Foundation: Practice

The Root Center of The Human Design System is the foundation of the formula. We are talking generally about adrenaline energy and what we experience as Stress in the world. We are sandwiched between Stress and the pressure of Questions. Stress is what they used to call Kundalini! To know how to work with the energy of stress is to get deep down into the practical issues of being a human being. This is why I have come to think of The Root Center as the Center of Practice. What is your practice? What do you actually do to care for all the basic issues of being human, burdened by real energetic issues that you cannot change just by thinking about them? What do you do to deal with the pain in your feet and your knees and your hips and your elbows and your hands and your shoulders? Since you are in the world you have to experience actually doing something about what troubles you. In old language: start praying! Here remember the important irony of learning to rest in the mind.

Let me remind you again that we are talking about Religious Problems and how those problems can practically be resolved. I think Religion is the best word for The Human Condition, of Man/Adam, or The Patriarchy. Religion has a reputation for being about repetitive disciplines of mind and body. I no longer think the issues of Religion and Spirituality are so different. One of the funniest jokes, to me, is the way 12 Steppers talk about what they do as being about Spirituality and Not Religion. But then, there comes the slogan: "Keep Coming Back, It Works!" That, right there, is Religion. We repeat things. We have empty rituals that we can fill with a sense of spirituality. Religion just is The Empty Ritual that humans need to fill their life with the meaning they call Spirituality. If you are part of the 12 Step Program and don't go to meetings, you neither have a Religious, never mind a Spiritual experience with the 12 Step Program. You have to go to the meetings to know what I mean. You cannot think your way into Spirituality, you need a Practice. You are Human: You are Religious and you basically have Religious problems, even if all those problems belong to other people! If you don't have Religious problems, some Jew or Christian or Muslim or Communist Chinese, Person all around you, does - and they will mess with your real life! Or, someone around you will commit suicide or homicide, just to remind you that you have to keep thinking and worrying about these issues.

The issue becomes, given these constraints, is: What are the practices that we need to complete the issues of Religion? What can we do that will satisfy our Religious concerns as Human Beings? Here is my answer, Religiously speaking.

1. Dance

2. Song/Instrumentation

3. Theatre Improvisation

4. Yoga

5. Gathering Spirituality

6. Meditation on The Bardo

These six practices will do us well into the future and to the end of The Human Condition. And recognize what I am saying, Religiously, that every educated Human Being on planet earth Should be involved in these practices as a matter of daily life.

Dance. Now think of Dance as the foundational practice for people lost in The Human Condition. In this way we establish as practice the recognition of being in a world where energy just is a thing. We are standing on what we experience as hard energy. And by the time you get to be Human you must deal creatively with the way the feet do meet the ground. Think about the concept that our feet never really touch but are mediated to the ground by a electric current - that is just a little thicker than String. Now imagine that this current of energy can really be seen as The Law of Seven. I just can't get into the details of that here but beg you to look at an image of The Enneagram and then See your feet inside that pattern. Look! Your right heel is on #4 and your left heel is on #5. Why didn't The Gurdjieffian's fail to show me this obvious relationship! Has no one else in the world noticed that Human Feet simply are an expression of The Law of Seven on The Enneagram? But I will have to save an exploration of these details for the next chapter when we can base a BreathWork practice on it....Dance. Let me even provoke everyone now. I say that Dance is so basic that we should not be listening to anyone who wants to be taken seriously if they cannot demonstrate a Dance Practice. Show me how you dance! I want to see it! If you have something to say, let me see your dance, or stay quiet and chop broccolli. As a dance practice it is important to keep a few simple principles. Every piece of music is a whole experience that must be complete in itself. This means if you are dancing with someone in contact improv you let them go at the end of the song. You may pick it up again for another song or two at the most, but don't cling! This is Dance as Practice! If you want to pick up chicks I recommend expressing your dance practice in play at the local bar, like The Drafthouse.