[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Lindsey's Response to Perl's on Austrian Soil #750

Hi Lindsey,

Yes, I agree. I knew I was walking a slippery slope as I tried to be both a teacher and an authentic human being in the classroom. A totally fraught situation given the identities of all of us present. And when I chose the readings from Vito Perrone, Louise Rosenblatt, van Manen, and Glenda Bissex, I had no idea how relevant they would be to the dark issues we were exploring. I love those writers and I knew their thinking about research and teaching would be important — but I did not expect them to be so challenging to the Austrians.

This line about the insidious nature of inherited hatred really speaks to me: ‘the roots of racism, discrimination, hyperbole ethnic phobias, are deep and just like an oak tree, the seeds populate areas nowhere near the original site.’ Just think of Obama today.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Lindsey's Response to Perl's on Austrian Soil #749

Hi Lindsey,

Yes, I agree. I knew I was walking a slippery slope as I tried to be both a teacher and an authentic human being in the classroom. A totally fraught situation given the identities of all of us present. And when I chose the readings from Vito Perrone, Louise Rosenblatt, van Manen, and Glenda Bissex, I had no idea how relevant they would be to the dark issues we were exploring. I love those writers and I knew their thinking about research and teaching would be important — but I did not expect them to be so challenging to the Austrians.

This line about the insidious nature of inherited hatred really speaks to me: ‘the roots of racism, discrimination, hyperbole ethnic phobias, are deep and just like an oak tree, the seeds populate areas nowhere near the original site.’ Just think of Obama today.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Joanna Siwiec Response: S. Perl: On Austrian Soil #748

Joanna,
Thank you for your honesty. I find this line so important and expressed so beautifully: “I was raised in the breath of Polish antisemitism.” You continue, “I was never taught to hate, because certain things for Poles aren’t a matter of teaching–but of something that is natural to know.” Like mother’s milk…..born into the breath of a profound and centuries old prejudice. It just comes with the territory….so yes, the the question is what to do with this once it becomes apparent.

It was truly shocking to me that my admissions about myself and my interests in the histories of the teachers was met with silence. I only later came to understand the denial in Austrian culture and how hard it was/is for those I met to own what happened in their land….very unlike Germany. And, yes, Poland is a whole other story, with a very complicated history, both of being victimized, becoming perpetrators and for some becoming rescuers.

Being able to ‘tell’ or recognize someone’s ethnic or sexual or national identity — yes, very strange — let’s talk about it in class.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Patrick's Response: Sondra Perl, On Austrian Soil #747

Thank you, Patrick, for such a thoughtful response. It is true that Margret and I found our way to each other through writing both in each other’s presence (in class) and then across an ocean through the mail. The writing back and forth in letters did allow us to discover ‘an angle of vision’ not our own. And I agree that so often in school the forms required and taught do not invite messiness or exploration of the self. It is true that our shared inquiries discovered through writing eventually invite us ‘to look into the face of the other’ and that has made all the difference. At the time of the first trip, I could not have imagined what transpired and has continued for close to 20 years.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Joshua's Response: Sondra Perl, On Austrian Soil #741

Josh:

You wrote: “It struck me whenever one of the Austrian students would refer to the atrocities of the Holocaust in the passive voice. It is a classic rhetorical tactic of the politician, to render a crime or misdeed opaque by removing or absenting the agent of the verb (“mistakes were made” instead of “I stole that money” or “I cheated on my wife”). What mistakes were made by whom?

Two quotes:

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
‘Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.” -Bertrand Russell:

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Josh's response to "Felt Sense" #731

How do we take something and convert it to words? How much of what we mean is really an extension of what we feel?
Last year I saw a play Not by Bread Alone, Nalaga’at Theater Deaf-Blind Acting Ensemble (Israel). https://arktype.org/nalagaat-theater/

This play was amazingly performed by deaf, mute and blind performers, and if you can imagine translated from Hebrew to English. The actors relied solely on the physical sensation to touch to convey everything and how they contribute to society. They intrinsically rely on felt sense, in both the physical sense and the emotional sense.

Needless to say, translation was had; I left the theater completely moved to tears both joyful and sad.

Society at large, has not tapped into the innate abilities our bodies and minds do without “our” participation.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Patrick James_Response to S. Perl: Felt Sense #729

Beautifully said, as always.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: From Nothing to Something. Marguerite #727

Chrislande, Marguerite, Johanna:

While each of you has a unique experience(s) regarding enabling felt sense, there’s also a pervasive concept that felt sense reveals in all of us; felt sense is intrinsically connected to human nature. That being said, we need to recognize what it is and cultivated it.

Sondra’s techniques propose entrances into the mysterious realm of felt sense. Like the shaman requires medicinal herbs, the religious require prayer; others enlist meditative thought, (Whirling Dervish use whirling) we writers need a similar conduit, be it music, silence or method acting, (emphasizes the practice of connecting to a character by drawing sense memory/ emotional recall). Like the over used/misquoted line from Field of Dreams, (paraphrasing) “if we build it they will come”, if we recognize felt sense, it will allow us to draw on prospects of awareness.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: From Nothing to Something. Marguerite #724

Marguerite,

I am intrigued by the fact that you have gone through the process of “felt sense” through acting and have been able to tap into it for your writing through music. I find that all other forms of expression distract me from the blank, and my worst writing usually occurs through the sound of music. I can’t help but think, through my own experience compared to yours, about how personal our bodies makes these experiences of creating—and how those embodied felt sense experiences effect the unique voices we present in our writing. Your response was beautiful and poetic.

Thanks,

Chrislande

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Joanna Siwiec Response: S. Perl: Felt Sense #720

Joanna,
I was really caught by this idea of different parts of the body getting distracted. It is a new and daunting idea for me, because when I’m writing different parts of my body seem to do things all on their own without me knowing. For instance, just now my feet ended up on the chair next to me while I was writing a response to Megan’s post and I only just realized that they are there and that that is why my back is getting stiff. This idea that parts of my body could be getting themselves into distracting situations and that that, in turn, will have an effect on my writing, is a little disturbing. It is also exciting, because maybe there are things I can do–a hot pad on the shoulders? a fuzzy sweater?–to un-distract my body, or at least give it a more benign distraction to play with.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 5 months ago by Sondra Perl.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 5 months ago by Sondra Perl.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Megan H response to "Felt Sense" #716

Megan (and Joanna),
The point that Joanna brings up about your multiple drafts, Megan, also makes me think of the point that Sondra brings up several times about feeling when something isn’t quite right yet. In our writing group, you seem to be the least willing of the three of us to compromise, to settle for almost good enough. I’m not sure which side of the Cartesian split it happens on, but you seem to have an incredibly strong sense of when you’ve done what you wanted and when you haven’t gotten there yet. In a way, it makes me think of that goofy old cliche about the people who protest the most against something being the people who are most deeply affected by it (and thank you, Shakespeare, for linking that idea irrevocably to incest and murder!).

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Lindsey – Felt Sense Response #702

Dear Lindsay, in your post you write: “I would think that writing when we do not have felt sense, or at least felt sense in a positive way, makes it difficult to continue the writing process. But as writers, we must trust that the feeling will come back and must plod through in order to get to the positive felt sense.” And I think your point really speaks to a sense of powerlessness we might feel at times as writers. We are powerless over when we will receive the visitation of felt sense–it either comes to us or it doesn’t. While this point might seem disempowering, I think it’s also kind of a relief because it places us in the position of being a conduit for something other then ourselves. We don’t have to invent anything; we don’t have to engage with “right and wrong ways of writing.” Instead we have to simply participate in the act of writing, trusting that our felt sense will lead us. It reminds me so much of the discourse surrounding ideas of faith.

You also highlight the tensions between form and intuition, which I think is so interesting. Intuition is a kind of embodied knowledge, a way of seeing the world that is often trivialized. It isn’t really taken seriously in the same way empiricism is. Personally, I think this has a lot to do with misogyny–intuition has often been aligned with femininity (i.e. a woman’s intuition). In our patriarchal culture, the idea that there is a kind of knowledge/knowing beyond articulation, beyond empiricism is threatening. It often gets demeaned as irrational, emotional, and hysterical. Maybe the practice of engaging with felt sense will help recover this capacity for knowledge and vision. I kind of hope so.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Patrick James_Response to S. Perl: Felt Sense #701

Patrick:

Such a precise examiniation of Felt Sense, thank you. You write: If, theologically, we are to take this idea seriously, then we must contend with the fact that the desire to create (to write) is inherent to being human, germane to those created by God; and as such, it is, at the very least, a reflection of the divine capacities of all humans.
Which made me think of the human manifestations of the spirit.

By using your examples, I would think that the “feeling” is the spirit and the manifestions is the writing.
Does that make sense?

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Patrick James_Response to S. Perl: Felt Sense #695

Dear Patrick,
Putting your thoughts about the democratic/theological implications of felt sense and the fact that we all have a body with the emphasis on newness and originality on pages 57-9 gave me a new insight into the possibilities of felt sense: it seems to favor difference–in bodies and minds–because it is through the felt sense of the individual (different) body that new thoughts occur.

[Sondra Perl]

in reply to: Trauma Marguerite #692

You write about “process being available to the reader.” I think, as a writer presenting your process is essential in memoir writing. If the reader can surmise what the author is implying, before he has truly written it, the reader will automatically align themselves with the author’s triumph (whatever that triumph shall be.)

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