Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Depth of Experience
My quest for richness in life takes me to new territory. As we've said before, it's not what we do, but how we do it that can count and I'm looking for more depth of experience. One can paint a colour, but some colours have more depth and subtle tones. Put 'taste' into a sauce, but with the artistry of a culinary enthusiast we get a complex array of flavours that touch and grace different parts of our tongue. We can drink wine, and an experienced nose and palate will detect subtle nuances, over-tones, under-tones and more colours and fragrance that can be imagined. We can hear a note of music which can be plain and pure, or rich in harmonics and overtones. With life being so short.....a mere 90 years if we're lucky, and given that I'm well over half way, It's richness of experience in life that I seek, more meaning and depth of pleasure. Rather than the race to visit the 1,000 most dramatic places on earth I would rather linger in just a few and get more depth and enrichment.
It is this pursuance that has caused me to question if I should change the strings on my violin to natural gut. And I think that will only become clear to me if I experiment for a while. My current strings are of the highest quality of synthetic strings and they give a beautiful sound. Indeed they make many hundreds of different qualities of sound. Depending on how they are played, they offer a rich range of varying tone colour to a single note. It is this that excites me. And I believe that gut may offer even more.
So having received my violin back from the Luthier with it's new sound post fitted, new tail piece and bridge, I find it's playing better than before, more responsive with more depth it gives a wonderful playing experience. And as I only play to amuse myself but give it an hour or two each day, I only have myself to please. So I may just go the whole way to naturalism, without taking my clothes off, but buy a top quality set of natural gut strings. Let's see what more depth I can extract from this 18th century violin. This is what excites me. So it's not about playing the fastest, most difficult pieces I can master (and I'm a long way off doing anything more remarkable than grade 5 pieces as yet) I seek the depth of experience. I want the richness and nuance in a single note that can bring tears to my eyes. When a solitary note is played well, with all the colour, vibrato and nuance I've been endeavouring to explain, it can touch your soul; it speaks to the deepest parts of your being.
So, not being one to hang around and contemplate choices for too long, I have ordered my set of strings already and should have them by Thursday. The thickest quality of bottom G string (no laughs) in gut, is not one that's normally stocked, so it's now on order.
Sherwood Forest
It's this quest for depth of tone, a rich range of texture, tone and 'colour' in all the senses that has driven me for years to work on my photographic developing techniques. Wishing to avoid stark and high contrast images in black and white, dynamic and strong as they can be, it is my pleasure to seek the depth and rich range of greys in the mid-tones of monochrome photography. I seek a painterly effect, without digital manipulation. I seek to portray nature as it is with all it's variables, subtle light, varying tones and warmth that brings joy and happiness, that makes us stop and contemplate, that touches the soul. Similarly in the field of Alexander Technique and with improving personal posture; changes to muscle co-ordination, balance and poise may be subtle, but it makes us more powerful and peaceful inside. It enriches ones life.
Letting the fast world pass me by I am happy to linger, to pause and absorb what's around, to seek more depth, not only to appreciate, but to participatively create it. My happiness comes from being lost in the process of activity that offers deep rewards, the search for more creativity, more refinement, subtlety, variety and depth.
But in order to allow the richness of experiences to speak clearly, they require space, to set them apart from their surroundings. The rich and detailed picture needs a broad, plain mount to set it off, with space of wall to be displayed. The complex sauce in a meal is best appreciated with plain vegetables and space on the plate, space between the mouthfuls. The richness of music needs spaceswithin of silence. The pregnant pause when the conductor raises his baton but there is as yet no sound, heightens the tension and anticipation. "It's the space between the notes that makes the music", as Arthur Rubenstein famously said. And it is also silence that gives the platform for all sound to speak.
So it is with the search for silence to frame my experiences along with the awareness and openness to receive the richness on offer, that I return to my clients. With their improving posture, release of tensions and the reawakening of sensual awareness that they too find more appreciation in everything they do. That is the potential. That is the journey. No destinations......just the ongoing experience. And let it be decorated richly.
