"How Can Defining Touch Lead to a Deeper Connection with Others and the World?"

You might recall that I wrote a blog about 4 weeks ago on the occasion of my mother’s death, and the experience of walking through her house after she passed away  I wrote about the dirty coffee cup by the sink and the dressing gown hanging on the line and how these everyday objects, silent and deserted, still retained a sense of my mum’s life force and day to day activities.

The occasion of my mum’s death and the process of clearing her house has inspired me to write a piece about touch and the infinite ways in which we touch and are touched by others and the world around us. As a hands on therapist and artist I find myself reflecting on the subject quite regularly and whilst I recognise that the word has many different definitions and means different things to different people, the explanation that feels most true for me is this one.

touch

verb [with object] come or bring into mutual contact

What I like about this definition is that it

1. Touch is inclusive of and does not differentiate between animate and inanimate objects
   

Avigdor Arikha, Sam’s Spoon, 1990, oil on canvas, 38 x 46cm

The Romanian artist Avigdor Arikha (1929-2010) painted this image in memory of his closest friend, Samuel Beckett, one year after his death.  Arikha’s painting ( like my mum’s dressing gown) demonstrates that we can find connection and intimacy with loved ones in the most surprising places. The domesticated objects that my mum handled everyday were imbued with her life force; they contained a sense of her movements, her gestures, her personality, the way she inhabited her home and just the sight of them put me in contact with her. In her absence these objects spoke with even greater force and became the conduits for grief and remembrance.

1. Touch is not limited to physical touch but inclusive of all our senses including sight, hearing, smell and taste

“Quality, light, colour, depth, which are there before us, are there only because they

awaken an echo in our body and because the body welcomes them.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Cezanne’s Doubt,1946

Not long after I returned from Australia I arranged to meet a friend for a walk. It was bluebell season so I suggested some nearby woods as our destination. I had my head down and was deep in conversation when I entered the woods, oblivious to my surroundings.  Looking back I think it was the scent of the bluebells that ‘touched’ me first and shifted my gaze from thinking mode to looking mode. And then it was the sight of of that carpet of flowers that overtook my senses;  violet blue and iridescent green for as far as the eye could see. It was as if I’d stepped into a warm, softly scented bath, but instead of water it was light and colour and perfume. And like a bath I felt my skin soften, my nervous system quieten and my mind put at ease.

1. Touch is a verb and based on action/intention. It requires practice, effort, a sense of responsibility and/or awareness to touch or be touched.
   

I am a hands on therapist and physically touching people every week, hoping that my skills, knowledge and intuition will provide support, pain relief and a more positive mindset for my clients.  Even after 15 years working with people of all ages with many different conditions I am still amazed at the changes and responses I see with Bowen Therapy and how I can feel someone else’s skeleton, nervous system or intestines adjusting and moving beneath my fingers. This ability and insight hasn’t come overnight and creating a space where clients feel safe, supported and comfortable ‘in my hands’ has taken time and is ongoing…. continual study, drawing on the support of family, friends and like minded therapists, and LOTS of practise.

There are many more examples and definitions I could cite that support the idea that

touch is mutual, something that involves a connection between something or someone else and can be tactile (related to tangible physical touch) or haptic (related to vibrations and physical sensations that simulate a feeling of being touched). Either way, when we are

touching,

touched (at the sight or sound of something),

touching on,

being in touch with,

having a touch of,

losing touch with,

getting in touch….its worth remembering that we are taking action in a way that reinforces the nature and quality of our relationships with ourselves others and the world around us.

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