#93: STRAWBERRY ASTRAL MASH

a collaborative (Soma)tic by CAConrad and Laura Schadler 

A MacDowell Colony Experiment

ONE: Put a strawberry and a couple ice cubes into a small wax or plastic baggie. Carry this into the woods, find a place to sit quietly with notebook and pen. With your eyes open for a few minutes hold the bag up in the air while staring at the world around you in the woods. Then lower the bag and close your eyes. Put your hand into the bag and slowly feel the last of the ice melt, then begin to tear and mash the strawberry between your fingers. Keep mashing it for at least twenty minutes, eyes closed the entire time, focusing on both the world around you you cannot see, and the feeling of the strawberry you can feel but do not see. Think about how the wild around you is like this strawberry coming apart in your hands right now. THEN QUICKLY empty the mashed strawberry into your mouth, but hold it there, and slowly, slowly chew while writing AS FAST AS YOU CAN whatever comes to mind!! 

DAY TWO: Find a comfortable place to lie down on the ground, flat on your back, arms slightly away

from your sides, legs slightly apart. Imagine you are surrounded by a warm, white light. Feel the sensations and atmosphere of yourself. Ground yourself deeply in your body and consider how this feels for a moment. Next, begin to slowly move away from these physical sensations. The goal here it to project yourself outside of yourself. Find yourself in a totally new and unfamiliar landscape, one you have never visited before. Consider the specific details of this new place and what it feels like to inhabit it. Are you the same person? Are you different? How so? What is your experience of this place? If you are not yourself or your body, who are you? Stay in this landscape for at least ten minutes. Move through it. If you float away or the landscape eludes you, allow yourself to move to somewhere new. Sit up and immediately write of this place and who you were there or of something else entirely. Repeat, if necessary.