A new rhythm
By Susanne Martman
Recently I’ve found myself more aware of the pace of life - staying closer to home and drawing back on other areas of involvement has come with losses and gains.
I echo what I’ve heard from many, it feels like the world has stopped spinning so quickly and we have fallen into step with a new rhythm of life.
More speed, more efficiency, more productivity...a trajectory that began with the Industrial Revolution...the mechanistic treadmill rolling out like an assembly line reaching into the future and beyond. Now, with little warning, the entire world seems to have ground to a halt. Each of us is impacted in different ways and to varying degrees by the unexpected event of a global pandemic. Along with the losses in livelihood, relationships and general way of life, many have also found in the process of slowing down and stepping back a realization of how speed and stress have influenced their lives.
From a somatic perspective, speed and stress diminish sensation. The faster the pace of our lives the more difficult it becomes to stay in touch with the tonal of the body that moves to a different internal and celestial rhythm. In Continuum we recognize the benefits of being ‘open systems,’ an immersion in currents of information, ever changing and renewing with the novelty of new informing that continually shapes our lives. - ‘Closed systems,’ by contrast, operate more on patterned responses. Repeated thoughts loop through our being, entrenching habitual ways and cutting us off from the flow of informing, nourishing bio-intelligence that is there, always, to sustain us.
Slowing down is one of the most effective ways to become more aware of our habits. In a similar way, when we slow down, the fine articulations or subtleties of movement become more evident to us. Through this process our ability to sense and feel grows, as well as an opening to far greater possibilities than we may have otherwise experienced. When we distance ourselves from the daily hum of activity we become more able to enter again, with a heightened perception of the natural rhythms of life, our place, and pace, in the moving world.