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I first met Maui Eguia in his hometown, Cebu City in 2009. He talked nonstop. After a very intense and unexpected innerdance where he exploded in voice and uncontrollable movements, Maui lost his voice for many hours, enveloped in an absolute Knowing. Watching him over the years, he would keep returning to the same speechless state, sometimes for days or weeks, an early indicator of the aphasic phenomenon in innerdance outlining: |
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What happens to Language, Body, History, Time, Memory, Culture and Movement in heightened states of Consciousness?
Describing the powerful experience that took place for about two hours, Maui wrote:
When the twister subsided, I could not contain the energy in my body which prompted me to roar so loudly. Then, I was making very synchronized movements with my hands, as what the ancient monks would do in their spontaneous meditations. The energy was so extremely powerful that I was in it for more than two hours. The process ended where I was cradling and embracing this precious baby in my arms … as I looked at it, I saw that the child was in me and was me, and was undergoing a re-birth; through this, I became a new person and for a long time, was having to sit at the far end in a small corner, quietly full of awe and wonder.
It took us a few minutes to realize what the re-born child in him resulted in. For so many hours after the experience, Maui lost his speech production abilities even if his level of comprehension had reached an extraordinary high. He understood all of what was happening as he drove me and his girlfriend up to a mountain area in the city. It was an achievement that she had not wondered as to his uncharacteristic silent treatment. Maui was able to communicate only in sign language. Previous to the workshop process, Maui piled high silly unanswerable questions (are aliens real, what do you think of monsters), whereas after this first innerdance, there was naught a single utterance.
a p h a s i a
In the deep innerdance, losing language happens. When it does, we gain an understanding that has less to do with mental words and more to do with a body wisdom. Those who lose their words have much to say about what is within them. Words aren’t things. Words are alive, changing, ancient. We don’t just speak the words, they speak us.
Aphasia occurs in deep transformations. There are many cases where people lose their capacities to speak normal sentences, at times, unable to utter a single word over extended periods (which is called Broca's Aphasia). The other form of aphasia is called Wernicke's Aphasia or receptive Aphasia, when people display a great difficulty in comprehending spoken or written language, punctuated by the loss of memory.
Stroke patients often experience an impairment of language centers which govern production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. In an innerdance perspective, the short-term (it can last for an average of thirty minutes to an hour) cessation of language is hardly seen as an impairment. The experience is normally accompanied by feelings of bliss and a profound sense of knowing.
In one particular innerdance training in Chiang Rai in Thailand in 2014, a Chinese woman had been going through extreme electricity surges in her body for several days. On one afternoon, she exhibited Broca’s Aphasia after a particularly intense morning. Over a long lunch break, I had repeatedly asked her to say her name. To her horror and hilarity, she could not utter it, despite her name only has two letters (Jo). In the next hours, other word and phrase constructions were just as near impossible.
Aphasia occurs in deep transformations. There are many cases where people lose their capacities to speak normal sentences, at times, unable to utter a single word over extended periods (which is called Broca's Aphasia). The other form of aphasia is called Wernicke's Aphasia or receptive Aphasia, when people display a great difficulty in comprehending spoken or written language, punctuated by the loss of memory.
Stroke patients often experience an impairment of language centers which govern production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. In an innerdance perspective, the short-term (it can last for an average of thirty minutes to an hour) cessation of language is hardly seen as an impairment. The experience is normally accompanied by feelings of bliss and a profound sense of knowing.
In one particular innerdance training in Chiang Rai in Thailand in 2014, a Chinese woman had been going through extreme electricity surges in her body for several days. On one afternoon, she exhibited Broca’s Aphasia after a particularly intense morning. Over a long lunch break, I had repeatedly asked her to say her name. To her horror and hilarity, she could not utter it, despite her name only has two letters (Jo). In the next hours, other word and phrase constructions were just as near impossible.
Chato was an organiser of innerdance in the Philippines back in 2009. She describes her first aphasic exploration:
I was instantly in alpha state, seated there for what seemed like an eternity, in timelessness, transported to another realm—half-aware where I was & that there are people around me, yet, not conscious at all that they’re around! I wasn’t even conscious I was there--like it’s me, yet it wasn’t me, like it’s beyond me. I couldn't speak after that,-dazed trying to relish the experience. Something genuine, important, healing, & cosmic awoke in me--I had borne, & was born into, something utterly yet unutterably magnificent!
I was instantly in alpha state, seated there for what seemed like an eternity, in timelessness, transported to another realm—half-aware where I was & that there are people around me, yet, not conscious at all that they’re around! I wasn’t even conscious I was there--like it’s me, yet it wasn’t me, like it’s beyond me. I couldn't speak after that,-dazed trying to relish the experience. Something genuine, important, healing, & cosmic awoke in me--I had borne, & was born into, something utterly yet unutterably magnificent!
The Regression Hypothesis is useful in understanding Aphasia's role in the spiritual awakening. It isn't just in loss of language that Regression occurs. People crawl into fetal poses, babble in gibberish, recollect memories from infancy.
An innerdance facilitator from Lithuania named Saule wrote an email some years ago describing what Aphasia means within spiritual context:
“I started writing you because I realized that I don’t know how I feel. And it has nothing to do with the old 'I don’t know how I feel when there are so many feelings that then there are so many feelings that you’re just confused until you sort them out.
Now it’s nothing! How? First it was meaning that was missing in the words. As you saw, I didn’t know what some words, concepts, symbols meant. Now I can only seem to play with the meaning others give to words but mostly from a kind of “memory,” while I cannot really make up new content as the actual meaning is unknown. I’m talking more and more about things like time, space, energy, consciousness.
I do not anymore have the same feelings with simple words like 'hello,' 'thank you,' 'table,' 'chair,' although I just had it with 'hello' while writing it now.
I feel empty emotion‐wise, probably I’m supposed to say feeling-wise knowing the difference between the two but then again I don’t really know the difference even … not in a bad way, but it is unusual as well as an unfamiliar feeling -for sure. As if just now, I have just lost the definition and feeling of 'feeling.' When I say this, it is not just the word that represents it that I am unable to grasp. Feelings themselves feel alien and an unknown construct. In this, I am in some sort of a Zero Point.
I have no idea why am I writing these. It just happened. Someone asked me how I am and when I looked for the answer I found nothing. I’m in no way. Just am. Am I?
I have that strong feeling of being at the beginning. It seems like I’m going deeper and deeper into it: the beginning of the beginning of the beginning, though the word 'deeper' implies space and this place I refer to is spaceless."
“I started writing you because I realized that I don’t know how I feel. And it has nothing to do with the old 'I don’t know how I feel when there are so many feelings that then there are so many feelings that you’re just confused until you sort them out.
Now it’s nothing! How? First it was meaning that was missing in the words. As you saw, I didn’t know what some words, concepts, symbols meant. Now I can only seem to play with the meaning others give to words but mostly from a kind of “memory,” while I cannot really make up new content as the actual meaning is unknown. I’m talking more and more about things like time, space, energy, consciousness.
I do not anymore have the same feelings with simple words like 'hello,' 'thank you,' 'table,' 'chair,' although I just had it with 'hello' while writing it now.
I feel empty emotion‐wise, probably I’m supposed to say feeling-wise knowing the difference between the two but then again I don’t really know the difference even … not in a bad way, but it is unusual as well as an unfamiliar feeling -for sure. As if just now, I have just lost the definition and feeling of 'feeling.' When I say this, it is not just the word that represents it that I am unable to grasp. Feelings themselves feel alien and an unknown construct. In this, I am in some sort of a Zero Point.
I have no idea why am I writing these. It just happened. Someone asked me how I am and when I looked for the answer I found nothing. I’m in no way. Just am. Am I?
I have that strong feeling of being at the beginning. It seems like I’m going deeper and deeper into it: the beginning of the beginning of the beginning, though the word 'deeper' implies space and this place I refer to is spaceless."
Another woman from Lithuania named Brigita underwent Aphasia for almost half a year. When she was still able to write things, she shared:
It is so slow and the feeling is nothing is going on and meanwhile so much is happening. Like a baby, I have been 19 days in bed without language as something gets lighter and lighter, mostly on a water fast. There are many sensations, impulses, contractions, cracklings in the body as lightnings are going on in my head at night. All the inner processes are still and peaceful without visions. I am just in the sound with some tears at the end not knowing what they are for, ending with Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ in mind and sending love to each and every actor on it.
Yesterday I was in bed with no music and there was an impulse in my left foot, then a contraction in the womb and I burst into tears. It was such a deep and long cry turning into so much love I could not imagine was possible to feel. Crying, my only thought was for gratitude as to how we can forget this love.
It is so slow and the feeling is nothing is going on and meanwhile so much is happening. Like a baby, I have been 19 days in bed without language as something gets lighter and lighter, mostly on a water fast. There are many sensations, impulses, contractions, cracklings in the body as lightnings are going on in my head at night. All the inner processes are still and peaceful without visions. I am just in the sound with some tears at the end not knowing what they are for, ending with Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ in mind and sending love to each and every actor on it.
Yesterday I was in bed with no music and there was an impulse in my left foot, then a contraction in the womb and I burst into tears. It was such a deep and long cry turning into so much love I could not imagine was possible to feel. Crying, my only thought was for gratitude as to how we can forget this love.
below, deeper conversations within aphasia and language theory within the innerdance process
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Aphasia - Healing a paradigm
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Aphasia and Language Acquisition
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