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Live Your True Nature

自分の自然を生きる

  • Home
  • English
    • Service
    • About
    • Testimonials
    • Writing
  • 日本語
    • メニュー
    • プロフィール
    • レビュー
    • ブログ
  • Art
    • Indigo 愛染め
    • Performance Photo archive パフォーマンス写真記録
    • Performance Video archive & Writing
    • Drawing
    • ATM Lessons 気づきのレッスン
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    • Instagram
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We are a continuum 連続体

We are a continuum: We activate our life force through the connection with all

There is so much disconnect both on the macro and the micro levels I observe everyday. I have been researching how we can get back to the state of completeness - so complete and content that we don’t need to go and look for who we are outside of us.

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tags: body, Body
categories: Body
Tuesday 10.15.24
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

日本語のブログはこちらに書いています。

日本語のブログはこちらに書いています。

「リブ・トゥルー・ネイチャー:究極の自分を生きる術」

よろしくお願いいたします。

Sunday 09.22.24
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

冬越しってこんなに大変だったん?!!

View fullsize プロパンストーブ。広い部屋にひとつだけ。
View fullsize 天井が山小屋のように高い。
View fullsize その梁の上に扇風機を取り付けて熱気を回す。
View fullsize ちょっとわかりにくいけど、水滴が落ちてきたところにタオルを置いている。実際の部屋の広さは、この4倍ぐらい。

アーミッシュおじさんのところに越してきて、6ヶ月目、いよいよハードルが超高い冬越しが始まる。なぜ「超高い」のかというと、今までもハードルは高かったが、それにも増して高いという意味だ。今まではといえば、例えばこういう感じ。

入居してすぐに雨漏り(5ヶ月間治らなかった)、騒音、キッチンシンクの水道の水の温度や量の調整ができない、両手でお皿を洗えない、シンクから出るパイプがとても細いダメ、詰まりやすい、トイレは水がもったいないので頻繁に流さないでと言われるし、シャワーの熱いお湯は出る量が限られているため、ポータブルなお風呂を用意しても水がたまらない(よって、お風呂なし)、ガスレンジはキャンプで使うようなミニコンロにミニプロパンをつけた状態でクッキング(よって、手の込んだ料理は無理)、冷蔵庫は小さいのを貸してくれたが、結局もう少し大きいのを自分で買う羽目に(普通アメリカの家具付きアパートを借りた場合、キッチンの大きな電化製品は全部付いている)、下でおじさんが頻繁にする洗濯のかなりきつい化学薬品入りの洗剤の匂いが上の私のスタジオに満喫(私が化学薬品なしの船内をホームメード)、スタジオは一面がガラス張りで近所の家がすぐそこなので、カーテンを作って吊るしていたら(ちなみにスタジオで吊るしたカーテンは全部で20枚ほど。それほどここのおじさんは、オープンなガラス張りが大好き)、「太陽が入って来ないから暖かくないよ。田舎は都会と違って、近所の人が人の家を覗き込むことはないよ!」と厳しく諭され、しかもそのうちの一つは三角で、「三角の窓がなかなか見つからないんだよねー」と、その部分だけ開けっぱなし(鳥や蜂やハエがじゃんじゃん自由に出入り。閉めてというと、本当に鳥が入って来なくていいのかと聞かれた!)、荒ゴミは近所のおじさんの友達の飼っている豚に持っていったりよその畑の堆肥の中に入れたりと策を考えた苦難の挙句、庭に穴を掘って入れるもプロセスせずにすぐ一杯になり、「野菜、植えてもいいよ」と言われるもこのおじさん、実は自分で野菜を育てる人ではなく、前にお世話になっていたホームステダー(自給自足生活を営んでいる人)のところから持ってきた苗や植物は枯れてしまい、。。。などなど。おじさんの「住んでもいいよ、スペース貸してあげるよ。」の意味がこういうことだったとは!何度も、「もう無理!家賃払ってるのに水も使えないしお風呂にも入れない、料理も満足にできない!」と思ったが、そのうちに、あーそうなんだ、彼の「住むところを提供する」コンセプトは、私の知っている環境での「アパートを貸す」とはだいぶん違うんだなとわかってきた。「アパートを貸す」のではなく、「住むところを今から徐々に作るから、住めるようになったら家賃を払って。」なので、「住めるように」は完璧に住む環境が整っているというわけではない。いわゆる「骨組み」だけだ。時間をかけてじっくり完成させていくその途上のスペースに住まわせてもらっているというわけだ。なるほどね!とほんの少し納得。それにしても、これで家賃7万は高くない?

そして、冬はまた全く別問題だ。

ペンシルバニアのこのあたりは冬が非常に厳しいため、(日本で言うと北海道でまだ雪も降っていない頃から雪が降り、11月から氷点下、最後の霜は大体5月の終わり)冬だけ暖かいところに住む人が少なくない。フロリダやアリゾナなど、暖かい場所にもう一つ住居を持っていて、そこに住むと言うのが普通のようだ。ここのアーミッシュおじさんも冬は決まってコスタリカやニカラグアの別荘に住んでいる。でも、私にはそういう家も予算もないので、ここペンシルバニアにいるしかない。そういうわけで、アーミッシュおじさん、今までずっと夏仕様で使ってきた自分の家の一つ(いくつも持っている)を冬仕様に準備してくれたのだ。断熱材を入れて、毛布やクッションで穴をカバーして、空気が入ってくる隙間を防ぎ、あとはプロパンを二階に引いて、ストーブと繋げると言う作業。私の借りているスタジオと寝室は続いていて、どちらにもプロパンストーブを入れてくれた。

と、ここまでは良かったのだが、ある日、屋根から水滴が。。。しかも一箇所ではなく、雨も降っていないのに多数の箇所に水滴が落ちてくるのだ。また雨漏り?でも雨降ってないのにねー。。。と思う思わぬうちにピタパタと水滴は落ちてくる。慌てておじさんを呼ぶと、彼は扇風機を持って現れた。「これ、どうしてかわかる?屋根じゃないよ。」とニンマリ笑うおじさん。スタジオのストーブを夜消してしまうと、部屋が寒くなる、次の日にストーブをつけると、部屋が暖まり、冷たい空気が水になって落ちてくる、屋根に断熱材が入ってないからと説明してくれた。えー!と言うことは、夜中ストーブをつけていないといけないと言うこと?!!!ここいらでは、ストーブの使用量によっては、月に暖房費が5、6万かかることも珍しくない。その費用を節約するために、私はスタジオの暖房をできるだけ切るようにしていた。夜は特に、誰も使ってないし。それが、このピタパタ落ちてくる水滴を作り出していると言うのだ。あれ?でもおじさん確か、暖房費節約したかったら、寝室だけつけとけば良いよって言ってなかったっけ?じゃあどうすればいいんですか?「これがペンシルベニアの性(さが)でねえー。あんたも悪いことは言わないから、冬にコスタリカやニカラグアにきた方がいいよ。もう家賃払ってるからタダで家に住んで良いよ。暖房費払うぐらいだったら、南米に悠に2−3か月住めるよ。」とおじさん。見ていると、扇風機で暖かい空気を上から下に回してみようと、早速ハシゴを持ち出してきて、扇風機を設置。1時間後、だいぶん部屋が温まってきた。でも、この扇風機、音がうるさいんですけど。。これ、どのぐらいつけとけば良いの?予期せぬときに、水がピタパタ落ちてくるのも困るけど、扇風機付けっ放しも困るよ。お客さんも来るんだし。さあ、これ、どうやって解決するのでしょうか?

tags: life, Life
categories: Life, life, thoughts, Place
Monday 11.21.22
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

日本の空は何故こんなにも低いのだろう?

日本の空は何故こんなにも低いのだろう?ずっとここに住んでいると、そうも感じないかもしれないが、アメリカの壮大な田舎に住んでいるせいか、日本の空がとても低く感じる。地面が空を自分の方に引っ張っているみたい。あまりに低くて押しつぶされそうだ。手を伸ばせば届きそうな空に覆われた空間は密で複雑で、そこに住む人々は、いかに限られた空間を使うかを常に考えている。低い空の下に家が立ち並び、森がそびえ、建物がひしめきあい、田んぼが広がる。東京のような都会はもとより、田舎でさえも、凝縮感を覚えるのだ。山や森、川や家、人や道や建物や車といった全ての要素が、まるでパズルのようにきちんとはまっていて、相互関係を確立しているその様子は、驚くばかりだ。そして、空間は言葉と呼応する。4年間のブランクの後、日本を訪問していたときよく耳にした言葉は、「寄り添う」と「思いやる」。二つとも日本では、とても大事なコンセプトだが、実はどちらも英語に訳しにくい。「寄り添う」ー ‘stay beside’? ‘「思いやる」ー ‘think/feel for another’? 英語だとはっきりするのが、これらの言葉は、自分以外の誰かに働きかけることを示唆しているということだ。でも、日本語の「思いやる」や「寄り添う」行為では、自分と相手との境界線が曖昧になる。そこには自分も自分以外をも含む大きな共同体の存在が感じられる。この共同体の中では、「迷惑をかけず」「助け合う」美徳が重んじられ、それは、暗黙の中、言葉だけでなく、空間や人間関係、生き方までも形作っていく。低い空は、こうした相互関係をしっかりと地面にアンカーさせるのに必須なのだろう。そこに現れる空間は、ウエットで心地よく、浦島太郎の竜宮城のごとく魅惑的だ。一度入るともう二度と離れたくなくなるような非常にアブナイ空間でもある。

tags: life, Life, Philosophy, Space
categories: Life, life
Saturday 11.19.22
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Coming to a full circle - Indigo Dyeing and Performance

In a live performance, you can never tell the result of the process until you have the final element: the audience. In the final stage of the work when audience enters into the process, things come to the full circle. The performer meets the audience through the work she created.

Indigo dyeing process has something similar to this. Indigo and I collaborate. I stay with the plant from the seeds to the fruition and tend to their growth and care for their best health life. The process we go through together comes into the color the plants produce in the end. The fabric that absorbs and manifests the color is the medium. As a collaborator and a director, I become the first audience member to get to experience this production before it becomes exposed to other people's eyes.

Growing a tropical indigo plant in a place where it's cold for 80% of the time had been such a patience training for me. Waiting and wondering when to start planting indoor, when or if I should move it to the green house, and when to place transplant into the ground outside. Even after the last frost, some cold nights visited. The leaves went red, withered, a little brown, but miraculously, they revived every time. Life of plants is truly amazing. The color of teal blue it produced into the fabric is something beyond the word 'natural' or 'gorgeous', holding in the whole process and experience the plant went through. Witnessing and tending this process is honorable.

Monday 07.04.22
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Eyes and Minds

Our eyes and minds are in close relationship with each other. When the mind is suffering, the eyes are straining and we cannot see very well. When the minds are at peace, the eyes are relaxed and we can see better.

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tags: body, Body
categories: Body
Saturday 11.28.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Sunlight

Sun light is the remedy for all. Let's catch as much sunlight as we can to BOOST your IMMUNE SYSTEM!

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tags: body, Body
categories: Body
Saturday 11.28.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

To Be In My Body

Spending time on mundane things really grounds me. Well, perhaps they are not mundane after all.

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tags: Body, body
categories: Body
Tuesday 06.23.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

About Breathing

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How and when did we stop optimal breathing? As I observe people with certain pain and discomfort, I notice that breathing is often compromised.

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tags: body, health, Body
categories: Body
Sunday 04.19.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Eye Health

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With the recent increase of virtual device use, many people are suffering from eye strain. Here are a couple of tips as to ease the strain.

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tags: body, health
categories: Body
Sunday 04.19.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Feet, feet, feet

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In our modern life, we have no need to articulate our toes like our fingers. The ground tends to be flat and the types of surface are not varied.

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tags: body, Body
categories: Body
Sunday 04.19.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Sunlight is the remedy for all

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Sun light is the remedy for all. Let's catch as much sunlight as we can to BOOST your IMMUNE SYSTEM!

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tags: body, Body, Environment
categories: Life, Body
Tuesday 04.07.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

A small brain training for the eyes

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Eyes are the window through which things enter into our consciousness. In everyday life, we often use our eyes to focus, interpret, analyze, and understand what we are seeing, activating our cone cells in retina. What we use much less often is the peripheral vision, we see with the rod cells on the outer edges of the retina. These two ways of seeing are vastly different. When you meet someone, are you using the central vision? Or are you using the peripheral vision? Or both? When do you think you close up the peripheral vision, trying not to feel the person? When you encounter something overwhelming, can we keep both central and peripheral visions open? How does that change how we see and respond to the outside world?

Here is a small experiment. When you see something or someone, feel that you are seeing this object with the surface of the exposed part of your eyes. Observe your breath. Observe the tension of your eye balls.

Now let’s shift the awareness. Feel the weight of your whole eyeballs. Feel your eye socket that is filled with liquid in which eyeball float. Imagine that light is entering into these eye sockets and it travels from the back of your eyes via optic nerves, to the back of your brain, the visual field. This is where you are actually seeing. When you see an object in this way, see how the tension in your eye muscles shift. Now, start including the peripheral of this object. More and more and more. Include your body in the whole ‘seeing’ process. Feel your breath. Feel your skin. Feel your body in the environment.

When you can start entering into this encompassing consciousness, you can start seeing unseen aspects of things/people. Your vision becomes more 360 degree, more permeating, more expansive. You breathe with ease. And you can see with your whole being.

tags: body, Body
categories: Body, life
Monday 03.30.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Beginner's Mind

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There is a Japanese saying I'm fond of - "Shoshin Wasururu bekarazu". It means ' remember your original intension' or 'don't forget beginner's mind'. This phrase was created by Zeami, 15h century visionary, actor, playwright who established Noh as an art form in Japan. For me, this phrase has double implications. What is so significant about beginner's mind? When you are a beginner of something, you approach and honor every moment of life. The depth of my commitment to each moment determines the depth of experience, which then determines the quality of a person I can become. The other is to approach the seemingly similar experience with a different. mindset.

tags: Philosophy, jother
categories: Performance, Life
Thursday 03.26.20
Posted by karakoro
 

Uttering words on stage  舞台上での発語について

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つい最近、演劇における「本当」ということについて考える機会があった。昔初めて大学かどこかで芝居を見た時、「嘘くさい」と思ったのを覚えている。どこがどう嘘くさかったのか思い出せないが、表現の仕方とか、体の動かし方とか、そういうものが不自然に思えたのだと思う。演技も学生のもので、おそらく下手だったのだろう。今プロの役者の演技を見て、さすがにうまいなと感心する。が、「本当か」ということになると、どうもわからない。そしてこの「本当」かどうかということは舞台上で発語するということをいかに成り立たせるかという事にかかっているようである。 どうして舞台上で発語するのは不自然で嘘くさいのだろう?日本の伝統芸能は型というものが決まっているし、古くからの形式にのっとったリアリズムではないスタイルで創られた世界に、声も体もマッチしている。これが現代演劇になってくると、新劇以降、「西洋劇、又は西洋のリアリズムをもとにした劇」をどうやって西洋人でない日本人が成り立たせるのかという課題と取っ組まざるを得ない。鬘をかぶって西洋人のように振る舞い、喋る?でも喋っている言葉は日本語。昨年日本に帰った時、こういう演劇を目撃してショックでした。

舞台上で発語するということは、結局、戯曲そのものから生まれてくるのではなく、体や空間から生まれなければ成り立たないのだろう。

tags: jother
categories: Uncategorized, life, Performance
Thursday 03.26.20
Posted by karakoro
 

Symmetry/Asymmetry

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When do we get drawn to Symmetry?  Asymmetry? Symmetry is stable, calm, and solid. Asymmetry is jarring, uneasy, and potentially hazardous. I look around my living space and see what is symmetrical and what is asymmetrical. I notice that individual objects tend to be symmetrical. However, they are grouped together, creating asymmetrical patterns in the rooms of asymmetrical shapes. Nothing in nature is completely symmetrical. No human body is completely symmetrical.

tags: Body
categories: Body
Tuesday 03.24.20
Posted by karakoro
 

RE: Dance and Language (2)

I'm often asked to describe what I create. Dance? Dance theatre? Movement theatre? Physical theatre? Butoh? Contemporary? It's been a while since 'tanztheatre'emerged in Germany (or identified).

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categories: Uncategorized
Tuesday 03.24.20
Posted by karakoro
 

Naoko's Self-Healing Practice

Coinciding with Corona Virus eruption, my body seems to be erupting as well. When the body starts getting into an unusual mode, it is telling me something. Using the FREE time opened up due to the stay-at-home state, I am forced to face my own physical condition.

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DAY 1 - organizing my body

Pain/discomfort is on the R side of Pelvis as well as the lower back right above the R pelvis. This pain is on and off for the past five or six years. I lie on the floor and compare the placement of R pelvis and L pelvis. R pelvis is higher, closer to the head than the L. Consequently, my R leg feels shorter than my L leg.

I start doing Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement exercise. It is the one that I lie on one side and connect shoulder and pelvis movements. After moving R leg in a circular motion initiated from R pelvis, my R leg gets longer, meaning, my R pelvis dropped to the ground and space has been created in my hip joint as well as knee joint and ankle. It feels good! After completing the whole cycle of shoulder and hip, I feel much more grounded. Walking around, my hip has less pain.

DAY 2 - more organization, specific image of body parts, facing the ‘ignored’ body part

I still have great amount of discomfort in my R pelvis. So today, I decided to look carefully at the structure of pelvis to see where exactly my discomfort is.

As I trace my pelvis and examine which part feels tense, I notice that it is the anterior sacroiliac ligament, as well as the superior pubic ligament and the ligament that connects the great trochanter and the bottom of R iliac. The posterior SI joint on the R side also is tight. I have to admit that I have much weaker image of these areas compared to the L side. My R side in general feels smaller and tighter than the L side which is freer and larger.

I lie on the floor and feel all these parts mentioned above. I notice that when I breathe in, inside of the R side of the pelvis has much smaller movement. I roll my pelvis to R and L and notice that I DON”T WANT TO role it to R at all. I have much less intimate connection with my R pelvis.

I exhaled and inhaled my breath into the lower abdomen, making space in the R side of the pelvis. It is like entering into the unknown territory. What makes me so hesitant to enter into this area?

I continue to do the same Awareness Through Movement lesson of shoulder and pelvis from yesterday. Now when I get up, I don’t have the pain in my R hip joint.

DAY 3 Pelvis-Shoulder connection

As I examine my R pelvis further, I noticed that the pain is greater when my L shoulder is tight. I suffered adhesive capsulitis on both R and L shoulders about 10 years ago. L shoulder didn’t quite heal completely. So sometimes, it gets tight from the shoulder joint, elbow, wrist, to the 4th and 5th fingers. There is a connection between my L shoulder and R pelvis/hip joint.

I enter into my body, inside of my R pelvis and trace the line from under the superior pubic ligament, down to the R sitzbone across the body inside all the way up to the L shoulder ligament.

I move the L shoulder joint a little and it moves my R pelvis. As I continued examining this connection, I start discovering the relationship between R ribcage and L ribcage. As I continue this exploration, I feel my R hip joint and inside of R pelvis is honored, looked at, and paid attention to, and HAPPY. I stood up and felt much more rubrication inside of R pelvis.

DAY 4 Pelvis-Leg connection

Today I traced my R pelvis down all the way to my R toes. My 4th and 5th R toes are a little numb compared to the rest. I have been observing them to see where this is coming from. It is, in no doubt, related to R pelvis, but there is some distance between my foot and pelvis - there is calf, knee, and thigh before I get to the pelvis. As I continued moving two of my R toes, I noticed something. The lower part of the leg bone, Fibula, hurts. This is the place I broke in a car accident 25 years ago. Could this be the case? My body still remember the memory of that traumatic experience, I thought to myself as I continued trying to move my 4th and 5th R toes. As I lie on my bed and stretched my 5th toe far away from the rest, I felt the sensation I remembered from that time. Then all of it came back to me - how this accident and injury impacted my life then and all the complex emotions I tried to move through at that time. Certainly, not all was digested then. My body shrunk up as I was hit by a car and dumped to the ground. Only bone that broke was fibula, but because my R leg was put in a cast immediately, and I had only one leg for months. My body seemed to be operating still in that mode, especially when I have more stress than usual or when I stay in a sedentary position for some time. My body remembers that ‘confinement’, that painful helpless feeling. It stored all of it inside.

As I became in touch with my own emotions stored in my muscles, ligaments, and tendons, I felt electricity running thorough my R leg all the way through my R pelvis. R leg became much more vibrant and alive than usual. All I had to do was to GET INSIDE OF DISCOMFORT.

DAY 5 Pelvis and internal organs inside

Having studied Feldenkrais and GAPS nutritional protocol, by now I have an understanding of how skeletal structure and internal organs are connected. So I wanted to look at what is in that particular part - R pelvis and hip joint - of my body. It is about the place where small intestine connects with large intestine. It is also where appendix is. It is entirely possible that bad bacteria hang out in these ‘juncture’ like places, whcih gives me an idea of increasing probiotic food, fat, and animal protein to increase good bacteria. Some detox remedy such as detox bath with baking soda would be also good. I’ll see how these nutritional and detox remedy will affect this area of my body.



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tags: Body
categories: Body, life
Tuesday 03.24.20
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

What shall I call myself?

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Lately, I’m pondering upon what to call myself. For being a performing artist, I’m too under-prolific - I haven’t made work since last April. To call myself a pro somatic educator, I feel too under-experienced. I can call myself a life-searcher, but it sounds too flimsy and non-specific. I am in the dilemma sigging in a place of not being defined as anything. This place can be an exciting one, once I accept its uncertainly. I am calling myself a dancer even though I haven’t physically danced for public in a while. Dance is an art form that can exist in time and space at the same time. I see things standing on the axis of these two elements. Time and space. My central axis merges with the ‘present’ point in the axis of time and space, extending into the past and future at the same time. I am standing in the middle of the big flow of the universe. That’s how I would like to relate to people. That’s how I’d like to see the world. How to see through the lens of a dancer.

Wednesday 01.30.19
Posted by Naoko Maeshiba
 

Vacant Lot

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I love the feel of a vacant lot. Leaving the trace of the past and holding a dream for the future, it waits for the unknown in tranquility. My body yearns to vibrate with what will arrive in this empty space.

tags: life
categories: Body, Place
Friday 02.03.17
Posted by karakoro
 
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