A terribly late and hangover blog!
- Berrak Yedek
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
28.04.2025
It was supposed to be Monday but turns out to be Tuesday :)
And again a lot of questions…
This is an additional introduction, which I am writing today Tuesday, but I had really good intentions and started writing yesterday (below), however a lot of things came up and it all ended with a Gala dinner, a lot of alcohol and meaningless meetings, talks and chatter. All this dear reader, obliged me to a hangover on Tuesday morning and I will have to write Monday’s blog today. Sorry for keeping you waiting 🙂
Monday
Only one week has passed but it seems like months to me. It always fascinates me to experience something that I know very well in my mind: our perception of time is very subjective. Sometimes a song seems like an eternity, so may also a phone call. Or a week living in your home city may feel like a whole month…But right now I am sitting in my room in Prague at my desk after being on the road for 2 weeks (hope you have enjoyed my last two blogs, which I have written away from my desk). I have brought back two postcards from Oxford, which I will of course share with you.
Today I write without music, I am listening to the birds singing in the garden and the little baby wild boars' delightful sounds from the forest. We have a family of about 15 just residing behind our fence.
Paintings that reflect my inner world
Now, coming back to those two postcards. The first one on the left is a painting by Eric Ravilious, called Salt Marsh, and dates from 1938. The second on the right is by Edward Hopper, called Ground Swell, dating 1939.
I feel like Ravilious but would like to work to towards feeling like Hopper 🙂
Tuesday as a continuation of Monday
This seems quite logical, however, in the middle of my days of inner turmoil, my logic fails to accompany me, therefore I make these redundant statements, which somehow make me feel better. I continue this blog which I was supposed to write yesterday. I had such nice ideas about memory, while I was walking in the early morning to pick up my car from the service. Let me see if I can remember… Actually right now I am in the studio, we have just cleaned the studio together with Güneş, and we feel much better. The sun is shining into the office, Fifi and Gigi are enjoying their siestas, and Güneş and I have installed ourselves behind our screens. Prag is pleasantly warm and the light in the studio is heartwarming.
I was thinking about memory yesterday morning because my memory of places, of people and of events have been stirred in the past two weeks. Certain periods I remember very well, whereas certain periods I have no idea what has happened. I have always been reminded by friends and students about things I have done, said. And to my surprise I do not remember most of them.
I have mostly lived outside of my country of origin. And I think that when we travel a lot and live abroad, we leave behind friends and family. And sometimes we have strong emotions such as longing. Expressions such as “I am longing for you”, “I miss drinking tea with”, or “floating in nostalgia” become part of your daily life.
When we talk of nostalgia or longing, what are we really longing for?
When we miss someone and we want to see them after a long time, and we have really missed them, do we really see them as they are or do we look through the filter of our longing?
Do we keep the longing alive because the memory of that person lives in our body, fulfilling something we don’t have or comforting us or pleasing us? Do we miss that memory or do we really miss the person?
Let’s say that we have some common experience and we both have the memory of that experience which connects us intimately. Now what would happen if we see each other and we realize that the other person has a complete other memory of that common experience?
I have never somehow lived with the memory. I mean being always on the move and in longing, I have actually disconnected from that place and the people in my memory, and rather focused on the present. And then during the present something reminds me I feel the longing. But when I see the person or go to that place of longing, I naturally connect to it in the present, leaving the memory behind.
The past shapes us, and that shape thrusts us into the present and if we manage to stay with the present, resisting to slip into past memories, we can actually experience a depth in our presence, which then again will shape us, and so on we continue.
Just imagine a meeting of two people after many years: they talk about their past experience, and what they remember. And this is where it is so striking, if one listens well, these two people have lived something together and yet their experience and memory of that lived experience is very different. Yes, of course, we know that the experience is subjective. But when I long for someone, and this longing connects to a past experience, I somehow bind myself to the past, instead of trusting that this memory has already shaped me, changed me, altered something in me. So if I stay only with the memory of this longing, I will not be able to see that person in the present freshly, and there will be little space to really see, listen and re-discover that relationship in the present moment.
We seem to be so shy about being in the present moment, with the people we know from the past, or even with anyone. It is so much more comforting to speak about the past, about the memories, rather than staying open to the unknown present of the other person. It takes courage to keep oneself accessible to the other, and to stay in the moment, in order to let the past and present come closer and create a “true encounter” with the other. Especially amongst family members.
“Working” through the past in order to stay fully in the present
For me a big part of working with the body is to be able to dissolve and diffuse past memories which leave traces in the body. The spontaneous movement, or the improvised movement in Somatic Dialogue creates these moments of liberation, where the memories somehow get transformed into movement and they detach from our mind, and in their time leave us. At least this is what I have been experiencing most of the time: traces of experience, or memory, or even longing are and have been for me wonderful fuel to burn. Through music and “improvised” dance the body sweeps through the chambers of memory and lets them free into space. This is the power of dance, which doesn’t intentionally express something, but the expression happens by itself, and movement is created. The only important matter is to be there entirely in mind, body and presence.
When we are accompanied in a loving and silent way by someone (in the case of Somatic Dialogue, by a facilitator), then we can experience the allowing. Through the presence of the facilitator we learn to allow ourselves the memory to speak through our movements. And even to be ok with the fact that we do not need to make any sense of it. The diffusion or dissolving of memory through movement is most of the time senseless, it doesn’t make sense, it may even look chaotic, or strange, or even clumsy, but it sure leaves us with a sensation of space, lightness and liberation.
Dropping the past, is it really that scary?
It seems that we are always very afraid to drop the past, and we prefer clinging to it. But how can we carry the burden, and find enough space for new experiences if we don’t drop certain things? Why are we so afraid to become poor? Why do we take our past so seriously?
The more I reflect on it, and contemplate my own doings, the more I am convinced that we ought to not take ourselves too seriously. And instead work towards a kind of courage that will support us in our present. I really think, dear reader, -and here I am being utterly sincere- that the only way to drop our past is to work on the qualities of our presence, no matter what we do, no matter what we go through.
Today
Today I have had the pleasure of taking a session from a new colleague. My new colleague had taken the Somatic Dialogue Facilitator Training, she was part of the first group. And she took her time to complete her work and today finally she gave me a session, which marked the end of her training and she received her certificate. I have had the honour to accompany her during all this time, and we have a past together, and we have experienced many intimate, important, deep, joyful and even painful moments together. Today, when I entered the studio to take her private session, I was empty. I had the delight to hear her newly, freshly, listen carefully to what she had prepared for me. I answered her questions openly, and I surrendered to her lead. During the session, I re-discovered her. She made me go through a journey of a whole hour, where I felt seen, accompanied and I experienced liberation. I had the space and the time to let out movements, carrying traces of information that were no longer necessary to keep in my body. She guided me to find the silence, the stillness and the space so that movement and expression could happen in me. We met in the present, she as the listener and me as the teller. What a bliss. There was no memory, no past, just pure exchange in the present moment.
This is what enchants me in this work of Somatic Dialogue again and again.
But now let us look once more to these two paintings which I have shared in the beginning: