Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [69]
Ecosomatics: A Working (and Playing) Definition
e • co • so • ma • tics
The art of sensing the “inner body” as a way to connect to the greater social and planetary (Gaiac) bodies;
The view of somatics as inseparable from ecological health and sustainability;
The practice of using somatic principles to facilitate and enhance sustainable work in the landscape, e.g. gardens, farms, village building.
Ecosomatics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that connects movement education, improvisation, healing arts, psychology, ritual, performing arts, and good old-fashioned play with ecological consciousness. The practice of ecosomatics heals the separation between mind, body, and earth by encouraging direct sensory perception of one’s body both in the natural environment and as the natural environment.
In order to understand ecosomatics, we must first grasp the distinction between soma and body: when you look at me, you can see that I have a body. What you cannot see is my proprioceptive sense (or feltsense) of my own body—my soma. In 1976, Thomas Hanna coined the term somatics to distinguish this subtle “inner body” from the outer, gross body. This term is based on the holistic Greek concept of soma, which refers to the entire mind-body-spirit system.
Thus, somatics as a term encompasses the art and practice of sensing the soma, or “the body as experienced from within.” The somatic sense is a veritable sixth sense, as it cannot be adequately explained by any of the other five categories: taste, touch, hearing, sight, or smell. In an age where we look to authorities in the human health field other than ourselves, who often dole out conflicting diagnoses and ineffective treatments, somatics is an empowering concept that affirms our innate knowledge of our own bodies and encourages us to participate deeply in our healing.
By tuning in to direct sensory experience, we can learn to release habitual tension and pain, while optimizing for ease, efficiency, and enjoyment. Any movement—sacred or mundane—can be re-patterned in this way, from dancing and singing to simply getting in and out of a chair.
We can also apply these sensing and re-patterning skills to activities that aim to restore a sustainable relationship to earth, such as planting trees, harvesting food, and creating a community ritual. Noticing the analogies between patterns in nature and those we sense in our bodies helps us create effective ecological design—as well as better understand our inner workings. When we do this, we venture into the realm of ecosomatics.
Re-indigenization: Creating a Sense of Place
“Okanagans teach that the body is earth itself. Our flesh, blood, and bones are earth-body; in all cycles in which earth moves, so does our body. As Okanagans we say the body is sacred. It is the core of our being, which permits the rest of the self to be. Our word for body literally means “the landdreaming capacity.”
–Jeanette Armstrong, Okanagan Teacher, Activist,
Traditional Council
The word ecosomatics evolved to describe a gateway to the greater “earth-body” via our individual bodies. It expresses the fluid nature of the Self within a world of boundaries at once distinct and permeable. And though the term comes from a scientific language that the modern human—steeped for generations in a rational worldview—can comprehend, the concept is as old as humanity itself, and well understood by traditional peoples.
Because we are microcosms of earthly patterns, practicing respect for our bodies demonstrates respect for the earth, two characteristics of sustainable, indigenous cultures. Members of the diaspora may never be indigenous in the same way as are native peoples who have resided in a particular place or region for hundreds of generations; however, we can (indeed, we must) learn to behave with the same respect for place exemplified