Chapter 6- The Arts: Contraindicated

Activities Contraindicated:

• Tap Dancing
• Consumption of Narcotics
• Bricklaying/Jigsaw puzzles/Crossword puzzles
• Bird-keeping
• Aerobic-type/Mundane exercise

All forms of rhythmical dancing execute a very large language – one which is cut amongst the ethers and deliberate in its message - for dance is speech incarnate.

Of course the unrehearsed, yet not so random movements within our everyday life, could be viewed as something of a dance also – a slow, but distinctive set of poses and placements. The human form in all of its multifarious actions holds grace and positioning which is marvelous to watch, and pleasing to interpret so.

However, when it comes to a dance which predominates over the other faculties – usually involving the whole body as one – we find that the man or the woman ceases their ordinary consciousness, and are given to a thinking which lies just outside of their limbs, in that movement, for that time.

The movements of tap dancing do not only require the feet, as the upper body is taken in with balance and flourish etc. Yet the steps are exaggerated with the metal plates beneath the shoe, and the noise itself, as it snaps the air (clickety-click) resonating its performance. It is interesting to note that many armies have required sharp foot movements (such as the clicking of heels to stand to attention) as part of their discipline.

Now, firstly there is a distinct difference to be had with our sense of touch, and that of our sense of touch being coupled with sound (a sound produced from the effect of that touch itself). When we contact something, when we feel something, we actually feel ourselves. The sensation is interpretative, yes, but in actuality that which we are experiencing is conducted within our own perimeters, our own nerve sensors, and within the matrix of invisible conduits besides. We are separated off from the actual thing we are tangibly close to – and even though physical objects can impinge upon a body to the point of violation, there will always be a ‘separateness’ regardless, in that we shall only ever be feeling the edges of our own organs and being, rather than sensing what lies outside of us. The truth of the matter is that all things are known from the inside out and not vice versa.

When we incorporate sound in to this sensory experience we find that the perimeters of the consciousness are shifted out to where the sound has gone. Sound can help us to travel out from ourselves so to speak, literally, beyond the physical borders, which would ordinarily contain the experience. We may go to the gates and then fly out from them borne up on the pinions of a sound.

All sounds have an etheric consequence. This follows for sounds that are inaudible to Man, yet resounding within the ethers. It is the action of a sound, rather than the action itself, which gives strength to the percussive effort (such as is used in homoeopathy for example). Life may stream in from the higher sources upon a sound, and equally parts of our consciousness can be drawn out upon the sound as well.

Added to this, in relation to tap-dancing we find that the consciousness is very much impelled into the feet, because that is where the greatest commotion is happening. The dancer is drawn down into that activity and given to a stupidity because of it.

It has been noted that activities which utilise the hands with particular movements (and we suggest those which create a sound because of that movement especially) will actually enhance the thinking processes (the active cognitive powers of containing and utilising the forces implied in many reasonings) having a direct effect upon that person as a result of the finger movements they have worked upon.

In like fashion, when the consciousness has been moved into the feet and out following the sound, it continues on, but without a return circuit. Contrary to the action in the hands, the activities of the feet necessarily flood the forces out through their venue – being the chief action of that ‘pole’ of our being. We excrete vitalities down and out through the toes, whilst receiving vitalities in through the head (and the heart, and other centers besides, all within the upper body).

Tap-dancing in relation to the Arts is especially contraindicated because of the very nature of the activity. When we wish to inspire the forces which contain the ‘new’ futures into our world and into our being we can begin with a lively intelligence which seeks out ways in which we can combine with elements within our Life which give back to us also.

Many activities cause much to wash out and away from us, returning nothing. The ingestion of narcotics is one such indulgence, where the ego of the individual is eroded as his consciousness departs him, out into the ethers, lost to a swoon of certain morbidity. There is no spiritual or mental renewal in the process; the man is deplete of himself, essentially, ethericly and all too easily – and sadly, the anguish which follows afterwards knows of this only too well.

The individual then may go on to patternize his behaviour by expecting that the narcotic substance he has taken into himself previously may return to him that which he lost in the first encounter – and yet it only scores more. His starry suit ruptures into many leaking holes and the vitalities seep out intermittently.

Bricklaying and puzzling relate to the activity of fulfilling a foregone conclusion with a mundane repetition. Often we can learn much about the properties of a given subject by understanding those which run contrary to them. The free spirit of Art and her attending muses flees any environment where such repetition is given precedence to her company. This is not to say that the talents of brick-building and puzzling do not lend themselves admirably to engineering and to language, but rather to make the case herein, at appropriate times, for a differing perspective.

On the subject of bird keeping we are given a picture image of the human condition as it was described above in relation to its captivity within the physical experience. Many folk will understand the freedoms they have experienced when having moved out from their body’s restraints during dream periods – when they have perhaps flown swiftly, or moved with an infallible strength. They have experienced what it is like to have left the constraints of their bodies. 

The purpose of this paragraph is to bring to mention that the images we keep around ourselves, say for example, that of a bird in a birdcage as a painting (and of course also the very realities, if the birdcage is real) impact upon our consciousness and moreover on our very attitude of being. 

Everything within this world, belongs, in part, within us also. It is known by us and recognized in a living way. The bird in the cage is not a healthy emblem for the fledgling ego of an individual to strike within his thinking, as it resembles such restraint within the physical boundaries as to be never overcome by the highest imaginative forces that would otherwise be carried buoyantly, pressed against the ethers, flying along with the spiritual song-call.

Mundane exercise does not fulfil the needs of the co-operative body when compared to the exercise we can experience when given to a primary and beneficent purpose. Purpose itself (whether apparent in a game or in a labor) drives the will throughout those regions we move with intent. The greater the intent and the more purposeful, the greater the benefits we shall find from the exercise itself.

If the exercise has no primary reason to it, other than just for the fulfillment of the exercise itself, the body knows and responds accordingly. It is actually dangerous to move the body with great exertion when there is little or no wilful intention enacting it. The physical danger lies in that the forces invoked by the mechanical action are received but not dispelled as they would be during a mindful work-out. 

Even if we are bicycling in the countryside, we are overtaken with the experience of the surroundings outside of us, and the vitalities there inspired within us are expended back into the environment our attention goes to – and the creative circuit of combining is therefore complete.

If, on the other hand, we choose to travel nowheres but work the body itself upon an exercise-biking-apparatus, and do not soulfully, energetically, enthusiastically experience going anywhere at all … then regretfully the vitalities summoned can actually become deleterious to the hopeful bloke on the play bike who cannot indefinitely contain them. Do you get it?

With Art we are seeking to incorporate the past, the present and the future in a living, connecting way. We may go on beyond ourselves and into the unknown horizon, because the elements of the future enable us, providing our investments are real in the here and now, and depending upon that which we work out from importantly in the first place.

With the invention of the exercise bike came also the demonstration that men have quite forgotten their living links with wholistic purpose – a purpose which will not only strengthen the legs and their constitution supporting, but shall also bring newer roads to come and a life that will take them far along them.