24 JAN 2006

Today was different. I could say that “we lay down for an hour” as Raymon said, and then we talked about it for thirty minutes, but of course I got more out of the class than that. First we started with the Argentinean exercise, which makes even more sense to me now. Raymon once understood it as a being giving itself back to Earth, to the ground. Then Raymon asked us to think of a place where we used to retreat when we were children. I instantly remembered a little table with a base. It resembled a hollow box with just frames, no walls. I remember one time when I was about five-years-old, I gave my sister a horse ride, on my back. She got so excited that she threw up. I immediately realized that I was “in trouble” so of course, I immediately crawled into the hollow space of the box-table in the foetal position hoping my parents would not find me. Of course my dad found me right away.

Then we lay on our backs and relaxed our bodies, releasing any tension that we felt. Raymon told us to let our muscles feel heavy, to let them sink into the ground, almost melting from our bodies. We imagined that we were on rafts.
If I stretched out my arms and toes in any direction, I’d be able to feel the edge of the raft. I looked out into the open sky, the blue water that surrounded me. All of a sudden, there was a cover on top of my raft. The cover became a box, that box enclosed me. Now I was floating in a box, in a vast body of water. Then the paint appeared: little pools of colour at my sides. I started to paint my box. First it started as a subtle spring green. Then I painted other things in my box. But in the end, I just wanted my box to be the colours of a birch wood box. As I lay in my box, I was so into what was going on that I forgot that there were other people around me. I really felt isolated in my imagination, in my incredible box. However, I started to feel homesick. I wanted someone to be in the box with me, namely my sister. I realized how much I value our friendship. Raymon asked me to think about anything we had missed, anything we forgot to paint in our box. I so badly wanted to cut a hole in the box to make a window, but I don’t think I had that option, since I did not have a knife with me in the boat. But I think I did cut a window anyway. I felt a sense of urgency, even before Raymon mentioned that there was that sense. I felt that I NEEDED to make a window, that my box felt wrong without one. Then I noticed some thin hinges, and pushed a lid on the box with difficulty. I stepped out of the box, and examined it. I brushed some sand away, but more sand appeared with every stroke I took. My box was sinking. I fought so hard not to lose it to the sand. Then I found a piece of clay. I picked it up, it became ivory. I moulded it into an Indian elephant, wearing a cap on its head and a rug on its back. The detailed lines and curves on the elephant were light brown. I showed my elephant to the people around me. My box reappeared, I ran to it as fast as I could, and placed my elephant in it. I made my tusked friend a swimming pool, some trees and a house. Raymon then instructed us to do something with the box: burn it, condense it, break it, etc. I could do no such thing. My elephant was living in there and needed that large box that could fit my own body in it. I decided to push the box all the way across the room, so then if a child found it, he or she could play with the box and its contents. I pushed with difficulty, with my hands, arms, shoulders; I pushed it with my body facing forward, backwards, and sideways.
By the time I finished pushing, the class was walking around the room. After walking, I shared my experiences with other people.

Raymon then told us that our boxes were not real. I felt my spirit sink…but then he said “but they ARE real”. I knew my box was real and I felt alright again. Raymon encouraged us to practices using our imagination; to play with it, but never to analyse it. No imagination would want to play with me if I was analysing it. I noticed a little framed piece of wood behind Raymon. It looked like a little door. Through that door I imagined a forest like the woods of Stanley Park, I imagined a new universe, I imagined a strip club, I imagined an empty street in New York. I already understood what Prof. was trying to tell us. I’m glad for that.

Karen