Towards an Ecosomatics of Substance
The following text is a very rough-draft for a section of Chapter 7, Weathering. Where I try and get to grips with something ‘felt’, that’s hard to verbalise. I took a few people into the Peak District to explore some embodiment work, and this is an excerpt from the time I had alone. I welcome any comments.
I keep coming back here to be with these rocks. Arriving, I feel my body twitch and tilt between excitement and impatience; the feeling you get when you’re close to home, turning into your road, seeing the front door. It is an agitation that flickers in my chest, as well as my legs. When I’m here I feel switched on and present, free from the distractions that hold my life in a workable routine, but are distractions in the art of subtle listening, none the less.
I take an initial walk around and start to notice who or what I’m drawn to. Which rocks are speaking to me today? This is not about listening with my ears but with my body. Sometimes I am drawn to the simulacra that I see in rock. Perhaps they have a face that meets my own. But most often it is just a feeling. An intuition. I am drawn by shapes, but it’s not only that. My body hums and sighs when I meet a rock I want to spend time with. This is the resonance of parts. Whilst some rocks here remind me of faces, to me they are more reminiscent of joints, knuckles, pelvises, vertebrae. They are massive, but also sculptural and full of movement potential. Balls and sockets. Absences waiting for presence. And so, I too drop into my own bones here. Into the inner ground of my supporting structure; my living architecture. Into the protection and solidity that arms, legs and spine offer.