{"id":260,"date":"2004-02-18T01:34:16","date_gmt":"2004-02-18T09:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/02\/18\/connections\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:17:41","slug":"connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/02\/18\/connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year I participated in a women&#8217;s group that focused on movement and creativity.  Shortly after it began, the therapist&#8217;s new office opened, and this is what I wrote of my experience on the first night there.  <\/p>\n<p>We spent much of the session exploring the new therapy studio, an open, airy room with satiny wood floors. We began by being aware of our space, then turning attention inward to that space, and then returning awareness outward to connect both. Afterward, we drew or wrote whatever came to mind. This experience was so good, because I so often ignore my body&#8217;s needs for movement. My leg muscles have been stiff from lack of movement, and they radiate their discomfort. This is my meditative writing:<\/p>\n<table align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td>\nMy thighs ached to stretch in<br \/>\nfull frontal contact on cool wood,<br \/>\nextended and still, my blood pulsing,<br \/>\nbody heat flowing into it.<\/p>\n<p>My body tells me how exhausted it is,<br \/>\nparched for sleep&#8217;s refreshment,<br \/>\nneglected, pushed beyond tolerance;<br \/>\nyet still it serves me.<\/p>\n<p>I have a home. It breathes, moves,<br \/>\neats, sleeps. It belongs to me.<br \/>\nAmazing how much it does. I will<br \/>\nnever be homeless in this life.<\/p>\n<p>As a child, I would lie for hours<br \/>\non the grass, resting, breathing.<br \/>\nBeing.<\/p>\n<p>I was friends with the earth,<br \/>\nthe floor. I used my body. It<br \/>\nconnected. Touching is relationship.<br \/>\nContact&#8211;to move the body through space,<br \/>\nto manipulate the limbs, interacting,<br \/>\npushing, yielding.<br \/>\nThis is making love.<\/p>\n<p>People make love to the world. Two<br \/>\nthousand miles away, my sister awakes<br \/>\neach day, feeds her dog, pads her slippered<br \/>\nfeet through a chilly house to<br \/>\nprepare for work. At about the same time,<br \/>\nmy morning ritual unfolds. <\/p>\n<p>Everywhere, people are moving, being still,<br \/>\nbreathing, having sex, dying, and living<br \/>\nin relationship with this dimension.<br \/>\nWe make love with the world. We do this<br \/>\nconstantly, in tandem with others.<br \/>\nSo we make love, by extension, to<br \/>\neach other. <\/p>\n<p>We are connected at all times.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year I participated in a women&#8217;s group that focused on movement and creativity. Shortly after it began, the therapist&#8217;s new office opened, and this is what I wrote of my experience on the first night there. We spent much of the session exploring the new therapy studio, an open, airy room with satiny wood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-humanities","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13081,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/13081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}