Wishing a happy holiday for the hands! That doesn't mean that they get to rest, but that they get noticed. I had a conversation at lunch with an old friend, a chance to get caught up on each other's lives. It had been a couple years or more. Bill is a psychologist, a student of the mind, and I am a maker, a student of the hand, and these can be two different worlds. Bill escapes his work world of clients, counseling and the exploration of dream states by gardening, playing basketball and by playing guitar in a band. His vocation and avocations are a perfect image of the common divide, the hand and the brain, the intelligence vs. entry to spaces of the heart.

This was on Wednesday, the day in which I was having some difficulties explaining myself and I had some difficulties explaining to Bill, The Wisdom of the Hands. In the first place, anyone who takes the mind, or his mind or her mind seriously may have a great deal invested in reading or study of his or her own which must be offered up in rebuttal and challenge. The perceptions of the dominance and power of the mind are deeply entrenched. But open the door just a crack and the hands can begin to explain things on their own. Notice how when the hands are freed to gesture how much more freely the words can flow. Hold an object in your hands and observe what happens to the flow of thought. It can be a guitar that does it, or the dribbling of a ball. Hands in the soil while in the garden or the hot water while washing dishes. You can say that the revolution of consciousness is "at hand."