Wishcraft (Exercise 2)
May. 19th, 2004 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseOne of my current projects is to finally read and do the exercises in the book Wishcraft by Barbara Sher with Annie Gottlieb (that's the way it reads). The first Exercise is thrown away, so for LJ purposes I'm starting with
I actually wrote this when I was on the T the other day:
I loved to dress up and pretend. I loved to touch things. Silky things and soft things could enthrall me for hours.
I hung by my knees upside down and learned to "skin the cat." Slides and swings were great, but what I really loved was climbing on the monkey bars.
Trying something new was always magical. The way new leaves smaelled and felt... I remember finding ways to touch and play with them until I was 10 or 11.
Somersaults, dance, swimming (not the standard strokes but ones I made up). I hated gym and running and anything to do with balls.
Touch and smell were my primary senses. And I could always hear music.
Until I did this exercise, I'd forgotten how kinetic I was. My sister was the athletic one, not I. What a shock to remember that my first emergency room trip to the hospital came from doing a somersault in the back yard and landing on a rock. That was before my sister was born (By the way, I only needed a butterfly, and the scar is hidden by my hair.).
My entire family treats me like I'm afraid of athletic things, but I learned to back dive off the low diving board before my sister did. Swimming is one of my ultimate sensual experiences. Skinny dipping is great. I'll never forget the feeling of absolute liberation I had the first time I swam in salt water. Not a childhood experience -- I was twenty -- and we were on a beach in the Mediterranean. I went topless and realized how easy my strokes felt without straps to catch at my arms or neck. I felt like I was part-selkie and spent nearly an hour swimming.
I hate heights, and I hate having things thrown or kicked at me. As for the latter, nobody ever linked that to the fact that I have no depth perception. Maybe not knowing how close something was until it hit me in the face had something to do with hating all those team sports.
But I love stretching and climbing (OK, so I sometimes had a little trouble with the down part of that). Until I moved to Boston, my "instant feel good" thing to do was to touch my head to my knees and then do a back bend.
Maybe I wasn't always the Miss Priss that I've been painted. All I know is that I still love to stroke fur, I hate that I can't find silk underwear in my size, and when the swimming pool opens I plan to be there every day.
Let your mind wander back through your childhood memories -- especially the private, special times when you were allowed to play or daydream or do whatever you wanted to do. Now, on a freshsheet of paper, try to answer these questions:
What especially attracted and fascinated you when you were a child?
What sense -- sight, hearing, touch -- did you live most through, or did you enjoy them all equally?
What did you love to do, or to daydream about, no matter how "silly" or unimportant it may seem to you now?
I actually wrote this when I was on the T the other day:
I loved to dress up and pretend. I loved to touch things. Silky things and soft things could enthrall me for hours.
I hung by my knees upside down and learned to "skin the cat." Slides and swings were great, but what I really loved was climbing on the monkey bars.
Trying something new was always magical. The way new leaves smaelled and felt... I remember finding ways to touch and play with them until I was 10 or 11.
Somersaults, dance, swimming (not the standard strokes but ones I made up). I hated gym and running and anything to do with balls.
Touch and smell were my primary senses. And I could always hear music.
Until I did this exercise, I'd forgotten how kinetic I was. My sister was the athletic one, not I. What a shock to remember that my first emergency room trip to the hospital came from doing a somersault in the back yard and landing on a rock. That was before my sister was born (By the way, I only needed a butterfly, and the scar is hidden by my hair.).
My entire family treats me like I'm afraid of athletic things, but I learned to back dive off the low diving board before my sister did. Swimming is one of my ultimate sensual experiences. Skinny dipping is great. I'll never forget the feeling of absolute liberation I had the first time I swam in salt water. Not a childhood experience -- I was twenty -- and we were on a beach in the Mediterranean. I went topless and realized how easy my strokes felt without straps to catch at my arms or neck. I felt like I was part-selkie and spent nearly an hour swimming.
I hate heights, and I hate having things thrown or kicked at me. As for the latter, nobody ever linked that to the fact that I have no depth perception. Maybe not knowing how close something was until it hit me in the face had something to do with hating all those team sports.
But I love stretching and climbing (OK, so I sometimes had a little trouble with the down part of that). Until I moved to Boston, my "instant feel good" thing to do was to touch my head to my knees and then do a back bend.
Maybe I wasn't always the Miss Priss that I've been painted. All I know is that I still love to stroke fur, I hate that I can't find silk underwear in my size, and when the swimming pool opens I plan to be there every day.
