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 Mason's
Meditations
If
you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds
for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's monthly
meditations. To think in or take away...
Number
Thirty Eight: Skin and Body
Think
what it means to have a skin. We wear our skins as divers wear their
wet suits. It separates us from the surrounding world, gives us
a sense of the "in here" and the "out there."
It means that we can be alone, and in fact that we are always, in
a sense, alone. I am not talking just about being alone in a crowd,
but an ontological separation. It means that we can watch people
suffer and die within their own skins, unable to go inside with
them. It means we have to die alone, even if others are in the room
with us. We can hold someone’s hand, but that is skin upon
skin, one outside touching another. It is as if, when we meet, we
are unable to take off our gloves. A shield of skin gives us a place
to hide, but also a barrier between ourselves and others.
Yet
this does not seem to be the end of the story, for otherwise our
lives would be dreary indeed. There are forces in the body that
extend out beyond it, perhaps what is meant by a person’s aura,
perhaps a complex field of electro-magnetism. When two human bodies
approach closely, these fields intermingle and together produce
a single field whose borders do not stop at the skin. With some
individuals it feels good to be close enough to feel the change
of field, with others, not.
How
we live in our skins and bodies is affected by culture, habit and
language. Each of us walks around in a body space, and we tend not
to think that the other’s space begins right up against our
own skins, though in some cultures touching, or a certain kind of
touching, is more a part of the rituals of social intercourse than
in others. Some parts of our skins are more private and touchy than
others. A shake of the hand, palm against palm, is acceptable, but
touching someone’s genitals in friendly greeting would likely
be taken amiss. Indeed, unless the toucher were from another planet,
we would probably think the person to be insulting by common social
norms.
Formality
and intimacy are shown in how the body energy fields and skin are
used and lived. We are projections of meaning, and our bodies and
skins are signs and intentions. Most persons do not have to think
about this very much, unless they find themselves in a land where
different mores govern the uses of skin and body. We read the signs
effortlessly at home and are sometimes embarrassed abroad. Luckily,
we do not have to rely on body language alone, but have ways to
project our thoughts and feelings in words that cross the space
from skin to skin.
There
is a situation in which the ontological alienation of the individual
is overcome, and that is in the embrace, the caress, and the touching
of head to head. Now inside and outside are confused, and duality
of self and other is, for a moment, transcended. This is one of
the most blessed of human conditions, and is not identical with
having sex, though it does not exclude it. One feels no longer alone,
and this feeling, though insubstantial and fleeting, is the merging
two beings into one. Physical contact with another person is one
of the great comforts of life, but also one of the most regulated.
Perhaps is must be this way, since our hectic and regimented lives
mainly require us to live in our skins and keep our hands and bodies
to ourselves.
.
Mason's
Meditations will next be updated early December 2003
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37.
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