Body-Based + Mindful Practices – for Vital Relating with Self-Other-Nature
“when a wound occurs, trees initiate a protective response that often takes place in two distinct stages – an initial, rapid chemical phase, followed by a slower, long-term physical adaptation.”
– Beronda Montgomery
a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a steady, smooth sloth grows fur-algae.
it feels so important to me – as one way to talk about the ongoing-ness of life. so often therapeutic stuff is aimed at “resolving”, “getting to the root”, “rewiring”, etc. subtly, i feel this sort of “you are healed or not-yet-healed” sort of dichotomy.
this is my little prayer that therapist/somatic worlds embrace a wider array of ways to be – embrace an on-going unfolding of life, rather than a healed/not-healed sort of thinking.
“Before foraging, aardvarks leave their den in a ritualistic way. They first stop at the den opening to look for enemies, then run out, jump repeatedly, look around, and jump around more, before finally trotting off to forage.”
quote: https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Orycteropus_afer/?fbclid=IwAR3RCnkI_j0Hsoky5fmQO_grtbqScUp46992S-XtMpc2EX6R3yPUyPcEOtc
photo: https://www.wildlifeexplained.com/aardvark/
aspirational ‘lesson’ –
i was reading about flying squirrels and then thought how funny-awesome it would be if, when we got older and got flappy areas – we could use them for gliding. a bunch of superhero-flying elders.
lessons from lettuce.
“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
How horses taught me about big and small trauma responses in people – in somatic sessions and in everyday “kinda hard” conversation topics.
As a kid, I spent every waking moment I was allowed with horses, for about 10 years of my life. Horse language felt more natural to me than human language.
Often times horses would ‘spook’, as they say – or suddenly get frightened by something. When you’re a teeny kid working with a creature about the size of a small car, you have to be continuously paying attention to subtle body cues and your general environment. If your not, you might get squished by your big ol horse friend on the ground, or thrown off their back while riding.
Horses taught me, it doesn’t much matter about the why – if we don’t both calm down together, things are gonna stay in a freaked out state. So, no matter what, our first step is to try to get a lil more calm-vitality before any further conversation. I find it’s just exactly the same with people.
Forever and ever, thank you horses.
one of the top lessons of my life; continues to inspire:
from considering how-which clothes make me feel to fit my day’s schedule, to how to arrange my bedroom furniture –
you bedazzle my senses and sensibility, caddisflies. what fashion and function wrapped up all like…
source, first image.
https://www.hitchcockcenter.org/earth-matters/caddisflies-tiny-mobile-home-builders/
sexual classifications be damned. typical routes of reproduction be damned. we-all-creatures are amazing at “finding a way”.
condor-baby-jesus: “This sort of asexual reproduction, known as parthenogenesis…”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59097703
for more inspiration and education from creatures, about sex changing, sexual classifications, and such:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/projects/radiolab-presents-gonads
Relational Awareness 