body to mind, and back again…

got an email asking about my take on eco-somatics. this is one response. there are many more…

body to mind, and back again; or, genealogical musings on eco-somatics

 

if i were to attempt

the genealogy of eco-somatics

it would most likely begin

with my brain injury

which sent me into a tail spin

 

many things that i’d known before

were entirely different

and many things i’d had hunches about

were suddenly vivid and clear

 

but foremost in my awareness

were the overpowering sensations

a nervous system

taking in so much information

that it was often

completely unbearable

 

it was in this condition

that i became acquainted with

somatics practices

under various names

yoga, feldenkrais, body mind centering

 

all of them brought me quiet

they helped to acknowledge

the multiplicity of traumas

that still coursed through me

and in that deep ease and tranquility

i found my body

for the first time

 

these practices returned me to it

after many years away

distracted in the realms of rationality

intellectualism and certainty

reinforcing other disconnections

 

and this is where the teachings

about knowing and honoring my body

became interwoven with earlier

experiences in the natural world

 

if i was suddenly feeling whole and

at home in my body

isn’t that what susan griffin

and other ecofeminists

have been saying for many years

what eve ensler wrote recently

in the body of the world

 

i had been an environmentalist

and continue to grapple with

stories of place in my life

ironically, i was so fixated on nature

that i was unaware of my self

in my frenzy to connect with place

i forgot that i needed to be connected

as well

with my self

with my ancestry

with my history

at the same time

 

eco-somatics in my experience

takes a holistic, context-driven

and decolonizing approach

when healing the body

and reconnecting with the natural world

 

if i am approaching somatics

and being embodied

then i must account for how gender

for example

has shaped my experience

with my self, with others, and with nature

 

as i experience the natural world

connecting and reconnecting

with the places i live

i must also learn and re-learn

the multiple stories that are present

in these places i have lived

 

this means including the traumas

to people and nature that occured

sometimes long before i happened along

whether plowing under grassland prairie

or massacres of the Comanche

and everything in between

 

just as my brain injury

brought forth an opportunity

to heal the disconnections

expressed in my gender identity

and attend to the festering wounds

of old traumas still stuck in my body

 

eco-somatics weaves practices together

assisting in the healing

of wounds of culture, place, person

i have written elsewhere of

the three primary themes in my experience

memory, gender, place

eco-somatics is woven from these rich threads