by John Griogair Bell

Talking about isolations as a natural flow from stress to unstress and back, I want to draw your attention to where those isolations most usefully occur.

In the example of asana yoga practice, ideally we is working at the edge of what we can do. A common specific practice is in the asana Downward Facing Dog, one can cycle one’s feet, stretching the left hamstring whilst relaxing the right, and vice versa; with the goal of doing more and more toward having both feet flat on the mat. If one is doing the work only where it is comfortable that’s just moving without resulting in any development; conversely, if one is doing the work only beyond the edge of what the body can manage that is liable to result in injury. The sweet spot in to dance on the edge of what is comfortable, and this is what allows for real progress over time.

So, the location where the isolations most usefully occur is at the edges of endeavour.

In Star Trek s01e01 “Where No Man Has Gone Before“, the character Gary Mitchell is transformed by the passage through the Galactic Barrier into a god-like menace. They went into the beyond too far too quickly!

I’m reminded of Thomas Kuhn’s discussion in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of how paradigm shift is brought on by the development of new science, as opposed to the rote science that maintains the current paradigm, when experimentation at the edge of the current paradigm occurs.

Thinking of How to Kill a Dragon by Calvert Watkins, moreover, The Anger of Achilles by Leonard Muellner and Arjuna in the Mahabharata by Ruth Cecily Katz, in Indo-European mythology and epic poetry, the hero has a particular role as a demi-god that both upholds but also challenges the cosmic order, these heroes exist neither fully as humans nor fully as deity, but have a unique set of tasks that is both human and divine at the edges of both.

Of course, there’s edging in sex and in various forms of sex magick, which aides in trying to reach heightened sexual experience and/or consciousness. (Moreover, as practitioners of asana yoga will likely all attest, when you’re playing on the edge, parts of your body will shake on their own; things that can equally said about sex and sex magick. Various things will start to vibrate on their own.)

“Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein! But exceed! exceed! Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine—and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous!—death is the crown of all. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is forbidden, o man, unto thee. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its glory. He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among the Kings.” — Liber Legis II, 70–74

Consider the practice of edging in various forms and of various types to be about becoming more and more comfortable with being uncomfortable in order to become more and more. Strive to exceed by dancing at the edges of your ever more refined raptures, in your endeavours of body, mind, and spirit.

John Griogair Bell is the enigmatic super-villain, known only, to some, as Librarian.

by John Griogair Bell

When I was a kid, I got introduced to the martial art Aikido with a demonstration intended to illustrate the concept of the flow of Ki. The demonstration consisted of trying to hold one’s arm as strongly in place as possible. At first one, probably, tenses every muscle in order to prevent one’s arm from moving, but when someone presses on the arm it moves surprisingly easily. Then, one is instructed to think of the arm as a firehose with water flowing through it, and in comparison to the first try one’s arm is much harder to move. Without need to resort to the idea of Ki energy (I understand even in the Aikido community there’s a divide between the Ki Aikido people and those who are not; and if you’re a BBJ person, try to suppress a superior sounding snort, as I’m mostly talking about the philosophy and practice not making claims about martial effectiveness), in the first case one is fighting against themselves by tensing muscles everywhere, including those that are in opposition to other muscles. In the second try, one is isolating the muscles necessary to hold the arm still without fighting against that purpose at the same time. I only practiced Aikido for a short time (my Aikido practice succumbed to the one-two-punch of moving often and also noticing that too many of the people I knew who had been doing it for a long time all had strange internal organ injuries …), but it was formative.

In the US and the West, with which I’m culturally familiar, I think it is quite common to think of strength as being a hulk, bodybuilder, or kayfabe wrestling pose, gritting one’s teeth and rippling every muscle, or needing to harden one’s entire body, everywhere all at once; showing instead of doing. Opposed to this is the idea of focusing on using what is necessary in isolation, working smarter not harder, and so on; doing instead of showing. (The dark side of doing instead of showing might be taking this to mean a focus on stark “scientific” management’s efficiency instead of a wholistic ethical effectiveness, but that’s probably a whole other conversation.)

As an aside, much later, I was given tickets by a Russian who wasn’t using them to a professional ballet performance in the US, and afterword was asked what I thought. My response was that it seemed to me one point necessary to the magic of ballet is to do amazing and hard things but make those things look like they don’t take effort; and at the performance I saw, whilst they did do some pretty good stuff, it also looked like it took effort. They did but also showed. By the by, the Russian who gave me the tickets agreed.

Back to my youth, even earlier, I was introduced when very young to yoga. I grew up in the 70s (’nuff said?!), so I distinctly recall early memories of yoga as a kid and also practicing along with Lilias, Yoga, & You on PBS. One of the core principles of Yoga is the ebb and flow of stress and relaxation. This occurs within poses where one is flexing one part of the body whilst relaxing another. Also breathe, in and then out … not at the same time, but in isolation and, yet still, together. Move and breathe, not just in each moment, in each pose, but coordinated also across time, across the session, and not only where one is doing flow that consists of poses and releasing them, but also the traditional position of yoga as preparatory to meditation. This is a point that seems often to be missed: yoga isn’t a self-contained 80s aerobic all-out push, but part of preparing to meditate, doing yoga asana to get the body ready before formal sitting meditation practice. In other words, if you aren’t doing an actual meditation session after yoga, you’re really missing the point.

So, within yoga asana do one thing, then the other; each thing being a focus on the ebb in one part of the body and flow in another. Then, following naturally in time, continue the ebb and flow by sequencing asana with sitting practice. Ebb and flow, flow in the moment and across time. This wave through both small and large time together is like edging a cosmic orgasm, and is the small parts of everything participating in a collective universal Big Bang.

In college acting classes, we had an extensive warm up routine that consisted of one part physical followed by vocal isolations; moving our body parts and tuning our vocal instrument before performance. We did a physical warm up and moved each part of our body in isolation, then moved our vocal instrument through various techniques and recitations that required isolations to do cleanly and clearly. We used isolations to become ready to do the work of honing our craft and to maintain the performance of our physical and vocal instrument.

I’m reminded of the Zen Buddhist proverb: “After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Not only is there work in the world around spiritual practice, but the suggestion is to focus on one then the other; and moreover one thing at a time; enlightenment then be in the world; but also chop then carry. Each thing in isolation in and through time.

Compare the idea of Flow introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is a timeless-feeling state of hyperfocus that results in genuine satisfaction and fulfillment. To achieve this flow state, one needs to be prepared by effective practice over time, within the sweet spot of being both skilled at something but also challenged by it, and then to immersively focus on doing that activity, whether it be work, art, or play.

Of course, Crowley writes in Liber CL vel לענ, A Sandal, De Lege Libellum: “In our holiest Book it is written: ‘Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay.’ Write it also in your heart and in your brain: for this is the key of the whole matter. Here Nature herself be your preacher: for in every phenomenon of force and motion doth she proclaim aloud this truth. Even in so small a matter as driving a nail into a plank, hear this same sermon. Your nail must be hard, smooth, fine-pointed, or it will not move swiftly in the direction willed. Imagine then a nail of tinder-wood with twenty points–it is verily no longer a nail. Yet nigh all mankind are like unto this. They wish a dozen different careers; and the force which might have been sufficient to attain eminence in one is wasted on the others: they are null.”

With all due respect, I part ways where some take this to suggest people only have one focus ever, across all time. Crowley himself was an example of having many different directions throughout his life. As Heinlein, in Time Enough For Love, has his character Lazarus Long say, “specialization is for insects.” The point, I think, for me, is, in the ebb and flow, focus on one thing at a time with skill and art. “Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein! But exceed! exceed!”—Liber Legis, Chapter II Verse 70.

In Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Julian says, “You should only, ever, do what is necessary.” And Liber Legis, Chapter I Verse 41, says, “So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.” And also, “For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.”—Liber Legis, Chapter I Verse 42–44.

Whatever is in front of you, from Andy Weir’s book The Martian, “Work the problem.” And from the movie adaptation: “… get to work. That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem… and you solve the next one… and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”

Do what you are meant to do, in each moment, not burdened by purpose, but isolated effort that includes facility, focus and flow; then move on to the next thing.

John Griogair Bell is the enigmatic super-villain, known only, to some, as Librarian.