About Touch
Touch. Touching. Touched.
We’re sensate beings, each of us hard-wired to take in what’s outside us, what’s other. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin offer us ways that connect us to each other, to the earth and to our place on it.
Touch engages our bodies, outside and in. Consider our hearts ever-responding—growing, shrinking, racing, skipping. And our minds, that mysterious intangible that lets us tell ourselves what a certain smell means, a sight or sound, a particular sensation on the skin. Memory fuels this process so we can go about our days making meaning, and weaving the unique tapestry of our life. It’s all about feeling whole, body and soul.
To feel whole is great—they say its health, yet here’s the sticky bit: each life is full of ruptures beginning with our first one when we’re pushed from our mother’s womb and propelled into the world. Then, flailing and homeless, our eyes, ears, mouth, skin pull us into merging again.
If we’re lucky enough we enter into a symbiotic bubble with our mothers, our first love and bond again. The energy that drives this bonding is love—it’s a pulse in the universe, all around, if only we can see. Bonded, we continue to grow until another rupture—a blooming of sorts and we burst out. First we crawl, then we walk but not in straight lines. Instead we move in ever widening circles each one superseding the other. The centre point of the circle is our first loves whose memory is imprinted in our cells as a constant pulse, mirrored in the drumming of our hearts. This pulse stretches always the circles of our life.
Life is the energy that causes rupture; life is the energy that seeks repair.
And life?
Is envelope of air
spirit of wind
breath
Is current of river
wiggle of worm
warmth of sun
Is rhythm of hearts, beating
drumming of grouse
pounding of surf
Is murmur of jackpine
rustle of maple leaves
ribet of frog
Is velvet of skin
sticky grit of sand
slip-slidiness of eel
Is sunlight
captured in wine
sparkling on water
tasted on tongues
Is lover’s kiss at first light
