No, I...
RSVP here to join one or more of the upcoming Stemless sessions:
June 30, July 7, July 14
90 minutes (online), 6pm UK
What do you do with someone’s projection at you?
“You’re sitting there in a dark corner, waiting for me to bring you out here in the sun.”
“No, I was enjoying being quiet, actually.”
You inform it. Check it. Let their curiosity, their judgement, their discernment meet you. Let them meet the truth of what is happening for you. Take their engagement, parry words that don’t resonate, invigorate the ones that do.
In the last session, we noticed how saying “yes” or “no” is a a bit of an advanced move.
The logistics of consensus, of slowly arriving at shared reality, is not the practice of stemless. Opening up our attention to someone isn’t about working towards an increasingly accurate picture of them.
The moment you say “no, I…”, it’s over.
The delicate rhythms of dancing blindfolded in water, the sensory blast… you’ve stepped out of the pool and are drying off.
There is a way, to say “no”, without stepping out. Simply own your “no” first. What is going on, that makes you say “no”? What is your whole world, everything that moves you, in that moment? What is plaguing you, sweeping you, taking you into this crazy dream of correction and negotiation and connection? What is that like?
But don’t give us three drawling paragraphs of Lego blocks to assemble your world in our minds. Drop us in, right there. Own it first, wordlessly. And in the same moment, just say: “no.”1
…And if you find that all of that has slipped away from you in the heat of experience, just do what you would have done anyway. Watch us, the rest of us, smiling beaming awareness, receiving your words as mere smoke of the deep fires of you. The water does not end, “outside” of the pool, when we let you own your experience… even if you’ve forgotten to.2
For us to be with your world of wanting to say “no” is similar to being with someone’s experience of, say, noticing what it is like to have to follow the rules of circling. In other words, the “meta” need not disconnect you from the practice.
We might wordlessly respond with “That was some good stemless!” or “Great noticing!”