Gesture + Repetition
beginning. middle. end. beginning. middle. end.
This week we visit two view points that work beautifully together — Gesture and Repetition.
They are companions across mediums. They can be mirrors for the thresholds we move through in life.
Gesture is born from space — the way energy takes form, how an impulse finds its outline in your body or in the space around us.
Repetition lives in time — the way form deepens through return, how what is repeated becomes transformed.
Where Gesture has a beginning, middle, and end,
Repetition sometimes feels as if it has no end at all.
Gesture
Calling mindfulness to gesture is a moment of becoming visible.
Where a shape is the still point that gives form to what we want to express, moving into gesture, we allow that shape to come to life.
To have a beginning and an end.
An approach, an arrival, a release.
Every gesture begins with an impulse, something just beneath the skin that wants to be known.
It lives briefly in the body or voice,
and then dissolves, making space for what’s next.
Life. A composed piece of music. A great work of art.
A well crafted scene is often made up of multiple gestures, not just one.
We can repeat gestures, as explored in Repetition below.
But sometimes they flow organically tumbling one into the next.
Like when we walk, each step has a beginning a middle and an end.
But whether we define the beginning as being either when the foot is coming off the ground to move us forward, or from when the foot is solid on ground is solely from our own perspective.
And perhaps the beginning is where I start in location, and I define the end when I get to my destination…. If the gesture feels to complex to indicate the beginning, middle and end, then perhaps I can break it into small segments, step by step, allowing greater mindfulness and infinite possibility between here and there.
I find it helpful when I think about my life, thinking of it as an endless series of beginning, middles and ends.
Even when I feel I am in a moment of an end, I actually can’t know that for sure.
Yes, if I am looking through the lens of that one circumstance, perhaps it is the end of a certain relationship, a certain work endeavor. an era of identity… But in the context of my life as a whole, sometimes those ends are actually the climax or the middle of a larger arc ushering me towards what ever is next.
So these undulations woven together like a symphony or layers of cake striating the Grand Canyon all have their own “Shape”.
By honoring the individual gestures I get little windows to see all the as parts of the whole,
to single out so I may give time and reverence for each little threshold of change.
The trick for me is to not confuse that part for the whole.
Gesture allows us to name the moment by giving it form so we can practice moving through life without needing to cling to it by thought alone.
Repetition
Repetition is the act of returning — to word, to motion, to sound.
Over and Over and Over and Over……….. and Over.
We build pattern and rhythm, structure and cohesion.
A repeated movement can steady the body.
A repeated word can open the mind or soften the heart.
Conversely a repeated movement can make an onlooker feel uneasy.
A repeated word can begin to sound like a foreign language if said enough.
But the pay off when exploring through repetition,
we begin to uncover subtle variations,
and we begin to feel the layers beneath the surface.
In the “Meisner Technique”, Sandy Meisner formulated an entire exercise built upon repetition for actors to tap into their instincts.
Turns out, when you take away the need to think or be clever, and you simply repeat back the words said to you, there is no where to hide.
It’s just you. You and your partner.
And if you do it right, if you put all of your attention on the partner in front of you, and open yourself up to being affected by them, you may find yourself in an honest moment of presence. You may find yourself changed without even trying.
It becomes abundantly clear that forcing change or trying hard to be interesting is never actually as interesting as when you allow change to arise authentically.
In art, repetition can create comfort, comedy, tension, or trance.
In life, it can reveal our habits and our prayers.
It is both discipline and devotion — a way of staying close to what matters long enough to maybe be changed by it.
