New Moon-New Focus: Be Up-Standing

Standing is the Way

There’s an interesting movie from the UK on HBO lately, “About Time”, where the leading man, a lawyer, is in court when the Judge enters. The Bailiff calls “The Court is Up Standing”, and everyone rises! Great line, but truly, standing has been shown to be the best way for your body to work. New inventions are coming out daily to convert the old sit down desk into a stand up version. Desk standing for work is supposedly better than running a marathon! Victoria Beckham even advises a treadmill desk so you can work out as you work, but she has to get rid of those 5″ heels!

The body needs to move every day. It wasn’t made to be sitting for many hours at a time. A friend of mine just had back surgery and he is advised to get up & move the body every 20 min. Body Kinesthetic is one of the Multiple Intelligences put forth by Howard Gardner, brilliant educator from Harvard. The body learns by moving. Schools on the west coast are having great results integrating this method to teach Math, Language, History and Geography by having students move over life size gameboards where their body is the playing piece. The body remembers. People strong with this intelligence make the best dentists, artists (as long as you’re moving), sculptors, musicians, potters, construction workers, flight attendants, waiters/bartenders, house painters. They are the hands on Do-ers of society.

My latest online painting course brought this all back to me beautifully! When I created mixed media animal paintings, I worked with oil pastels and gouache, sitting down, on a slightly slanted worktable. But I couldn’t do this with painting. I found my body remembering a pattern from college days when we worked on easels for our painting, life drawing, and design classes for 3 hrs at a time, 3 days a week, for 3 of our 4 yrs. We would draw/paint, stand back, evaluate, move back in, and out, in a real dance of creation.

I converted a stand up presentation easel with a large drawing pad into my workplace for my recent paintings on heavy watercolor paper. The paper could be taped right onto the pad. For the latest ballerina on canvas, my husband dug through all our basement storage to find a wonderful small wooden easel from my college days. It stands on a tall drafting table to be the right height. My body remembered the layout that worked best for me, the placement of the images, paints, and water container. It all felt right. My body remembered.

So I encourage you to join me and be Up-standing on this New Moon Day. Your body will thank you for it! After a half hour of sitting at your work, computer, or TV, get up and move. I’m forever putting a new log on the fire, getting a cup of tea, or even doing some yoga stretches just to get the energy moving. Love your body & it will serve you well!