Rooted in the Universe

Last year, during Melbourne’s extended lockdown I did a lot more sitting than moving. Having danced weekly for twenty years (bar injuries and holidays), it was a shock to stop. I did try the various online movement classes but the format didn’t work for me. Instead, I took extended walks in nature and also Zoomed into various courses on offer, across the globe. Of particular note were, “Embodied Listening'' with Erin Geesaman Rabke and “Body=Brain, the neuroscience of embodied learning” with Amanda Blake. Both my mind and body benefited enormously from tapping into the wisdom of these teachers. 

Embodied listening involves making space and time, with a partner, for all sensations, emotions and thoughts to arise. To notice and give voice to said sensations, emotions and thoughts was a curious experience, especially when the focus was to allow them. The tendency was for unwelcome guests to show up such as, Mr Inner Critic or Ms Awkward. However, the idea was to allow them and give them air space. My partner/witness didn’t give any feedback or commentary, but instead offered their non-judgemental presence and timekeeping, as did I when I was in the observer role. It was disconcerting at first, shining a light on my inner world (physiological, mental, emotional) knowing this other person was there, (on Zoom), from another part of the world, bearing witness to me listening to myself. Especially as the partner was different each week. However, they were a necessary part of the process (I tried embodied listening on my own and it didn’t work as well). The emerging result, as the course came to an end, was a more grounded sense of self with a lot more interoceptive awareness. And the discovery of gravity (more below).

“Interoception is contemporarily defined as the sense of the internal state of the body. This can be both conscious and non-conscious.”
— Wikipedia

Amanda Blake’s course, Body=Brain wasn’t as interactive, although there were somatic exercises at the beginning of each session and certainly there was talk of interoception, (as well as lots more). The training was packed full of information and evidence based findings about the neuroscience of embodied learning. It was uplifting to hear about the validity and importance of our soma (body), when it comes to living our best life. Blake did a fine job of connecting the dots between embodied practice and our social and emotional intelligence, proving how we can create more choice for ourselves by including the body in our learning and in our values. I could easily wax lyrical about all the content but for now, I’ll stick to interoception.

Other than various aches and pains and orgasms, I’m not sure that any of us are well versed at noticing our interoceptive sensations. As Blake writes in her book:

“We tend to dismiss our sensations, urges, hunches, and gut feeling as unimportant or unreliable. We treat our bodies as vehicles to get to the next meeting, objects to polish for the next party, or machines that we hire experts to fix. Rarely do we consider that our bodies might have wisdom worth listening for.” 

— Body=Brain, Amanda Blake, p.52

For the first time last year, I discovered the very real and weighty sensation of gravity. Of embodied presence. The sensation of gently dropping into and fully arriving in my physical form felt like wet sand settling into myself. This description may sound unappealing but if you imagine the heaviness of wet sand with more of a warm and dry feel, then hopefully, you’ll get the idea of this rather glorious, weighty sensation. As well, there was a dual sense of a gradual dropping in from above and a pulling from below. It was like being coloured or poured in and the sensation has since become an important centring and grounding technique I use often, to call myself into the present moment. Exquisite!

This is possibly sounding a little wacky, I know, but I’m persevering because we spend so much time in our heads—’top-downing’— and on our screens and completely unaware of our five senses let alone our interoceptive sensations. It’s difficult to become aware of what you’re feeling from the inside, not just because we don’t value this but also because our interoceptive nerve cells are smaller and slower than the cells involved in sight, sound, smell, taste and touch (exteroception). The brain filters out a lot of our interoceptive sensations. However, we can become more conscious of them if we take the time to notice them. A good place to start, if you want to tune into an interoceptive sensation, is with your heart. If you make yourself still enough you will feel the beating of your heart. And then, if you’d like to add an extra layer of sensation, just call to mind and heart a being (human or animal) that you’ve truly loved and cherished. Hopefully, you’ll get a pleasurable sense of the oxytocin (love hormone) that emanates from your heart as well as the feeling of your heart beating..

But back to glorious gravity! To know and to live the sensation of being physiologically connected to the earth would be a great leap for humankind. Perhaps some would argue a great leap backwards but I say it would be downwards, almost beneath the surface. This is another way of describing the sensation by the way—an energetic melding with the mother ship. And no, I didn’t partake in any drug taking whilst on lockdown but it was wonderful to explore the mysterious inner terrain of the human body in relation to the earth; energetic roots come to mind. 

“Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”  

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

There’s a lot of talk about bottom up education, training and management these days. How wonderful would it be if we also included ‘fully embodied/sensation conscious’ as a valued way of being. We would surely be in a better position regarding the earth’s health and therefore all of our respective futures. As a bonus, related skills would include presence, enhanced listening, responsive thinking and acting. And let’s not forget inclusivity; when you have a solid sense of your own ground and centre you’re much more likely to welcome others rather than out them. 

Perhaps the new mindfulness will one day be known as ‘sense-full-ness’. Here’s to dreaming on...with gravity intact.

Embodied Listening: https://embodimentmatters.com/about-erin-2/

Body=Brain: https://embright.org/

Squirrel on Tree: Photo by Külli Kittus on Unsplash