Landscape as {movement} teacher

How is landscape informing – inwardly forming – our movement and dance? And how is dance/movement in-forming our perception of landscape? Is landscape already dancing? Do we just have to tune in? And what is landscape anyway?

Landscape can be seen as everything we perceive: sights, sounds, smells, etc. It’s the face of our personal and social environment. A big inside-space like the studios of the arsenal is landscape as well as the face and body of your counterpart next to you or the outside area of the parks around. We ourselves, of course, are also landscape.

Landscape as place is also a cultural product, a physical, geographical as well as a social and psychological reality, imprinted with romantic longings and ideas, economic desires and needs, poetic inspiration and knowledge, stories and myths. We could say it has a kind of DNA, or vibration, or genius loci specific to each place.

Landscape is very sensual – including the mind as sixth sense. If we are already connected to landscape via our senses, can there be a hierarchy if we view landscape as teacher? What’s the difference between hierarchy, respect, devotion and humility or humbleness? Landscape can be so big – and humans so small. What if we become part of the landscape?

Landscape is a teacher, and your human teacher is also a landscape.

Is landscape also nature? And what then about human shaped landscapes, and our perception of separateness or connection to nature? Does landscape actually exist outside your perception? Does our dance influence that connection? It seems that nature and landscape can be very welcoming and democratic teachers as well as very bold and brutal teachers.

Landscape doesn’t seem to move very fast – until you experience an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, a flood or something similar. But in stillness, movement becomes even more obvious.

So the dance of and with the landscape is also a question of perception, of movement and stillness. It’s a dance which reveals by your presence, your mindfulness, and connection to your underlying stillness.

Exercise suggestion: Meditation 15min or bodyscan 30min. Then explore inside and outside landscapes.

Those who are not used to that, or if you have a kind of aversion to, or fear of meditation: that’s wonderful. You might experience the dance of your thoughts and emotions. Or you might be surprised by sudden stillness.

The point in any case is not to think about meditation. Best would be to forget anything about it, and let the landscape of your body and mind teach you.