July/August 2022: On Intimacy
Is the most interior inside or outside?
‘Not-knowing is most intimate’ said Kia Naddermier on our first day together in the Spanish mountains. Intimacy, she explained, is often a synonym for wisdom. Not-knowing is wisdom … One would have thought not-knowing was ignorance but it is not. In ignorance, there is a certainty, something set. Often, this shows up as doing the obvious action in the direction of least resistance, in the pattern you are accustomed to. Not-knowing, on the other hand, is fertile, it gives space for change. Experimenting with not-knowing allows for a clarity to emerge. That clarity is wisdom; and wisdom is intimacy.
Not-knowing is linked to impermanence, which Pema Chödrön writes is a fact of life which we spend a lot of energy resisting, mainly by attacking, indulging or ignoring. but the key, as Kia said, is to become intimate with it.
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan coined the word extimacy, applying the prefix ex– to intimacy. He used it to show the problem of thinking about a separation between inside and outside. For example, he considered the unconscious to be extimate, both inside and outside, intersubjective, as a relation with one’s analyst shows. This is another word for Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of interbeing. Jacques-Alain Miller, Lacan’s son-in-law, writes that ‘Extimacy is not the contrary of intimacy. Extimacy says that the intimate is Other-like, a foreign body, a parasite’. Indeed, something we don’t know, an other (or a multitude of others) inhabiting our innermost sanctum. It is still a precious place but it holds the whole world.
I think of extimacy with recourse to one of my favourite concepts, the Möbius strip, a surface structure that, if you caress it, your finger goes from inside to outside and vice-versa without being able to say precisely at what point that change – which is easy, effortless – takes place.
What is inside and what is outside? And how does one know? Can one’s most interior be outside of oneself? For example, have you tried to meditate on your breath as it breathing you from the outside? This I find is a lovely practice to dissolve hard edges between me and the world. The important thing about the state not-knowing is to stay with it, to experience the phenomenon by gliding one’s finger along the strip with full presence. In that intimate (or extimate) act, a point of turning will sooner or later arrive.
What I have been reading
Richard Freeman wrote a beautiful post on yoga as drawing a circle and erasing it. There is something revealing in these actions: first the intimacy of the act of drawing a circle. Just try it. On the sand, a blackboard or with pencil on paper. It is a simple action that requires so much presence. Think of something else and your circle will be a potato! Then is the action of letting go, by erasing it. For intimacy is not a certainty even when obtained, it is something that has to be worked on every moment. Richard writes:
Without this process guiding us in the background of our thoughts, speech and actions, we eventually become either stuck, formulaic or too vigilant in our thinking (not able to erase the circles we’ve drawn), or we become ungrounded, wishy-washy, or lost (operating with the false belief that it’s best to only go with the flow without any engagement, circles or discernment whatsoever).
What I have been contemplating
I had the chance to catch Paula Rego’s exhibition at the Picasso Museum when visiting Málaga. I have been very close to a series of her paintings called Possession. There is something in her work that invites an intimate gaze, from women in particular. I think this is the gaze of recognition, of standing together with another in the not-knowing. Check out her story. It is worth reading.
What I have been looking forward to
Intimacy and not-knowing are very much practices of yoga and psychoanalysis and there is a wealth of literature in both fields. I have been looking forward to hearing about Emily Ogden’s new book On Not Knowing: How to Love and Other Essays. She will be online in conversation with Josh Cohen at the Freud Museum on Monday 17 October, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm UK time.
Two exciting workshops in September
1-3 September: I am hosting my teacher James Boag at Yoga Moves Glasgow for a ‘Yoga: Back to School’ programme, an immersive, experiential exploration of the holistic yogic education model. Find out more about it and book. We have a couple of places left!
30 September-3 October: I am delighted to assist Kia at a workshop in Borås, Sweden. This is going to be a fabulous weekend of principles, practice, pranayama and philosophy, hosted by Fredrik and Ulrica from Usyoga , who are an absolute delight. Come and join us!
MY YOGA CLASSES
I am back at the studio on Tuesday 06 September and this term, I have some changes to my classes: my asana classes will be live! Pranayama will be trial as hybrid to see how we go. Second, I will be offering a monthly counted primary.
Join me at the Arlington Baths for:
Yoga (Mysore) | LIVE |
Tuesdays, 07.15 – 09.00
Thursdays, 07.15 – 09.00
Led Primary | LIVE |
Thursday 8 September, 07.15 – 09.00
Thursday 06 October, 07.15 – 09.00
Thursday 10 November, 07.15 – 09.00
Thursday 08 December, 07.15 – 09.00
Pranayama | LIVE AND ONLINE |
Tuesday 11 October, 07.15 – 08.30, optional Q&A until 09.00
Tuesday 08 November, 07.15 – 08.30, optional Q&A until 09.00
Tuesday 06 December, 07.15 – 08.30, optional Q&A until 09.00
All classes are available for booking here.
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland classes for staff and students will resume soon! Keep an eye out for RCS communications.