laugh at feet. Then, a few years later, at a dance summer camp that a girlfriend of mine was attending, I met dancers for the first time. “Merde!” they said. “I've worked years to get feet that look half as good as yours." It turns out, I had naturally been given dancers feet. That started me on a path I am still walking today; my relationship to feet and other people's relationship to their own feet.
That same girlfriend, turned out to be my first wife. It was the year 1980, and we both were curious about foot reflexology, so we started working on each others feet; buying books and creating intimacy through touch. She encouraged me, a hockey player and lifelong jock, to take a course in Relexology. Two weekends later, I could call myself a reflexologist, and now had the cover to start exploring and touching people's feet. As one older gentleman pointed out, 'Now, I can explore a woman's feet and lower legs and it's acceptable to her.'
My family became my internship, and my friends, future clients. My new wife and I created workshops that provided me with new people to work on; in which people would express to me, 'they felt more peaceful, softer and more aware of their feet and foundation.' People were experiencing simple, yet effective changes in their bodies.
Cement is hard. Why would we want to feel our feet pounding the pavement? Cement is predictable, flat, smooth, with little or no variation; our feet don't have to think. The average urban dweller has no functional need to pay attention to their ground. But we are fortunate here on the Island we have many areas to connect with varying topography of the earth.
Walking Meditation;
The next time you are taking your favorite walk through the woods; breath deeply, connect with your breath and imagine a pathway with embedded rocks, protruding up from under the leaves, roots, stumps, sticks, undulating ground, uphill, downhill, traverse. I feel my feet, I become aware of my balance/posture; walking becomes a meditation on foot placement, direction, and impact. I choose my path carefully, and I'm aware of the mind -body connection to my feet.
As the twenty -six bones in my feet receive the stimulation of the swelling surging, ground, I feel. I stop thinking, a break from worry, future projection and anxiety or depression; life is simple. I feel myself in motion. I feel the power in my legs. The neural pathways to my feet are re-wired. My balance improves as a result of giving attention to the bottom of my feet. I can differentiate the inside from the outside, the heel from the toes. I can react to a slip without falling.
As I open the communication to my feet, I start to notice everything else between my head and my toes. The platform that I rest on seems out of proportion in its importance. I touch the earth, the earth touches me. ONLY our feet have contact and constant stimulation, unless we are sitting or lying. I am alone in the woods, alone with my body's foundation upon which all else rests. I must return again soon.
Of course if one has imbalance then the resulting pain will inhibit standing comfortably. Imbalance is a given after childhood, even childbirth. Ones relationship to gravity never takes a holiday and that constant pull forms muscles and thickens bones where the demand on the body is greater. Habits conditioned through physical emotional expression, lifestyle choices, and injuries install patterns on the body-mind hard-drive. The awareness of and attention to the foundation of our bodies is a therapeutic approach to self -healing over the long haul.
Erik Iversen woke up after his first son was born in 1980. Certified in Reflexology 1981, Hellerwork Structural Integration 1986, and 5Rhythm movement 1988. He has been maintaining a weekly one on one Bodywork practice in Montreal, Martha's Vineyard and New York City, since 1986. He also teaches 5Rhythm workshops to adults and to teenagers. Erik can be reached at erikiversen@moceanmedia.com .
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