In passages about Space through various texts, one image that is mentioned, and has seemed to be of interest to me, is the notion that the whole universe coming into being could not happen without Space. In some respects, there is this feeling of awe of the power and mystery of Space. I try to “carry this image” or nurture this feeling towards my own embodiment.

On the image of the “field,” what comes to me is the sense of variability in terms of how inclusive, deep, and expansive one’s awareness/experience of Space is at any particular time. The field notion to me allows for multidimensional spaces—spaces that can co-exist together, and interpenetrate each other. For example, I could still have a sense of space as a container for objects on one dimension, but also be in touch with another space-awareness that recognizes the allowing aspect of space, or feeling that space permeates what appears as solid objects, “giving rise simultaneously to a more inclusive feeling of connectedness vis-à-vis Space as common ground between and within ‘things’.” Beyond that, I can imagine other Spaces being available, like Spaces that accommodate not just this moment in time, but past moments and future moments, or places distant to me in space. I might also play with the idea that Space allows for dream images to appear, and try to pretend that the dreams that occur while I’m asleep are still happening in Space, and somehow there is a portal to that Space from the Space that I am in now. I also, right before I wake up, try to be sensitive to the border or space between the dream space and waking space and how there is some interplay between the two.

Then there are the protective spaces or borders, “parts of me that seem divided from each other or compartmentalized,” as if there was a border guard that tried to keep these spaces from talking or interacting with each other. I am trying right now to feel how certain unwanted habit patterns, or routines that seem too habitual, or other sorts of limitations on my knowing, or energy, are related to Space. This is an area I want to pursue more.

Ron Purser / originally published 11/1/2006