Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
A Final Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Diploma Program in Process Work, Process Work Institute, Portland, OR, September 2009
Local notes
http://www.processwork.org/files/Finalprojects/Blair_A_September_2009.pdf
I’m so excited about the aboriginal worldview, because it’s so close to Process Work. Aboriginals would not think for example that you are an anorectic. A person cannot be anorectic from that point of view. You have little eating dreaming. There is a dance that is being danced, a deeper intent that is being expressed through you. Instead of thinking, ‘I am bulimic,’ you think, ‘I am me dancing a dance called bulimia or singing a song that for some is called bulimia.’ Ancient Chinese society might have called it fundamentalist Tao living, or the tantric might call it enjoying the extremes of life. There are a whole bunch of different ways to refer to it. . . . We are dancing through a field, and as we dance through the field we experience all the spirits known to speak in that field, we get acquainted with all the spirits that dance in that field, and eventually we may dance out of that field again. But in the West we think, ‘I had a problem. It created anorexia. I worked through it and then I got out.’ The aboriginal viewpoint says, ‘No - you never
had a problem. You never worked anything out, you just danced through it, experienced what it was like in there, got to know that part, and now you’re out, or not, or whatever.’
In our own Western concepts, we frame things as problems that we need to work through, and there is a spot when you might want to actually call it a problem and work through it as a problem. I don’t want to marginalize that perspective, but if you make the problem an all-dominating program, then it may not be a very successful approach. (Schupbach, 2002, quote) I begin my contextual essay with this quote because the spirit of the aboriginal philosophy inspires my own views on disruptive eating patterns, and it also informs my theoretical approach to this entire project. I have a tendency to binge and starve. Binging is the act of eating a lot of food in a short period of time, often to the point of not being able to lie Dancing Through A Field of Binging and Starving Annie Blair 8 down because I’m so full. Starving means eating nothing and only drinking water for 24 hours. I binge one night, starve the next day, eat normally for a day or two, and then repeat. That’s my pattern, and within this pattern is a dance wanting to emerge and be known. My project and performance are a reflection of this pattern – this dance through the field of binging and starving– and they are designed to introduce the audience to the spirit figures I have discovered there, danced with, and attempted to integrate.
I’m so excited about the aboriginal worldview, because it’s so close to Process Work. Aboriginals would not think for example that you are an anorectic. A person cannot be anorectic from that point of view. You have little eating dreaming. There is a dance that is being danced, a deeper intent that is being expressed through you. Instead of thinking, ‘I am bulimic,’ you think, ‘I am me dancing a dance called bulimia or singing a song that for some is called bulimia.’ Ancient Chinese society might have called it fundamentalist Tao living, or the tantric might call it enjoying the extremes of life. There are a whole bunch of different ways to refer to it. . . . We are dancing through a field, and as we dance through the field we experience all the spirits known to speak in that field, we get acquainted with all the spirits that dance in that field, and eventually we may dance out of that field again. But in the West we think, ‘I had a problem. It created anorexia. I worked through it and then I got out.’ The aboriginal viewpoint says, ‘No - you never
had a problem. You never worked anything out, you just danced through it, experienced what it was like in there, got to know that part, and now you’re out, or not, or whatever.’
In our own Western concepts, we frame things as problems that we need to work through, and there is a spot when you might want to actually call it a problem and work through it as a problem. I don’t want to marginalize that perspective, but if you make the problem an all-dominating program, then it may not be a very successful approach. (Schupbach, 2002, quote) I begin my contextual essay with this quote because the spirit of the aboriginal philosophy inspires my own views on disruptive eating patterns, and it also informs my theoretical approach to this entire project. I have a tendency to binge and starve. Binging is the act of eating a lot of food in a short period of time, often to the point of not being able to lie Dancing Through A Field of Binging and Starving Annie Blair 8 down because I’m so full. Starving means eating nothing and only drinking water for 24 hours. I binge one night, starve the next day, eat normally for a day or two, and then repeat. That’s my pattern, and within this pattern is a dance wanting to emerge and be known. My project and performance are a reflection of this pattern – this dance through the field of binging and starving– and they are designed to introduce the audience to the spirit figures I have discovered there, danced with, and attempted to integrate.