The practice of radical and reverent embodiment
How to participate in Embodiment classes with Christine Cole
SomaticBODY.com
"Radical embodiment" means that we will not just talk about the body; we will allow ourselves to go into the unknown -- into movement, into an array, a spray of expressions, feelings, breathing that span the range from energetic to bored, movement from slow to super fast, no thinking to a precisely detailed thinking.
"Radical" means that we will not hold back from the things we do not know. Embodiment allows us to stay present in the not-knowing, we have skills to exist and even create from this space of discovery of the never-before-thought area. Let’s not rush through there to try and peg it early or try to make it fit an old concept! We also do not need to not jump over cliffs of our own understanding and ability to stay present - we can move at the pace that arises. In these classes, we will provide support for you to wander in the areas of embodiment, moving your body/mind and always returning to the body, it’s experience, it’s sensations, motion, and feelings.
I will guide you into body explorations, giving your mind and your senses enough information to traverse new pathways - into anatomy, into developmental patterns, into states that we get to when we explore (let’s say different organs). You will be doing this in a group so the cohort around you is the hum around your own embodiment, the simultaneous research, the vibrations and the expressions/ questions of learning.
If you in these classes allow yourself to really explore the body, it will provide courage for others to let go of preconceived expectations of "beautiful" somatic embodiment and go to the real meat of it -- which can range from serene equanimity to wild dream-like states to having to get up and run around, write or talk, chaos, insights flowing or emptiness. What about beauty? Well this truth- being is beauty.
During the sessions, please allow yourself to be in different positions: sitting, laying, dancing, resting, upside down. Allow yourself to be moving, to be still, to be writing, to be just here now. Meditate.
"Reverence" means that I do not hold the sessions as if they were games to play. I hold them in the deep spirit of believing that knowledge rises up through our cells through our body and expresses itself through all cells, all movements, all breath, all meditations and all thoughts.
"Reverence" means that I accept you where you are at. I accept you and your confusion. I accept you and your knowing and your unknowing. I accept you in the highest jubilation and the lowest fear or shame. I accept you in tiny movements, in large movements and angry movements and fluttered movements and non-directional movements and and and…. gorgeous amazing dance movements!
This might sound radical to you for somatic explorations not to just be about resting calm beautiful elegance but rather to be about the stuff of life - the crags, the cliffs, the clouds, the hot, hot sun, the sun, showers, shade, the field of green.
As we are searching, as we are not knowing, as we are in the process, we may come across as courageous, bold, meticulous, lost, organized, exhilarated, peaceful, rambunctious but we may also come across as angry, hateful, jealous, pitiful, boring, ugly, or ridiculous -- which, by the way, brings us back to fun, hilarious, fantastic, absurd, radical.
I offer you this breadth - this wide spread of experience in my explorations. In these somatic embodiments I offer you my almost 40 years of experience with Body-Mind Centering and Somatic BODY, in dance and in voice. I offer you some images of specific anatomical information, so that you may enter into a new exploration with clarity and build new knowledge. The cells lead this exploration-The body really does have its own intelligence! We do not need to lead always with our mind. Actually we need to get out of its way, as well as give our mind a set of ways to investigate without overriding the knowledge of the body.
I am so looking forward to getting to know many more of you and starting a regular group of somatic explorations. Please know that all of these investigations rely on you maintaining the dignity of your own selves and your own beings. I can say for sure that whatever comes up for you in these explorations is important and real. This is the only way to enter into your true body being-ness: by accepting where you are at, and what you need to pay attention first: what your cells are saying? What you are feeling? Where are you wanting to go? What is your mind thinking? And can you give those sometimes transitory thoughts, feelings, and movements some levity? Speak them! Write them! Draw them! Dance them! And be willing to let them go! They might have been something that needed to be expressed, but not dwelled upon. Perhaps they were the door you needed to step through to allow for a new aliveness of your cells. Perhaps though they are a stream of challenge, trauma or stuck pattern that is now available for you to work on.
When something comes up that is for you to know, find support. This unwinding is the natural process of embodiment. I will keep you close to the body. I will keep you close to real anatomy, real processes, real human development, real perceptual processes.
I believe your personal Experience is vital to the embodiment process. And, while I give you support for this, it is yours to hold.
It is your life and your body. I will keep opening up new anatomical, embryological or developmental knowledge that may support you. I will offer new ways to feel- move- relate so that you may have new ways to be in your body in your community and relationship in nature. Perhaps these explorations can support you in slowly and perfectly regain more and more of the presence of your cells, the presence of your being, and allow people to experience you fully. Step fully with all your cells into your life.