foi response from Tonya Lockyer (WA)

Hello from Seattle.

I am really moved reading everyone's experiences.
I'm inspired by you, to share what happened here.

I think perhaps I had pretty humble expectations.
I want to write that it was hard.
I want to say I struggled. But I didn't. Mostly I felt gratitude,
happiness, like I finally had time. I love moving with my eyes closed.
I love exploring the world with touch. I love improvising. I felt
people come and go. Later I learned there were strangers too. I sensed
a few of them, but I like knowing that people came, witnessed, wrote
beautiful things, shared something intimate and I had no idea.

In many ways, it felt easier than my day to day life. In my daily
life, I tend to be moody: I get easily overstimulated, anxious,
over-extend myself to exhaustion, I feel nervous around people and
disguise it with humor, and I have an embarrassing tendency to cry
really easily when things move me...I'm called "overly sensitive."
Somehow, eyes closed, ear-plugged, finally having time to be in what I
love for all the time in the world, not expecting anything
miraculous...I felt good. I felt really good. I felt consistently
grateful, relaxed, happy.
Yeah, the blindfold was scratchy. Yeah, midnight seemed farther away
then I expected...but
It felt amazing, beautiful, decadent, totally beyond my expectations.

Yes, Decadent. I am so fucking lucky that I can spend 24 hours
blindfolded, moving, creating a space for reflection. That I can
respond this way to war, censorship, the desire for peace, the desire
for freedom...


I had incredibly generous, lovely witnesses from 8am to midnight.
I didn't feel alone or lonely.
People wrote and drew in the book I left out.
Sometimes I heard people reading what they wrote out-loud.

I discovered their tracks...the warmth of a light candle, pillows, scarves...
One woman moved with me, moving me.
I went with it.
Honestly, normally, that might have bothered me. I surrendered to her kindness.
Five people hugged me.
Beautiful, long silent hugs.
Was it breaking a rule?
Who gives a shit. It was beautiful.

A child rushed into the space.
If I still had an ounce of being sanctimonious in me, that incredible
little kinetic ball of curly hair and polar fleece shattered it.

I noticed new things. I didn't notice things I normally would.
I keep thinking how we are all missing senses like sight all the time.
I don't just mean distraction.
I mean, compared to an Eagle, I'm practically blind.
Compared to a dog or a salmon, I have no sense of smell.
I cannot hear from miles around through my feet like an elephant.

I paced myself.
And my body was so grateful.
Interestingly, after 24 hours of present movement I was refreshed and
much less tired
than after a 8 hours of the MFA program I'm currently in.
It's like my body finally feels awake again.
I only slept for 8 hours afterwards. I woke-up and stayed in bed naked all day.
It was awesome.

I think the most touching thing, is a lady who works across the street
saw it through the windows and found her way into the building. Pretty
brave really.
I read her writing after the fact. I love that she took a risk and
followed her curiosity. That working "6 floors down in the brick
building across the street" she was drawn by "the intimacy" she saw
through the window.

And of course, the solidarity was awesome.
And reading all of this writing is awesome.

How great that dance can live in such an expansive state of time,
space, energy and intent.

Well,
lots of love to you all

And here are some excerpts from the witnesses journals in Seattle. I
hope it reveals how what foi/yo/we did, effected folks here in
Seattle:

#1
...I'm fed up with our economy dictating everything we do and
controlling every inch of our attention and our lives. The ruling
elite defend the holy sanctity of the free market. I'm fed up with the
lie that unregulated capitol maximizes happiness. I'm fed up with so
many people suffering from poverty in a country suffocating with
wealth and prosperity. I'm fed up with people born with privilege
explaining to the suffering that they earned every penny and they can
too!
...I'm fed up with everyone wanting to be an insider, a player--People
who shove their human morals aside for a little bit of access...We are
a nation of spiritually charged people. Let that spirit help the world
and not obliterate it. Most of all, our nation is also an idea. An
idea of freedom. So let us not continue as hypocrites and actually
live up to the idea of America. Let us not be afraid."

#2
...Everything about her is beautiful and magical, but not in that way
that peformers try so hard to be. Here in this way, in this setting,
for these reasons she is beautiful. Wow. I am so privileged (in every
sense of the word) to be here. I think of lying in bed this morning.
Sleeping sort of Aaron turns on Democracy Now! and in a sort of sleep
I listen to the reports of Israel bombing the Gaza Strip. Why?!! More
civilians dying, dying, dying, dying, dying.....

#3
...we push to extremes in search of our simplicity. As usual, I have
finally arrived and it is time to take my leave taking. The seagulls
swirl at her back. The gestures make double meaning at the very least,
and thees is a spaciousness that I have been craving...her body a
facile, succinct reminder to continue, alone in the dead of night, to
feel the threads that spill beyond us and beckon action. Dancing,
believing in it, pushing forward against the tide, until perhaps the
tide turns...

#4
...after so much time of letting eyes and ears go- what gets unlocked
in the body? To know the knowing of your body so intimately and
deeply, does it deepen empathy?

#5
...I thought of you last night. There was a doc on TV about a young
Iraqi trying to stay out of Iraq: hustling in Prague and London,
trying to do anything to not have to go back to the refugee camp and
only digging a deeper hole for himself. Then there was a doc about
conscious objectors. THen there was a show about elephants showing how
deeply they love and care and will stay with each other even after
death..

#6
Your energy, nervous system, perceptual field is like a soft gossamer
blanket. Here's to the heart loving what it loves.

#7
Singing, Other beautiful sounds, The lights moving against the
windowsill. A ball rolling. It is an effort not to dance with you. I
must go to work. Thank you.

#8
A body is so much information. Even with senses diminished I see so
much freedom with so much information. Freedom we have to share.
Luxury, beyond luxury to those in Gaza looking for a fortified corner.
You rise like a phoenix from their ruble, a swanky angel, a righteous
child

#9
Joy to the world. Rumbling, cyclical. Nothing is scraping. Everything
is soft, with smells of cooking. No lock on the door. This is beyond!

#10
...Opening into the vast darkness and staying with it, you transform
immeasurable human loss and suffering to hope and healing.

#11
...This city, singing to other cities--31 of them- sending and
receiving good energy for the important and necessary change that 2009
must offer to the world.

#12
Thank you for taking your freedom to move and sing to acknowledge
those who aren't.

#13
Recently moving to this city and struggling, struggling, struggling
with finding/creating the intimacy of home, I feel intimacy in this
space with you and others. Thinking of movement reflection across the
country happening NOW, with this exact mission in mind--and so many
other missions in mind. Perhaps it's less about trying to create
intimacy and more about remaining open for intimacy because all of a
sudden, without planning for it, here I am. I DO NOT KNOW YOU BUT I
KNOW YOU. And you have intimacy with the window, and your toe, the
red pillow, the radiator, the lights, your elbow...I am thinking how I
spent most of the day today, 6 floors below, in the building next
door, across the street working, typing, conversing, eating, standing,
peeing, moving and we were both in the midst of hours, minutes,
movements. But how many of those movements and minutes can I recall?
Reflect on? Remember? Reclaim? Celebrate? Joy to the world and much
gratitude for courage of all sorts.

#14
does a teapot become tired?
Boiling water day after night
after day into night into
the kettle hot not bothered
by the boiling water bubbling inside
hot and unruly in the bubbling heat
she steams for water to be over and
out of her
out of kettle
out of tea pot black only to fill
once more with fire
after night into day
into fire might the kettle
want to rest as the water
wants to still but both are heated
til they rise black over black
over bubbles into day into night
on the stop top cooling.

#15
Fascinating. Watching this makes me think there are a million
definitions to the word "meditation."

#16
A field. A world. A world created here. It is great strength.


These are just excerpts from about half of the entries.

a huge hug to each of you.

tonya