I live in unsustainable indulgence paid for by the blood of others. How can re-wilding help me transform my role as an oppressor?
Dance is an important language in my life which I intend to use for my mind-body practice of re-wilding this week. I came up with three themes to explore through dance in response to this question:
1) The first theme is to imagine what it would be like to have biofeedback from the entire earth (including its humans) in response to my impact and consumption. Since I don't actually have a biofeedback machine plugged into the earth, perhaps movement is an alternative way to experience the dance between myself and the earth. Ribeiro and Fonseca (2011) discuss improvisational dance between two people:
"The collective body intelligence can be understood as an ability to plan and to solve collective body 'problems' and to make decisions collectively during dance improvisation" (p.76).
Another apt quote is by social choreographer Michael Klien (2007):
"There is simply no other or better word or concept than 'choreography' to describe an active inquiry into the non-concrete reality that deals with complex relations and connections within the natural world. ... These are things we are only able to apprehend aesthetically, kinesthetically, intuitively" (p. 221).
In my practice today, I intend to explore kinesthetic awareness of the complex human and earth systems of which I am a part.
2) Since I now recognize "nature" to be a nominal marker for the support system through which one imposes on one's environment to survive
or indulge in pleasures of comfort, I have become more poignantly aware of the harm I cause to others and the benefit I gain from this harm. I wonder if spiritual practices of confession or asking for forgiveness offer an opportunity to begin to reroute that blockage in the body. For my second theme, I will make myself available to movement sourced in expressions of supplication.
3) Moving beyond shame and guilt, I hope to begin to explore the way embodied awareness of my role on the biosphere serves as a catalyst for action. Here are two examples of courageous humans whose embodied interdependence with their environment has triggered their fight/flight response in order to survive attacks by the oil industry.
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In my practice, I spent about one hour in candlelight, allowing myself to explore these themes and whatever else emerged in the process. I utilized intuitive, spontaneous movements, similar to authentic movement for my re-wilding practice.
My dance
...rocking, rolling, shaking, vibrating... humming....
...each moment is hooked with innumerable tendrils to some other strand of planetary history, down to the particles in the air I'm breathing, the fabric touching my skin, the very fact that I am living in this part of the world at this time...
...fingers drifting, boundaries blurring...
(distraction, avoidance, return, distraction, avoidance, return...)
...sudden lightness and blossoming presence: this is my true identity, the infinite unknowns that spread out like an ocean of fishes or cells of constant exchange...
...
...coming into supplication, my heart feels hard like a rock. (defensively:) This is how I live. Yes, I know it's awful, but... (so what?)
Beating my heart, my chest, my legs to break down the armor...
...just feeling my own callousness brings tears to my eyes...
... allowing the suffering to seep in, knowing there are those who are hungry while I eat, those who are cold while I am warm, those who are scared while I am safe...
...the beating becomes rhythmic and smooth, like a meaty readiness of muscles and limbs, a body in motion, an ally in the fight...
...
and what a perfect transition into action... (thought: i like this progression, i should try this again sometime)
...recalling a mudra from a Kali Natha yoga video I watched today for Bhuvaneshwari, I make this mudra over my head and over my heart...
...feeling the space left open for imaginative action, for inspiration, innovation...
I feel the desire to aim high in the drainage, to find strategic leverage to accelerate change... legs wiggling, I feel my impatience, which seems understandable...
...grateful to have this time to engage my bodymind as part of my doctoral program to link all that I am learning with all that I seek to create.
(blow out candle)
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References:
Klein, M. & Valk, S. (2007) What do you choreograph at the end of the world? Zodiac, 212-231.
Ribeiro, M. M. & Fonseca, A. (2011). The empathy and the structure sharing modes of movement sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance. Research in Dance Education, 12, 2, 71-85.
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