the body remembers how to center

I just moved into an apartment in berlin which has a pottery wheel (I am so very blessed), and yesterday, on a sunday afternoon, I threw pottery for the first time in over a year and a half. six pots. I told my flatmate (whose wheel it is) that I couldn’t believe I still knew how to center and throw pottery — after not touching clay for so long. the body remembers how to center, he said. the body remembers.

my body worked itself into the clay. my back and shoulders ached from kneading the clay, from wedging three kilos into the ground, and my palms, thighs, arms were sore from the act of centering and compression. but it felt so good. afterwards, I felt more grounded to the earth than I have in a very long time.

it is true that the body always remembers how. the body remembers how to move, to dance, to play, to breathe — without instructions from the mind. even when the mind is spinning — turning with self doubt and apprehension, the body knows the way. the body can find its way, even in the dark.

this is what I know must trust, must practice more of — this embodied knowing. a knowing which lives in the felt, lived-in sense of the body, rather than in the plans, calculations, and anxieties of the mind. my body knows how to heal my pain, how to ask for nourishment, comfort, and warmth, how to create beauty and art and vessels to hold, how to love — from a true place. so I simply sit, and I listen.