A couple decades ago, my Taiwanese teacher Jian Xiang Ting and her friend had translated and published Rudolf Steiner’s materials on the twelve senses. After that she had channeled a lot of information relating to the twelve senses and had developed her own courses. In taking her course on the senses now, she mentioned that the reason she did not require her students to buy Steiner’s book because her own materials had much superseded Steiner’s materials.
One of her information with regards to sense of touch is that it is expressed in five different forms. I had trouble understanding the fifth form, because she had trouble describing it, but after listening to it three times in three separate occasions, I think I get it now.
She said the contact pathway is not one to one, but one to many, or a deeper level of one to many. I tried to think of a scenario of such, and then I vaguely recalled a few.
The other day I was writing an article while I was at work. At the end of the day, when both my boss and me were closing down the clinic, she deliberately reached over to my computer to clear my browser history. She didn’t like all those history slowing down her system, and said, “Next time you bring your own laptop.”
One sentence, multiple messages.
. . .
Another scenario that I heard from a famous tv host was when he visited his uncle’s house. He’s a smoker so his uncle had to give him an ashtray. But the way the uncle gave him the ashtray, it’s like the uncle feared that he would drop the ashes all over the place and dirtied the living room. Later, upon leaving, his uncle hurriedly dusted the couch, cleaned the coffee table, pretty every square inch of the surface that he might possibly had touched. This was happening while he was exiting, not after he had exited. Even though not much was said, many things were heard. Naturally, he never visited his uncle again.
This is a deeper form of touch.
. . .
As mentioned in a prior post, touch is not merely tactile, but non-physical too. I think this form of one to many contact points is most easily experienced when we cross cultures, travel to another country, move to a new province, start a new job with a new corporate culture. We absorb information in our new environment quickly, sometimes it’s multi-layered.
In more extreme cases, we struggle to operate in our new environment. The bridge, the touch pathways between us and our new landscape are not well built, cannot be connected, or getting only halfway through and not all the way to desired outcomes, etc. The bridge can be linguistic, ideological, cultural, etc.
In a way, stability is derived from established pathways and networks. When stability is achieved through dysfunctional pathways and networks, it may be hard for people to build new ones. In my second article on the twelve senses, I mentioned boundaries. Imbalances in our senses, sensory organs, sensory perception, emotions (in these pathways), (default) sensory responses cause us to define our boundaries and preferences. Sometimes when we are so used to the presence of such limitations that when they’re removed, we cannot operate.
One of the characteristics of a balanced sensory system is that we are open. Open to connect, to establish contact with others, to new possibilities, etc. When our sensory organs, perception, emotions are open and receptive to new energies, we can attract a new environment, relationship, way of life, etc.
So learning and healing my twelve senses is part of my journey to personal growth and wellbeing.
