Living a Question • Emergent Learning

 Week 1 Foundations
A question is asked: How do you know you are alive? What is the sensation of aliveness?
I notice when I start to answer it, I have a sense of urgency, a sensation of up and forward, as if the answer is out there ahead of me. Thoughts come about the questioner like ‘what does she think’ and on its heels the thought “Is this right?” I am supposed to get something, figure something out. These are the familiar sensations of jumping into action. 

Taking action is a powerful and necessary property of my system. It is how I get things done. A shorthand for this way of being organized from a Nervous System/body lens is I am in a ‘motoring’ coordination. This is a common coordination when I am answering someone else’s question. 

What lets this question become my question?

I stop. For a moment, I let the question be, like setting a plant in fertile soil. I give it a moment to adjust to the ground, the sky, the light, and the water. In this space, I can notice if this question interests me. Am I drawn to it, even if it is a little scary? 

Yes, I am drawn, and now I let the question become mine. It rephrases itself: how do I sense aliveness in the world and in me? 

I am resting back into myself, right here. I am letting roots flow into the soil of my experiences, branches opening to feel the light of this moment. I am receiving the question. Connections, images, insights emerge. Sometimes through a gesture or movement. Other times as color on a page or a sound to be sung. Another time, a shattering stillness, quietness takes me. 

When the question is my own, my system can organize in a ‘sensing’ or receiving coordination. Motor nerves flow from the front of the spine. Sensory nerves flow in through the back of the spine. When I want to invite more listening than doing, I soften that frontal energy and open my back spaces. 

There are times to do, and times to receive, and times to be in the flow of doing, being, receiving, expressing. This is our creative nature, our learning nature. 
As we work together this Autumn, I invite you to explore what living a question is to you. What lets you learn within yourself and this field of Nature?