Remembering

It always amazes me that people don’t talk more about the crucial role of ‘remembering’ in Alexander work.

When I first read about the Technique, I thought the task of learning it would depend largely on application. After I had had some lessons, I still thought this, but I had become confused about what, exactly, was being ‘applied’. I felt okay about that, since a certain amount of confusion seemed part and parcel of the learning process. Continue reading “Remembering”

The Rack

I read this novel nearly thirty years ago sitting up all night by a wood stove in South Wales. I was about twenty five and recently married. I found it heartbreaking. The love affair Paul has with Michele moved me immeasurably, with the final pages finishing me off. Tearful throughout, I broke down, sobbing. Why this book is so often out of print I will never know. Nor can I understand why no film has been made of it. AE Ellis is not the author’s real name, and apparently wrote nothing else. I advise anyone who can get hold of a copy of The Rack to read it and then pass it on to a friend. I did. The friend never returned it; but I recently came across a first edition in a second hand bookstall for 50 pence. I don’t think I’ll ever read it again, though. It would be pointless. This book still affects me more than anything I’ve read since.

Thinking

It was suggested to me that: “…the function of the mind is to think, think about something.” This seems a bit hard on animals, who also have minds, but who presumably don’t have the capacity to “think about” matters in the way we do. Nor would I call the ability to string a series of thoughts together an unmitigated blessing. Continue reading “Thinking”

Animal thinking

I have long considered the only real difference between us and other animals is our ability to consider in the abstract; and that this ability, which probably began accidentally and has become something of a curse, is all that enabled us to get and stay “on top”. However, when I kept animals some years ago I had two very strange experiences which seemed to suggest an intelligence that was almost human. Continue reading “Animal thinking”