Ropes and tears
Why do we cry in the ropes?
The other day I had a conversation with a friend. We had met online but this was her first time in the studio. We were talking about Shibari. She asked me why some people cry during a session. For me it feels normal. While we were talking, I remembered this story and shared it.
There is a barrier that separates us from the world. I cannot say clearly what that barrier is. When I was a child I had many skin problems. I was always dry and itchy. Whenever I had a flare, my mother became very concerned and tried to ease me with remedies. I remember one day, I do not recall if I was five or ten, but I was lying on the floor scratching myself. After I recovered a little, I thought that this is something nobody can share with me. It does not matter how much they care about me, how much they want to help, at some deeper level I was going to be alone with this feeling. It was not about the itch itself but about the fact that no matter what, I had to go through it and I could not escape. I felt fundamentally alone. Not with despair, but alone.
I think this feeling later made me stay in awe with the world. When I grew older I became interested in poetry. I thought language in general fell short of communicating what I wanted. What is communication anyway. But poetry felt different. When you write a poem and someone reads it, when there is a circle of feedback between two sensitive spirits around a poem, language becomes malleable and you can overcome the limitations of words and the ambiguity of grammar. I discovered Heidegger and other thinkers and felt that language could make a bridge between me and others.
But that bridge did not go very far. It was always circumstantial. I went to college to study philosophy and physics with the hope that I would learn more about this abyss in front of me, that what I felt was a problem that could be solved with the power of the mind. Between metaphysics and mechanics, I thought there must be some equation that could make a bridge I could cross. I grew distant from poetry. It became an empty exercise, like a puzzle, like a tree that falls without making sound.
Eventually I came to Japan. Here I had to give up my old tools. Words were not just imprecise, they were like the stones of a ruin of a forgotten civilization. They seemed like something, but they were not for me. I had to learn a different vocabulary, smiling, bowing, following the flow of the noise.
And then I discovered Shibari.
It was entirely by accident, but that is a different story.
Suddenly the wall disappeared.
The other person disappeared.
I disappeared.
Everything was there.
We feel alone.
But it is an illusion.
We cannot be alone, because we are not separated.
Hermann Hesse writes in Demian:
The bird fights its way out of the egg.
The egg is the world.
Who would be born must first destroy a world.
I loved this sentence.
But I did not fully understand it until I experienced Shibari for the first time.
At birth, when there are no words, only tears can flow.
Yes, I think is normal to cry in a session.
Thank you for sharing your attention.
Pablo
Wow, I loved this read. It was beautifully explained - the feeling of feeling alone. In my exploration, I felt that one thing that unites us, is that we all feel alone in our struggles, yet this is experienced by every single person. To blur that line, and as you mentioned, to see that there is no separation, is what its about. Shibari allows us to be seen, and to held in that moment, which brings intense emotions in the form of tears.