Monthly Archives: June 2021

The Coachman

Moshe Feldenkrais tells this story in his book, Awareness Through Movement, “a man without awareness is like a carriage whose passengers are the desires, with the muscles for horses, while the carriage itself is the skeleton. Awareness is the sleeping coachman. As long as the coachman remains asleep the carriage will be dragged aimlessly here and there. Each passenger seeks a different destination and the horses pull different ways. But when the coachman is wide awake and holds the reins the horses will pull the carriage and bring every passenger to his proper destination.

In those moments when awareness succeeds in being at one with feeling, senses, movement, and thought, the carriage will speed along on the right road. Then man can make discoveries, invent, create, innovate, and ‘know.’ He grasps that his small world and the great world around are but one and that in this unity he is no longer alone.”

This is one of my favorite passages out of this book. The 4 things that make up the human experience; sensations, emotions, thoughts, and movement. A physical body enables all of these things to occur. If we can aim ourselves in a desirable direction and trust in our place and time as well as ourselves as we go it can feel so wonderful.