Embodiment and writing semester magazine Lise Weil and Ellie Epp's advisor groups - Spring 2004, Goddard College Individualized MA program   image from [sleep.less] by Corin Gintner Editors' introductions Jeanne Chambers Skipping///////Swimming JA Visualization Carolyn Hauck Control and abandon///////Bicycle///////Orange Layla Holguin-Messner Initiation///////Meeting the Devil Melissa Lockmann The Polar Bear Wakes Kate Mendenhall Interview with Simon Bishop///////Interview with Lilian and Gerardo Barrera Rhonda Patzia Walk-ing /////// Dancing /////// Picturing Bodies Emily Van Strien Molecules of Home Notes on the embodiment and writing workshop ­ Sunday 20th June 2004   LW & EE, Editors' introductions It's late but here it is: a collection of embodiment-related writing by students in Goddard's IMA program, spring semester, 2004. There are two of us editors this time. The writing I picked ­ by Carol D'Agostino, Carolyn Hauck, Jeanne Chambers, and Kate Mendenhall ­ is very diverse, but it shares a quality of commitment to the interests, possibilities and responsibilities of conscious embodiment. The title image for this issue is by Corin Gintner, another of my students. All of it is lovely work, and I am proud to be able to sponsor it in cyberspace. One of the advantages of publishing this magazine after the residency rather than before it is that we are able to include notes from a residency workshop at which students who had been looking for ways to write from or in relation to the body talked about their discoveries and read examples of their work. EE The three students I chose for this issue -Layla Holguin-Messer, Melissa Lockman, and Rhonda Patzia-are all writers for whom the body is an issue, whether by necessity (Rhonda has MS) or choice (Melissa is a martial artist). For all three of them, disciplined attention to the body and a commitment to giving the body voice has led to writing that is fresh, funny, often surprising, sometimes perhaps disturbing-but always alive. LW Jeanne Chambers, skipping skipping - that's what my fingers put in this subject box. and i immediately remembered one summer when my family was on vacation at the beach in florida. everybody else settled in to relax in the sun or shuffleboard nearby, and i got permission to play by myself on the beach as long as i'd stay within eyesight of mother. relieved and eager to play by myself, i figured out what i thought was acceptably within visual range of mother, should she actually ever wake up and look for me, then i started skipping. somehow skipping - that childhood gait of sheer unadulterated joy - had eluded me the entire seven years of my existence, and my goal for this vacation was to learn to skip. as i concentrated on seeing in my mind how other kids skip (i'd watched carefully at recess) analyzing how their feet and legs worked into something recognized throughout the world and some parts of alabama as a skip, i looked down at my own feet and bless goodness, i was skipping. i felt free and full and connected and enough. i was skipping. that night over supper, mother asked, what on earth were you doing down on the beach this afternoon, jeanne? and i said, skipping. i was skipping, mama. and just saying the words made me feel full and complete and turned me into one great big smile all over again. i knew everybody there was admiring the glow that surely showed all 'round me and i hoped it wasn't too much. when we went on vacation, we traveled in herds - teaming up with several other families with children to spend a week at the gulf terrace motel at the beach in st petersburg. glowing too much at the table, i'd learned early on, could be quite hazardous to your health. then i heard the suppressed chuckles released from bondage and noticed the occasional piece of food that had the misfortune of being on the path to digestion when laughter interrupted. what? i asked. what is it? why is everybody laughing, mama? now i expected to hear her stock answer: they're just jealous, peanut. but when she could catch her breath, she said what you were doing - that little, whatever you were doing - that is not like any skipping i've seen before in my life. everybody else nodded in agreement, their fists forming protective plugs in front of their mouths that were now settling back into the task of chewing. we'll work on skipping tomorrow, jeanne, she said. i'll help you. 'course she forgot to help me the next day, and as soon as the women became engrossed in their card games and the men got all involved in their shuffleboard game and the other kids clumped up to play their games, i slipped out of what could, I suppose, technically be considered visual range, and i skipped the afternoon away in my very own skip. and you know what the ps is to that story? those with any memory left at all are still talking about - and always with a kind of chuckle - how i skip like nobody they ever saw skip before. i'm kinda' known round these parts for my skip. * * * * Jeanne Chambers, Swimming I grew up swimming in lakes. We didn't have swimming pools around here until I was in what's now called middle school, when Mr. Strother built Medford Manor ­ a real cement water-filled hole in the ground - and charged families $25 for a summer-long membership. My first lake was only a pond, really, a littler larger than big mud puddle, specially built to provide a place for the cows to go to cool down. They'd walk into the cowpond, the cows would, and stop when the water level reached the top of their legs. The braver bovine souls ventured on out until the water reached the mid-belly line. Their tails, those ropelike appendages that unraveled down at the end, became water toys used to splash water over their backs and, inadvertently, I suppose, into the faces of nearby friends and possibly relatives. They'd stand there for a good long while, cooling their outsides by splashing and their insides by drinking. When their hooves began to wrinkle, they'd saunter on out of the water, and I noticed that unlike dogs, they never shook themselves off. On those delicious summer days when I'd wake up to bird songs filling the cool, crisp morning air, I'd slowly enter the day, stretching and picturing what fun I would have later when I went swimming in the cowpond. Mother worked at the local Board of Education office, and she gave me permission to go swimming any time I could convince our maid to walk down there with me. Which was how I learned persuasion. After lunch, I'd don my swimsuit, grab a towel, and we'd strike out, walking barefoot down the dirt road that led to the pasture that was home to the cows and their cowpond. Miss Sylvie would spread her towel out and prepare for a nap while I greeted my moo friends and joined them in their waterhole. They didn't mind sharing, really, something I remembered to thank them for. It always took a few minutes to get used to the bottom squishing up through my toes, and that squish, along with the water, slowed me down considerably. Only in one spot over near the dam did the water go over my head, so I felt safe and free to try out new strokes and create new plays that the cows got to see for free. The dam was covered with vines and wild rose bushes ­ those that bear the little roses, the ones with lots of petals. There was honeysuckle, too, of course. You couldn't grow anything without honeysuckle finding it and trying to take over. An entire universe of frogs made the dam their home, and they serenaded me as I swam and created. Frogs have no manners, I learned early on, and they were totally unconcerned about talking while someone was on stage, so I found ways to incorporate their chorus into my works of art. The cows were a fairly appreciative audience, I suppose, more so than Miss Sylvie, anyway. Once her nap was up ­ she usually liked to sleep at least an hour ­ Miss Sylvie stretched and declared it time to go home. Knowing better than to argue or even look like I was going into a balk, I said my goodbyes and made my way out of the water, dried off with my towel, then wore it like a mink stole around my shoulders to keep me warm on the walk home. Years later, I'd sometimes be lucky enough to go to Rock Hill, a larger pond built specifically for swimmers of the people variety over in Jonesboro. Rock Hill was off of a paved road, and you could see it just after rounding this one curve. There were no seatbelts in those days, so I could get all the way over to the left side of the backseat and smash my nose up against the glass so I didn't miss a second of scouting. It was always good to know who was there before you decided where to put your things. Rock Hill was an okay way to spend a summer afternoon ­ especially when Aunt Jeanette took us, because when we went with her, it didn't matter how long we'd been there or how long since we ate or how long till lunchtime ­ our first stop after laying claim to a spot of beach with our towels and water toys was the concession stand to order snowcones. Grape was my favorite. It stained my mouth and tongue and lips and teeth, but I didn't care. The cold, sweet taste of grape going down my throat with those little squares of ice was the only thing that mattered. The real tricky thing was to finish the snowcone before the bottom of the paper cone got so soggy it disappeared, letting the precious pool of grape flavoring spill out onto the sand. It took great planning, strategy, and, well I don't think technique is too strong a word to use here, to be able to have those three swallows of unadulterated grape flavored water be at the end of your snowcone experience. Going to Rock Hill ­ especially with Aunt Jeanette ­ was fun and all, but I longed to go to Lake Spivey. That's where everybody went. One lucky day Mary Beth's mother, Miss Earline, asked my mother if I could go with them to Lake Spivey. I'd always wanted to go to Lake Spivey, having heard great tales from the people who were fortunate enough to have wealthy, nice parents who'd take them there. Not only would I get to see that glamorously fun spot, but I could finally say "Yes" with That Certain Tone ­ dripping disdainment - when others asked if I'd been. My life was now complete. You couldn't see Lake Spivey from the main road like you could Rock Hill. Before you parked at Rock Hill you could see everybody who was there and decide where you wanted to put your things. But Lake Spivey was more mysterious. We drove a long, long way before we came to the booth where we had to pay our money to get in, and then it seemed an eternity before we got to the parking lot, and then we had to walk forever ­ long enough to force us into our flipflops as buffer from the hot pavement - before we came to the lake. It was a big, huge, vast lake, and I was glad to be with experienced visitors who would surely know how to find our way there and back. As we walked to the eventual water, I spotted the roller coaster and said a little prayer asking to make sure Miss Earline saw it, too, and p.s. that she had enough money and was feeling generous enough to give us enough of it to ride the coaster later. Mary Beth went to Lake Spivey All The Time. She and her mother were frequent visitors ­ I knew because they both told me several times before we got there. It seemed an important thing to both of them that I knew that about them. "Oh, Mother, did you talk to Gertie's mother to see if they're coming today? I do so hope Sheila and her mother are coming. Have you seen their new car? I hear they got a red Cadillac." That's how Mary Beth talked all the way over there. I could distinguish a tractor from a car, but then that's about all I needed to know right then, when bicycles and horses were the only modes of independent transportation available to me. When we at last reached the sand, we spread our beach towels out, slathered ourselves with Coppertone suntan oil, then ventured on out into the water, promising Miss Earline that we'd check in periodically. The beach was full of bathing suit-clad people, and Miss Earline seemed intent on speaking to each and every one of them. "Mary Beth," she'd call out, "come over here and say Hello to Miss Ruth." Then "Mary Beth, look who's here: Miss Bonnie Sue and her daughter Jill." Since Miss Earline didn't seem to care whether I spoke to these folks or not, I went on to the water. At Rock Hill it was easy to spot the Deep End from the Shallow End by the rope with those colorful balls they draped across the water, but Lake Spivey had no ropes at all. There wasn't a diving board to indicate deeper water, either, and the lifeguards sat all around the edge of the entire lake. As I tried to decide where to go into the water, I noticed the absence of a concession stand, too, but grape snowcones were the furtherest thing from my mind at that particular moment. All around me children ran and splashed and laughed and splashed some more. They all seemed so at home here, as though Lake Spivey was their own personal cowpond. Not wanting to wade into the water like a big ole' baby, I ventured out onto the concrete wall that I supposed was the dam. Seeing others jump off into the water, I went out about a fourth of the way, turned to face the water, and hurled myself out. It was pre-Medford Manor days, before I learned how to dive, so I just put one foot out over the water and pushed off with the other. The brown water felt refreshing and cool, and I loved the way the water covered my ears, pushing out all the noisy people sounds. Being of more muscle than fat, I rose quickly to the surface, and it didn't take long till I knew I was in trouble: the bottom of the lake was nowhere to be found. I was a self-taught swimmer, so things like strokes and treading water weren't in my vocabulary or repertoire. I tried to yell, but every time I opened my mouth, water rushed in to take the place of sound. Somehow I managed to twist myself around and occasionally get my eyes above water like periscopes in search of familiar or even strange but helpful faces, and though there were great throngs of people around me ­ people of all ages and sizes and shapes and degrees of loudness ­ no one saw me. I spotted Mary Beth and her mother, talking to someone who was rich, judging by her hat, sunglasses, and tanned legs. They didn't even look to see where I was like Aunt Jeanette would have. Aunt Jeanette always wanted to know where we were going to be in the water at Rock Hill. At Rock Hill the lifeguards knew us by name, and they kept close tabs on us, too. If we didn't check in regularly, somebody came looking for us. At Rock Hill we always had friends or relatives around who'd notice that we were missing, but there in the too deep water at Lake Spivey, I was alone. All alone. Terribly alone. Horribly alone. And even while I tried to think of ways to save myself, I couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before anybody noticed I was missing. Oh, Mary Beth and her mother were going to feel so bad. Yes, they were, and rightly so. Ha. I hoped my mama never spoke to Miss Earline again. Miss Earline always wanted to be The First One Who Was Called whenever somebody got engaged or mad or died. Well, today was her lucky, lucky day 'cause she sure was going to be the first to know that I'd drowned, and she had the whole entire ride back to Fayetteville to flesh out the dramatic details before she got back there and had to tell my mama that she'd lost ­ and I do mean lost ­ her oldest daughter. I hoped with all my heart that Mama wouldn't let Mary Beth and her mother even come to the funeral - let alone sit in their usual place in the front pew on the left. I hoped it was a long, long, long time before Mama ever again listened to Miss Earline tell her what kind of jewelry she'd talked her husband into getting and how it was Ever So Much nicer than what her sister-in-law ­ or anybody else in Fayetteville, for that matter ­ had. All in all, it was shaping up to be a worthwhile way to go, when my toes connected with sand. It was just a grain or two, mind you, but that was more than enough to balance myself on before walking my way back to the safety of the shore. When finally I could feel sand under my entire foot, I kept on walking until I was completely out of the water, and I didn't look back until I reached my towel. First I laid down on my stomach, then, when my arms and legs recovered enough, I rolled over and sat up, hugging my knees to me, kissing my own boo-boos hidden underneath those star-covered bandaids that really did stay on in the water. I looked around me, noticing how much brighter the sun was and how much bluer the sky was and how much browner the water was, and there, just over to my left, was Mary Beth and her mother, showing off their new watches to some woman I'd never know.   JA, Visualization It's become my practice to meditate at my acupuncture appointments. Once the needles are in place, the heat lamp is on my body, and a soothing CD is playing, I start concentrating on my breathing and let the music take me away for the next 25 to 30 minutes. At one of my recent appointments while listening to a CD entitled "Journeys," I suddenly envisioned this beautiful image of a stream in front of me winding through a rising meadow filled with golden wheat swaying in a soft, gentle breeze. The rippling sound of the water was soothing and rejuvenating. I concentrated more on the water flowing through what I thought were my legs. The sensation of standing in this warm, clear running stream filled with smooth, oval, pale stones was overpowering. When I relaxed even deeper into the moment, I was stunned to see that the stream was actually an extension of my female organs and the stream bank was an extension of my vaginal wall. The water flowing into the stream came out of my uterus. It was pleasantly warm and had an oily feel to it like natural vaginal lubrication. The banks of my stream which I had at first thought were clay, were actually the blood-rich lining of my uterus. The smooth stones were uterine eggs. I dipped into the stream again and again and picked up eggs. Each one I touched and held resulted in an unique experience. One egg's top would open like a blown-out Easter egg and hold something representative of my life-experience - the face of one of my children, the face of someone who had greatly impacted my life journey, something I had created, somewhere I had traveled that held significance for me. These eggs were holding past creations and experiences. These eggs were laid out in front of me in my life-stream; my life-force rippling over them and out into the world impacting others. Other eggs that I picked up left holes in the uterine lining that strong, white energy shone from. These eggs wouldn't open. My sense was that these eggs were my future creations and experiences. Each egg fit neatly back into my uterine wall; nestled and nurtured by the warm stream. As I looked out onto the stream and followed its flow, I observed that the wheat in the meadow actually started out as soft pubic hair around my vagina but as the stream passed out further and further around the stream's bend and into the distance, the hair gradually changed into thriving golden wheat. The rolling meadow was fruitful, warm, and pleasing to the eye. Rapture filled my body and my heart each time I dipped my hands into my warm water and held my eggs - this intimate and gentle exploration of my own body.   Carolyn Hauck, Control and Abandon In a quiet space, I make movements. They look like: a film of a dancer being played backwards, a plastic bag that's lost its way in the wind. I safely fill the room this way. I allow my particles to run free and clash. I let them loose. I want them to find their way into the world. I want the world to feel me. I say, "Go little atoms. Make your way as far as you can, to Mars. Better yet, make it to Venus, the planet that rules my heart." I stand still. I stand still and wait. I stand still, wait and breathe and then with my out breath I know it is time to bring them back home. I make movements again. This time they look like: a cop directing traffic, a tight-rope walker keeping her balance, a child pretending to fly. I herd them back home, the particles, and allow them to linger in a bubble three feet in all directions from where I stand. They tingle my skin. They tingle the air. I begin to imagine someone moving towards me. My breath quickens. The buzzing around me begins. My bubble feels tighter, thicker and if I am not careful, if I'm not paying attention POP. Control and abandon. It's like everything sticks. Lock jaw. Peanut butter. The way my feet won't move up a hill in a dream when I need to get somewhere fast. In the spring, all the trees, animals, people, cars, all of it has such purpose. It all has somewhere to go. Mustgetto the edge of the cliff NOW! And yet and yet the wind still comes and gently blows the pink blossoms off the trees. They drift in the air, nowhere left to go. They let the wind carry them, down. On the asphalt they have arrived home. Arriving somewhere between. Finding yourself somewhere between the in and out breath. Somewhere between. I abandon. I hear voodoo. I control. I see snakes. I abandon. I feel white cloth. I control. I sense stomping. I abandon. I control. But I never stop letting go. I see you. I see the way your army marches up and down your arms. They hold attention on your shoulders. They cross swords at your heart. They are at ease near the bones closest to your groin. It's easier for them to lounge there. The beach of your skin is salty and ready for a towel, an umbrella perhaps? Certainly, a cocktail. No I won't say it. Sex on the beach? Ok I did. They linger and watch the tide roll forward and back, forward and back. I envy them. Me? Sometimes it seems the 10pm curfew shuts down the bonfires right after dusk. The trucks drive up and down the side of the cliffs only to get stuck in the sand. I don't know how to take control. FIZZ I find my way back to my bubble. This time I gather all the particles and I try to just let them be. I just let them whiz around and move. I picture some of them shimmery like the edge of a cell and some of them pulsing like the mouth of a fish. They move together and I am with them. I breathe in and out, in and out, and this time as he moves toward me I let them out a little to say hello. They say hello like munchkins along the yellow brick road. They love to say hello. When my breath becomes too much, I say to them, please come back home. And for me, they come home. I let them out a little again and let them roam further beyond the white picket gate and then ask them to come home. For me, they always come home. The hills ahead of us are green. It is green where you stand and around you blue. I understand their longing to be where you are. It is beautiful where you are. I practice each day, to let myself be a little bit closer to where you are. From my heart I spread my arms like wings. I know how to navigate from the waist up. I was taught that early on. Even then, my shoulders cave in to protect the heart, but if you challenge me with a sword, my chest would puff and there would be nowhere else for you to go. There's no need to run away from a brilliant light. The point is to always run towards. But my hips. My hips, so caught up in a maze of, you did this, and why did I do that? And, why aren't I this? and how come you didn't love me like that? It's a rocky sea between the natural bridges of my bones. My ship's been out too long, an anchor is what it needs. I'd drive it into the soft, soft ground at the ocean's floor and let the salt water take control. So I lie on my back. Feet firmly rooted to the floor. I breath in and introduce my heart to my groin. I breath out. Groin meet heart. Heart whispers hello, groin grumbles the same. Heart lets down a tiny beam. Shyly reaches to share a little of what she knows. Down below, unsure of what it is to even be there, down below, groin searches for a way to do the same. To lift up to fire and meet a flame. I'm still forming a way, a place, from which to reach a flame. A root, a rock, a screw, a stake? I roll back and forth to discover its name. * * * * Carolyn Hauck, Orange Orange. It's the color of my new notebook, my new scarf. In my mind's eye it's the color I see my new friend drenched in as he swims in the water. It is also the representative color of the second chakra in the Eastern theory of the chakra system. According to this system there is a line of energy running from our genitals to the tops of our heads with seven major points of energy (chakras) along the way. They each represent different aspects of our being. The second chakra is located in the pelvis, directly below the navel. In Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith explains that the second chakra is related to sexuality and creativity, to our ability to feel, to have relationships, to love ourselves and others. I became curious about all of this a few weeks ago after I attended a yoga class where we spent the entire two hours focusing on this chakra. On a cold February night, the warm, dimly lit studio was filled with men and women slowly moving into poses meant to open their hips and their hearts. (In yoga, whenever you adjust your pelvis, you also always adjust your chest and heart area.) At different points in the class, the teacher had us move around freely, in whatever way felt good and pleasurable. She suggested that afterwards we go home and dance, better yet dance in front of the mirror. She talked about the second chakra being a watery place connected to movement and our desires and pleasures. I was near tears the entire time and I don't think I was the only one. After class, half of the women thanked the instructor for such a great class. At one point in The Birth of Pleasure, Carol Gilligan describes a theater/writing workshop she has been conducting with women to help them reach their inner voices. During a free-write session, beginning with the prompt "I want to take you on an adventure" one of the women writes: "With my new orange bike really big orange bike leaving the camp site going faster and faster along the river on the pavement but there down by the river warm but the wind cold blowing in my face my hair behind faster & faster no fear pedaling with my body's power the bike big & bright & orange & me big on the bike & the river big & the river faster & me faster & orange & bright & wild & alone me & the river & the orange bike" (Gilligan 130-31). When I first read this passage, waves of excitement passed through me. I could feel this woman's (re)connection with her adventurous spirit, but also I felt in it a swell of desire for living, for feeling sensually and sexually connected to herself and the world around her. Anodea Judith writes that the second chakra is a watery, sensate, pleasurable place and that its representative color is orange. The image of the bright and wild woman near the edge of a river - a type of water that sensually snakes its way through land to the ocean - on an orange bike - a mode of solo transportation or an expression for sex - is the epitomy of a woman falling in love with herself or another, her sexuality and her love of life. Judith articulates how sexuality is the culmination of all the aspects of the second chakra. "Sexuality is the ultimate expression of the many issues associated with the second chakra: movement, sensation, pleasure, desire, emotions, and polarity. It is the resolution of difference, the union of opposites, and the connecting experience that transcends isolation and forms the foundation for the next chakra level: power" (Judith 123). From learning how to move more fluidly in the world, from a place where our sexual energy, our pleasure, and our desire live, we learn to connect intimately with others and move towards transcendence. I am struck by how only a few weeks ago at Goddard, during a visualization meant to connect seeing, or being looked at, with love, I saw this in myself. I was guided to imagine myself on stage being watched by someone. I was asked to feel how I felt in my body. I felt rigid and stiff. I was then asked to become the person looking at me and see how I felt. I felt compassion and sweetness. Then I was asked to become myself again on stage. Feeling myself being looked at with these new eyes filled with compassion, how did I feel on stage now? I responded by saying that I start to move around fluidly. That it feels as if someone has filled me with water and I begin moving around. I felt connected to the person in front of me. He was feeding me energy through watching and I was giving it back through movement. Judith uses this exact rigid/flow dichotomy to illustrate the polar aspects of the second chakra and our need for balance, ultimately for learning to use this sensual, sexual place to connect with others, while in turn keeping some of the energy for ourselves to nourish our own sense of pleasure within each of us. She writes that if there is not enough containment water flows out and the cup runs dry. However if there is too much containment (too much rigidity) then the water does not move and it becomes stagnant. In our culture, sexuality, pleasure and desire share two sides of the same coin: over-control or addiction. We either can't get enough sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll or we need to check into the nearest rehab clinic. Seen in a healthier, more balanced way, however, pleasure and desire are what give us reason to live. Our desires and pleasures are what make us reach out to love others, to feel, in essence to be alive. Again, Judith writes: "In recovering the second chakra, we reclaim our right to feel. We also reclaim passion and pleasure, neediness and vulnerability, and sensate connection to both inner and outer reality. We free the flow of dynamic energy that is essential for growth, change, and transformation and release the armor that separates us. We can then reclaim intimacy that we long for, ending fragmented isolation" (124). * * * * Carolyn Hauck, Bicycle It is sunset. I am on the back of my mother's bike. My sister is smaller than me. She is on the back of my father's bike ahead of us. We are riding along a hillside and the sun is setting behind it. The California hills are dry and golden. The sun is turning bright orange and red and filling the sky and spilling over onto the hills. The dry grass is catching the light. It is the seventies, none of us are wearing helmets, the wind is blowing in my hair and on my face. I hold it up to the sky to feel the cool motion and colorful heat all in the same moment. We are headed to church. The place with high ceilings, high colorful windows and singing voices all reaching up to the sky. On the back of the bike, watching the sunset, I feel like I know why everything reaches up at church. It is reaching for what is in front of me. Balancing the both of us, my mother is pedaling to make us go forward. I am sitting on the back loving being near her strongly pushing us forward while I watch the sunset. The beauty of the sunset is not separate from the love I am feeling being close to her. This is probably the clearest memory of my childhood. I have used it as a measuring stick all my life. I ask myself, "By doing what I am doing am I moving my life towards that moment on the bike at sunset?" It is very hard to explain how I can remember a feeling from the small age of three that felt so connected to god and the world. I am my own little person, sitting on the back of the bike, feeling the beauty of the world through what I am seeing. I am with my mother, who, pedaling the bike, is my lifeline to all of it. This memory is important to me for these two reasons. I feel fully connected to the world in this moment. I am filled with an overwhelming sense of beauty and love, the two things I seek in a relationship with someone else and the world. I am also with the woman who represents all the things I want to grow up to be - strong, independent and beautiful. My mother and I were extremely close when I was young. We shared lots of emotions and stories. In many ways, I never knew where she ended and I began. Separating from her, like for many, was very difficult. In hindsight she wasn't very good at understanding boundaries and because of that I've struggled to understand them. She was also a very controlling mother. Her style was to tell us how to look at the world and to show us what should be most important to us. When I was little, she became extremely interested in and influenced by the feminist movement. To her, the single most important thing a woman could focus on in her life was a career. This is what became, for my mother, the way in which she could assert herself in patriarchy, to become a career woman. So from a very small age I was constantly encouraged to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up. The problem was, I knew what I wanted - I wanted to ride on a bicycle near a sunset with someone that I loved - I just didn't know how exactly to create a career out of that. My own young sense of myself growing into a strong and independent woman had less to do with a 'career' and more to do with how I actually related to the world. The daydreaming that I subsequently did a lot of was in direct conflict with my mother's desire to see me grow into a career woman. Ironically, my mother's inability to see this as my own sense of 'knowing' led her to subconsciously squelch bits of this part of me. Daydreaming and playing make believe had little to do with a career. This was always very frustrating and confusing for me, because my own sense of strength came from being connected to a deep, dreamy, intuitive place. My mother, already a grown woman and probably out of touch with this place, found in the patriarchal world a place for herself. I felt a sense of betrayal from this because it was as if something had cut between the sunset and the closeness I was feeling for the mother on the bicycle. A split had been created. I was struck by a similarity with Carol Gilligan and her mother in The Birth of Pleasure. Gilligan describes how her most treasured memories of her mother include being read poetry at a bus stop by her or being taken to see her mother's eccentric artist friends. Yet when Gilligan began to express herself in the world, coming from that same place of love that she feels for the mother who reads poetry at bus stops, her mother is swift to correct her: I had often felt that she did not want me to see what I was seeing or to say what I wanted to say; she wanted to tell me how I should see things, and also what I should say. You could say that she had the best of intentions; she was trying to teach me how to live in the world, and she knew I was heading for trouble in challenging the rules of the game (166). Gilligan is relating this experience to the very interesting way mothers pass down their knowledge of how to live in 'a man's world.' Our mothers, having buried their own sense of knowing, subconsciously move to adjust it when they see it cropping up in their daughters so that we fit into the world better. Afraid to recognize or admit to their own knowing, they separate themselves from their daughters. Problems arise from burying this sense of knowing, because it is from this place that we form relationships with ourselves, others and the world. This is beautifully and painfully illustrated in Gilligan's use of Anne Frank's diary. She writes about Frank's keen observations of her mother and father and her resentment towards her mother's inability to really know her. She writes of Frank's observations as coming from a place of "Intense love, intense anger, an impassioned seeing and speaking of what is happening in the moment(92)" She then goes on to relate Frank's keen perceptions and understanding of her parents to her desire for relationship. She first shows us Frank's desire for relationship: sometimes I even think, will anybody understand me, will anybody overlook my ingratitude, overlook Jew or non-Jew, and just see the young girl in me who is badly in need of some rollicking fun? I don't know and I couldn't talk about it to anybody, because then I know I should cry. Crying can bring such relief, but only if you can cry on someone's shoulder and despite everything, in spite of all of my theories, and however much trouble I take each day I miss having a real mother who understands me (93). Gilligan relates Frank's need to be seen and understood by her mother to her desire for relationship: finding herself unable to cry on her mother's shoulder, feeling misheard, not seen, not understood, not taken seriously. Anne also observes that her mother does not reveal herself, or at least not in a way Anne desires; she claims not to know about her body, she withholds herself from relationship. The pleasure Anne seeks with her mother is the pleasure of relationship, and it is palpable when she finds it, as when she says that they are as "thick as thieves" (93). Emotions have been running very high for me lately and all points of loving seem to be converging in my life right now. I've been suffering from an ailment which, in my opinion, is the culmination of all of the anger and heartbreak that has been living within in me for years; my sister has been calling me every night in tears, suffering from chronic insomnia because her nervous system can no longer handle the way she deals with anxiety; I feel something very strong for a man who has touched a deep part of me, and, finally, I no longer feel as though Seattle is the right place for me. I have an overwhelming sense of needing to 'go home.' Through all of this I have been focusing very intently on my own knowing and seeing. Becoming clearer about my own intuition is happening at the same time that I am re-learning about love and relationship. At the crux of all of this is my relationship with my mother. Right before I started school last summer, I began emotionally cutting myself of from her. For a long time I was afraid to face my own truth, because I knew it would mean exposing my mother's lie. By pursuing my dreams to be a writer and teacher and to live in the world more fully and creatively, I would be pushing my mother to confront the truth that it was also she who wanted to be a writer. Ever since I was a teenager and my mother chose writer as a career for me, I knew that it was her own dream as well. And, in fact, I am already seeing this in her. A few weeks ago we were talking on the phone and she told me how she was in a second-hand bookshop the other day and she picked up Anne Lammott's Bird by Bird. It was autographed on the title page, "To Cathy, Best Wishes, Anne Lammott." My mother's name is Cathy. She sounded hopeful and proud when she told me this. I said it wasn't a coincidence. And then, in the next breath, she said, "I will never truly be a writer. I have my journal and my books, but I am not a storyteller." I said nothing. A few weeks later we got into a raging fight. I was screaming at her because my mother has always tended not to really see or hear me. I was screaming at her about my need for boundaries, but also behind my rage was exhaustion from carrying guilt about becoming my own person and the hurt from betrayal from her not pursuing her own dreams. She was crying and yelling that she just wanted to be close to me again. Gilligan shows us how our culture is rife with stories of sacrificing truth and love to the greater good, the greater good being patriarchy, which includes the silencing of women's intuitive knowing, seeing and loving. When we as children love the truest part of our mothers, the part that is not allowed to be spoken of, only to find that they themselves no longer acknowledge it, we sometimes move to protect it. Gilligan uses Dan's story as an example. She explains that as a boy, Dan "saw the human face behind the mask [his mother] wore, and also her wish not to be seen (52)." She hypothesizes that Dan moved away from his mother out of love and a need to protect her: In moving away from his mother, he was protecting himself from her abandonment of him (putting on her mask, hiding her face) and also from her anger and sadness. But in closing himself off from her, he was also protecting her by not seeing what she did not want people to see (her anger, her sadness, her imperfection), distancing himself from her so as not to blow her cover (52). Gilligan writes about this with her own mother. Not so much in protecting her, but in loving the woman behind the mask: I never spoke with my mother about the doubleness that riddled our relationship; it was a silence between us that lasted to the end of her long life. And I am left with regret and also with guilt, the feeling at the end of the dream as I walk out of the room, wondering whether I, in my sensitivity to light and color and words and music, all of which I associate with my mother, in my love for her artist friends and the artist in her, and in my no doubt irritating challenges throughout my adolescence to what I then called her values, meaning her complicity in accommodating patriarchy and the premium she placed on bella figura, I wondered whether in loving Mabel Caminez, I was endangering Mrs. Friedman (126). I think about the woman I love pedaling the bicycle. The woman who sits close to me as I truly see the world for all the love and beauty that lives in it. In my mind, it is her wholeness, her truth, her beauty, her strength, that are pushing us forward; and in many ways this is true, but the fact that my father is ahead of us, actually leading the way, is not lost on me. In the end, my mother gave in to my father's guidance. She gave in to patriarchy despite all of her efforts not to. I've held resentment about this for a long time, but after our argument on the phone, I decided it was time to let it go. Near the close of the argument my mother said, "Carolyn, why can't you let go of the pain of the past and just let us love you?" I broke down in tears. Why was I holding on to so much resentment? Why couldn't I let anyone love me, including myself? The day after the phone call I made a conscious decision to let go of the resentment and to love and see her more compassionately. My desire to move into the world from a new place of courage and love has been too strong lately to let the heartbreak and bad feelings of the past take over. I am learning how to reconstruct my relationship with my mother. I do this as I face my own truth. As I open my eyes to my ability to see, know and love, my mother is left no choice but to know that this comes from her. She has always been someone who has had a deep intuitive sense and been afraid of it. I know that my sister's ability to feel spirits and my ability to see deeply in the world comes from her. I hope that, at moments, I will be able to speak to her about her own truth. I also hope that I will be able to compassionately understand the part of her that refuses to acknowledge it, out of fear. In return, I know that my mother still has things to teach me about love. A week after the argument, we spoke again. She said that she had been thinking about what I had been saying about boundaries, and said that I was right. Over the past year, my mother left my father because of his alcoholism, but went back to him after he finally quit. In their learning how to love each other again, my mother had to learn about boundaries. She told me that she needed them in order to learn how to not be hurt by my father any more, but what she found out was that they helped her with her capacity for love as well. I was relieved and a little surprised to find that my mother had actually been listening to me. I had been listening to her as well, because I realized that I needed to be close to her again. After we talked for a while, she said something that echoed everything I had been reading and thinking about lately. She said, "I hope that we can have a good relationship, Carolyn. Mother-daughter relationships are your first and have a lot to do with the ones you have in your life. If that one isn't working, it's harder for the others to."   Layla Holguin-Messner, Initiation I am a womon giving birth to myself, we are womyn giving birth to ourselves, we are womyn giving birth to each other. Ffiona Morgan, Daughters of the Moon Tarot The stones are giants. The sky is black and it is raining hard. Thunder crashes. Inside the ring of stones the circle pulses the heartbeat of the Mother. I am lying on the ground. The storm is electric above and around me. With the pulsing of the circle, energy surges from my vulva to the top of my head. A force like this storm swirls and eddies beneath my skin. In this eternal now I exist to the pulse; I am the pulse. Hands slick with warm oil and rain rub my skin, and my nostrils flare to catch the heady scent of flowers. My heart beats in time with Hers now. My pulse is heavy, strong. The rain runs hot off my body and the circle pulses red. There are drums sounding the ancient heartbeat. I vibrate in resonance. They are dancing around me, feet landing to that rhythm. Their strong legs glisten with rain and sweat, muscles clenching and lengthening; their breasts shake with their motion. I am dizzy with it. They call my name ­ slowly, lovingly. It is a new name that I have never heard before; I know it is my name because my pulse answers, thrumming deeper, stronger. The dancers spin faster, faster, and the red of the circle deepens. Where I am resting at their center, their energy feeds into me. They chant my new name until it becomes my only name, the only name I can remember. I can feel their voices inside me. The circle begins to contract to a new rhythm. A new beat paces it ­ deeper, sharper ­ interweaving with the heartbeat. I am no longer still. Sensation that was trapped within my skin seems to push out through my pores. I am everywhere and nowhere. Riding the waves of feeling. My body moves to its own rhythm. All speed increases. The contractions are close now and the women halt their dance. Their energy surrounds me, palpable, flows into me, joining what they have already given. The circle contracts hard. The women throw back their heads, singing a wordless chant to the open skies. Their voices rise and interweave, spiralling above me as the circle itself seems to sing my new name. I am suspended, my tears of ecstasy mingling with the rain. All that exists is I, contained by the circle, pulsing, pulsing ... and then releasing. Water washes me in a downpour as the circle explodes outward in a million points of light. All of the energy rushes into my body, and the drums are suddenly silent. I lie on the grass catching my breath, energy pumping with my blood, under my skin. The grass is wet and cool, the ground hard beneath my back, and I lie still there, resting, as the rain grows light. In the distance, the drums take up a new beat, a rhythm of celebration. The women gather around me, pressing close, hugging me. I cling to their solid shoulders as we lean into one another. We are all exhausted, flushed, glorious. Their faces glow with exertion as each woman greets and welcomes me with my new name. A thick cotton robe is pulled over my head, soft and warm. We re-form a circle and, holding hands, thank the Mother. Surrounding me, the women walk me down the hill to where the bonfire and feast are waiting. I remember the journey here, the rage and tears, the fierce challenges, weeping in the arms of the women who now surround and support me ­ I feel it course through me as new power. I raise my arms and shout my victory into the night. Throw back my head and scream with it. The drums stop ­ a moment of silence. Out of the quiet, an echo, pulsing - my new name. The women erupt in cheers and the sky re-opens, soaking us in fat warm drops. All around me my sisters cheer me, and over and under the night my new name sings. Strong.   **** Layla Holguin-Messner, Meeting the Devil The viscera are preserved like precious materials in large glass jars that bear inscriptions. They ignore the brain. They abandon it carelessly on some piece of furniture. A domestic animal might seize and devour it. ­ Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères As I pause to help the stranger on the side of the road, it occurs to me that maybe the Devil isn't so bad. I invite him over for tea. He doesn't drink tea. He drinks gasoline ­ he says it keeps the fire in his belly burning. I don't have any gasoline so I tell him he'll have to go without. I have turpentine substitute, if he wants that. It depends on whether it's flammable, he says. I tell him I don't know, to look for himself. He says it is and he'd love to have some. He drinks the whole thing without bothering with a glass. I ask him what he has to say for himself. He says he makes a point of never doing so. I tell him I've decided to invite him back, so he has to leave. Pushing him out the door, I tell him he had better get his ass back here tomorrow at three. She comes at one, opens the door herself and punches me in the nose. I'm sorry that you're early, I say, you can come in. Then I punch her three times in the side of the face. I feel better. She says she'd be glad to drink the blood from my nose, but I tell her it is mine and I was planning on drinking it. I tell her from now on if she wants to drink something while she visits she'll have to bring it herself. She conjures a glass of chocolate flavored fire. This inspires me to fetch a large chunk of chocolate cake. I eat seven twelfths of it and stick the rest in her ears. It smokes and I find this funny. She says she has another appointment and she'll be back tomorrow at anytime but five. He arrives at five when I am eating breakfast. I've stuck my whole chocolate cake in the oven until it has burned to ash and am eating that with my fists. Specks of ash float around my house. He says that I don't know how to cook and helps himself to what is left of my breakfast. On his way out I ask him what he thinks of me. He says he doesn't. She arrives as soon as he's left, jets of flame coming out of her ears. One burns a hole in the side of my refrigerator. I tell her she wasn't invited. She tells me I wasn't either. Then she says she wants to tell me a secret. I bend my ear close and she exhales fire into it. Within moments my brain is consumed. She lights my pants on fire and spreads my legs, breathing into my vagina, urethra, and anus. I glance at myself in the glass of my oven and see flames behind my eyes. Fascinated, I watch the fire consume me from the inside out. When it is done, she is gone. I am hungry so I go looking for gasoline. On the way I see a stranger on the side of the road. He asks for my help. I breathe on him and he catches fire. While he is burning I drink the gasoline from his car, listening to him scream. When the process is complete I fuck him in the ditch. Between moans and grunts, he asks if I am the Devil. I tell him I haven't seen either of them since yesterday. He is hungry so we go looking for more gasoline. I amuse myself by setting fire to the fields with my feet and watching the cows run away. I wonder if anyone will stop for free steak. We come to a town and, parting ways with him at the gas station, I go looking for clothes. I find a store with a whip and a studded collar. I put them on and watch them burn and char on my skin. The girl behind the counter is flirting with me so I take her hand and pull her outside. She seems to enjoy my fingers burning into her wrists because when I turn her towards me on the sidewalk she collapses against my body as I tilt her head back and insert my tongue in her cool, wet mouth. I exhale into her and run my hands across her body as the transformation burns through her from within and the store burns behind us. Her charred clothes fall away from my hands like rags. I turn her upside down, spread her legs and insert my tongue. I exhale and lick for a long time. She doesn't scream, but bucks with pleasure. There is an art to this, I see ­ it is better from the inside out. I coil my whip around my waist. She takes my hand and begins dragging me towards the gas station. She is in need of sustenance and accessories. The concrete cracks beneath our feet where we walk. I use my whip to set fire to random things, like telephone poles and flowers. We stop frequently to breathe fire into one another.   Melissa Lockman, The Polar Bear Wakes As I continued to explore how my writing can truly spring from the body, and as I continued to explore how my writing voice can carry the quality and feeling of empowerment and exuberance, I wrote several poems that are set to Shotokan Karate Katas. Katas are traditional "fights". They are a set series of dance-like moves, enacted as if there are imaginary aggressors coming at you. In these poems, I set words to the moves of traditional kata. In a way, this is a union of two disparate worlds - that of women's self-defense and of karate at a traditional martial arts dojo . The self-defense taught at Impact and LEAP (where I work) are about women's empowerment. My dojo on the other hand is often a place where patriarchal power still reigns even if not always obvious. Thus, these poems bring my voice into the dojo, a world where women have not always been welcomed or heard. In writing this poem, I am building a bridge between the theory and the practice, the thinking and the feeling, the writing and the body. This is an attempt at present-time body writing. There is a piece of background that will help to make sense of this poem. Somatic experiencing is a form of mindbody therapy that is founded on the idea that trauma can remain unresolved in our bodies, in our muscle, in our very cells. It was developed by Peter Levine, who studied animals' reactions to trauma and witnessed that some animals have the ability to release the trauma in that moment and therefore do not necessarily hold it in their muscle memory. He recounts a story of a polar bear in the arctic. He was on a study team that was tracking polar bears, one of the last mammals on the planet to have no known predators. This animal is not accustomed to being hunted. The study team is in a helicoptor, chasing, bearing down, on a polar bear. They shoot it with a tranquilizer and it goes down. The team collects blood, hair, measurements a-plenty. Then they retreat back to the helicoptor and film the animal as it wakes up. As the polar bear begins to re-gain consciousness, it begins to quiver. It lets out a spontaneous scream. It stands up and gives a full-body shake. And then it walks away. One last explanation. Kia is a loud verbal exclamation that is used in the martial arts. Its purpose is to increase the power of an offensive strike through vigorous exhalation. Every artist's kia is different and not everyone actually says "kia" phonetically. We just make a loud forceful noise to increase our power and focus. It's also just really fun to yell! Unless you know the Shotokan kata "Tekki Shodan", you'll just have to imagine these words corresponding to karate movements. - - - - The Polar Bear Wakes   This body wants - - This body wants to finish - - This body wants to finish an arc - - This body wants to finish an arc circle pain trajectory - - This body wants to finish an arc circle pain trajectory The polar bear wakes quivers screams shakes - - This body wants to finish an arc circle pain trajectory The polar bear wakes quivers screams shakes Kia! - - This body wants to finish an arc circle pain trajectory Unfinished Unresolved I quiver I scream I shake Kia!   Kate Mendenhall, Interview with Simon Bishop THE UNITED KINGDOM: Simon Bishop runs an educational farm that helps local farmers compete with cheap imports I met Simon Bishop while he was between meetings with representatives from the Soil Association, who had come to the Netherfield Centre to talk about regional and local outreach to organic farmers. Simon teaches agricultural classes part-time at Plumpton College in North Lewes, East Sussex, England and runs its organic demonstration farm. The farm is a part of the Netherfield Centre for Sustainable Food and Farming in Battle, East Sussex, and provides students with a working example of a successful organic farm raising a traditional breed of sheep, Romney Marsh, and traditional beef cattle, Sussex, as well as arable crops used to feed the animals. Simon grew up helping with the daily chores on his family's farm, and that legacy has influenced his life profoundly. In his own words, "I was born on a farm and I've always lived on a farm and that is all I have ever wanted to do." Though he passionately made farming his own profession, he was uncomfortable with the environmental consequences of conventional methods. Thus, in 1993 he converted the Netherfield farm to an organic system. He explains, I find it rekindled my interest in farming it was a challenge. I wanted to consider animal welfare and that all of the crops get better rotations and soil structure and soil fertility and things like that. And also very importantly, because we live in such a beautiful farm, I wanted to enhance the environment. I very much enjoy seeing more birdlife and more butterflies. We have got great crested mutes in the pond down the back, beetles, invertebrates - all sorts of things. They are all coming back because of the way we farm now. It really worried me that we were using chemicals and sprays on the crops I could see birds in amongst that, and I thought, 'God I can't live like that. Simon relishes the opportunity to share his knowledge and experience with students, and his demonstration farm provides the perfect opportunity to do just that. The farm is a great resource where farmers interested in organic production can visit a successful organic farm in action and discuss their questions with the farmer. He considers himself to be active in the global organic movement on a local level, and explains, I don't want to stand up and preach organic farming, but I want to be able to assist people if they want to consider organic methods of production. I want to assist them and say this is what we've done, this is what we do, we made a mistake with that, it worked well with that You know, this is part of what this Centre is all about - to promote organic farming and sustainable farming systems so that we can increase the number of people farming organically. Simon's dedication to teaching and farming is evident in the way he described working at the Centre's farm. The Centre is loaded with books and pamphlets explaining various aspects of organic agriculture. Chalk boards line the walls of the main learning room so that ideas can easily be explained to student groups. The farm itself is lush, green, and tidy, and its red barns are located close to the Centre to facilitate hands-on classes. When Simon talks about the magical moments of farming, his eyes light up and become the slightest bit teary with emotion. Simon has incorporated local traditional methods of farming into his modern organic system. One aspect of animal husbandry about which he feels strongly is reducing stress on the animals. This can be implemented simply by reducing rapid changes in diet. Simon ensures that his cattle and sheep both always have access to dry hay or silage (slightly fermented fodder stored for the winter season) so that their digestive systems are acustomed to it by the time they are brought into the barns for the winter and it becomes their entire diet. This is one of Simon's favorite parts of farming. He explains that before the cattle come inside the barn for the winter, they are virtually on their full winter diet so that when they do come in to be housed - and I would like to keep them outside all the time but it just stomps your ground too much - when they do come in there is no change so the only stress to them is that they are only coming in. When we find them now, they love it that they are coming in! We give them lots of straw and they come in and ohh you know, settle down. Simon wiggles in his chair imitating a cow making her 'nest.' "And one of the most magical moments, I think, is that I always go down to check on the animals in the evening and the first night that they come in, they've got straw up to their ears, the cattle you know, their little eye lids are blinking, 'Oh, thank you very much!'" He smiles imitating his cows. "You know, better than being wet! Listen to that rain outside! They go chomp chomp chomp [as] they go through their cud. They just about stop my heart just looking at them." When I go into the lambing yard first thing in the morning, which can be four o'clock in the morning, I go in there - we leave an orange glow lamp on at night - and I want to be able to go into that yard and walk in there and see all the sheep virtually sitting down asleep or chewing their cud ... And I don't want them all jumping up feeling worried. I can walk in there quietly. We leave the radio on all the time - classical music, they like it - and then I go in there. So the first thing they hear is click, the light goes on and I am looking around to see who's lambed or who might be ready to start lambing because it's the busiest time, and then before I do anything I have a cup of tea and just stand there looking all around for just 10 minutes just taking them in. You know. Well, she's not awake and she's looking a bit ooohhh. He wiggles imitating a ewe near her lambing time. She's lambed and she's got one, and she's expecting two so she's got another one, and just get a picture of it in my mind We lamb them in the barn. We have quite a lot of fox problems around here and also because we are a training institution we teach people lambing techniques and things. It's much easier to have them in the barn, but we get them out when they are about two days old. But there are magical moments that make you think, and that's why I farm really. When the cows calve, they calve outside, it's nearly always first thing in the morning and I can you know, counting the cows, and there are only seven here and there should be eight, so there is one off calving, and she's usually in the most remote spot, and you know it's usually quite a large area, normally, and you just find them there and she is just tucked up there, and you see the calf is there alongside her, and she's saying 'Look, I know who you are, but I don't want you too near and we are very happy, thank you very much. So you know, you just piddle off and you just get on with your day's work and I'm all right, I'm sorted.' And it's lovely. And sometimes there I'll find three because there will be a newborn calf and the yearling sniffing about thinking, 'Oh, I'm not sure what's going on here, I've got a newborn sibling here to worry about!' and Mum, and you know there is a group, and that's lovely as well. So you know moments like that are absolutely precious. It's lovely. And you know we have the downsides too. We have the dead calf, we have the ewe with a rotten lamb, we have to cope with them but we always tell people you are going to get them but don't dwell on it because the majority are happy occasions. And people say, 'We've had a terrible lambing, terrible lambing' 'Well what's wrong?''We've lost six lambs over the last two days.' 'Well how many live ones have you had?' 'Oh, we'll have had about 60 live ones, you know. We've had a great load, we've had over 200 all together, we've had a bad run.' Well, they tend to come in drops for some reason, and I think in a way it's sort of, you've had a bad lambing, you've heard one shouting because you're trying to get a lamb out, and they've made that horrible shouting noise, and all the other sheep are thinking, 'Oh, I don't like the sound of that.' And so it goes on, but its all part of you know you've got to put up with that. The Centre promotes local food for local people, supplying its surrounding community with fresh meat sold on the farm. Simon and his colleagues have found selling through local markets to be more profitable than going through distributors. The farm is located in an affluent area of southern England, which enables local farmers to access niche markets supported by customers who have the financial ability to be more discerning. The Netherfield Centre provides an example to other farmers and ranchers who are struggling financially. Simon has witnessed globalization's impact on the success of local farmers in England. He explains, It has had a great effect. Because the pound has been so strong against other currencies, it means that imports are cheap. Supermarkets buy cheap. They can buy it cheaper even though they ship it halfway around the world to buy it. So, imported beef is cheaper than home produced beef - not for any reason [other] than for currency fluctuations. So globalization and the ability to ship things around the world have a great effect on farming in the UK in this area because of the fact that we have our own currency, and it means that if supermarkets play that game, they can buy cheap if they buy it from abroad. It's very damaging. Likewise, if the GB pound is weak and the other currency is strong, well then we will win the other way, but it has been so long the other way that it has had a very knock-on effect. So it does affect [farmers]; it makes farming very difficult to survive. Imports are cheap and then that means that they export a lot of meat abroad. There actually isn't much premium now on organic products. I mean, organic milk you can't even give away at the moment. It's all over-supplied and it's being imported. If you are not tied in with a big contract, it's hardly worth producing... I mean, lamb prices were so high earlier this spring that conventional prices were the same as organic. I think the conventional prices were so high they pulled the organic prices up with it. And now they've just sunk back down together, you know having the buyers say 'Oh, well now we're paying the same.' But the way we are trying to promote it [to the farmers] is that organic farming need not be more expensive than conventional farming because if you cut out all the add-ons and the time that takes, and if you promote high health, and you make your own forage, and if you consider the wellbeing of the animals. The way we're farming, we think we are back up towards pre-organic farming levels anyway - in terms of output. It's just adjusting the balance of the farm. Simon's work at the Netherfield Centre is especially important to local and regional farmers as they struggle to make a living farming within a global market. When imported meat undercuts the prices that local farmers need to cover production costs and make a profit, they lose money and are forced into debt, often needing to sell the farm or implement significant changes to their agricultural system. Within a conventional model, these changes often result in expansion of the farm to try to raise more animals in higher concentration with fewer external costs - including labor. Yet these modifications simply are not sustainable for rural communities that rely on work opportunities and have a cultural landscape of small farms. The Centre promotes organic alternatives to this conventional system by helping farmers develop methods that connect their product to local consumers in order to reduce the role of intermediaries and achieve higher profit margins for the producers. As Simon explained above, farmers in Southeast England benefit from their close proximity to affluent populations that support local production. Unfortunately, this is not as simple for farms far from urban and highly educated populations. These farmers still struggle to make a living within both conventional and organic markets, experiencing the direct effects of free trade and globalization within the competitive marketplace. **** Kate Mendenhall, Interview with Lilian and Gerardo Barrera CHILE: Lilian and Gerardo Barrera empower indigenous Mapuche farming families through education and organic agriculture My sister told me to stand on the corner of Bulnes and Balcemeda to wait for the rural bus to Nueva Imperial - homeland of the Mapuche. I felt like a blinking street light catching every traveler's eye. "Look at that rubia." "There's a norteamericana." I hopped on the bus too early, too excited that I had found the right one. The bus driver raised his eyebrows. I had done it again, another social faux pas. "A Nueva Imperial," I told the money collector and handed him my 20 cents. The bus filled throughout the journey as bus stops birthed out of naked highway. When we reached Nueva Imperial I jumped down and ran to look for the terminal de buses rurales. A nice man in the local mini-market told me where to wait, "but I think it already left," he said. My gut sank. Now what, I thought as my eyes skimmed the tiny dusty town. Luckily, he noticed it roll up to the bus stop, an unmarked point defined by the congregation of locals. "Justamente," he said, smiling, and invited me to jump on. I felt like I was jumping into a math problem where you are given the dimensions of the bus and are supposed to use your accumulated knowledge to find out how many people can fit in the space. I found my own 'accumulated knowledge' to be very misleading and quickly learned that there is always room for one more. I reflected on a saying my junior high math teacher Mr. Rizzuti used, "A good mathematician is lazy," so I patiently waited to find out just how many people could you fit on a bus. The large man next to me was sweating and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. A young boy was holding a computer monitor in the aisle. Old women, wise in their wrinkles, were enjoying each others' company as their familiar landscape once again carried them home. School children, smartly identified by their sharp uniforms and backpacks, rode homeward as well. All of us squished together sharing our cultural space. We passed by rows and rows of small farms and houses. Chickens foraged in the ditches and children camouflaged in dirt chased goats around the yard. I asked the two school girls next to me on the bus how much longer until the Bahá'í school and they smiled and said "Ya mismo." I didn't feel any more certain; ya mismo can mean anything. The boy with the computer overheard where this strange blond woman was going and offered to tell me when to bajar. I smiled and thanked him, feeling the tight tension in my chest loosen. Finally the bus stopped and a man selling popsicles got on to cool off the passengers. There were children playing in the yard near the dirt road and my friend with the computer told me this was the school. I thanked him and said goodbye as I waded through the sticky kids eating ice cream and popsicles. I approached the front gate of the school and was greeted by a hand-painted sign in white and blue. Four kids immediately rushed over to me leaving their games behind looking at the visitor with wide eyes. I said hello and Lilian Barrera came out to meet me and gave me a tour of the school grounds. Lilian and her husband Gerardo helped create the school for rural elementary and middle school children based on Bahá'í principles. Almost all of its students are from poor indigenous Mapuche families who farm miles and miles away. For them, their children are essential to the farm and education is not always top priority. Many times, families view the long ride to school on public buses as too dangerous for their young daughters and so, often, they are not encouraged to attend. Fortunately, the school has a dormitory available for the young girls if they choose to stay during the week. The Faizi School includes hands-on curriculum that incorporates the students' Mapuche heritage into their studies. Much of their indigenous language, Mapudungun, has been forgotten and repressed as children learn Spanish at school and in the world. Mapuche customs and agricultural traditions are being lost as they struggle to find a balance between their Chilean and Mapuche identities. Lilian and Gerardo's school includes a * acre farm that focuses on traditional agroecology techniques. Native Mapuche foods are grown in the gardens and children learn the principles behind agriculture in Mapudungun and Spanish languages. Lilian and Gerardo helped start the school over twenty years ago, it opened its doors in 1981 with 30 students in grades 1-4. The agroecology farm is fifteen years old. Gerardo explained why he and Lilian started the school. We were concerned about providing an education for rural children. We also wanted to make an education that had an environmental component and something that included hope for them, because they had a future in farming. This school has various themes: religion, values, environment, and intercultural studies. It is has an organic theme through it, but we focus more on agroecology than on organic because it is more all-inclusive and includes other things like culture, and traditional customs, and is more focused on humans. Lilian further explained, We specifically chose agroecology because it coincides with our Bahá'í beliefs - we talk about the future of humanity and the respect one should have for God's creation. This includes how to have an agricultural system that coincides with the initial Bahá'í beliefs. We believe that it is necessary to develop an agricultural system that is constantly growing forward for the future of the community, and to maintain this same agriculture for the rural families so that they conserve their identity as Mapuche farmers with principles of unity and diversity and respect to God's creation. Because all is created by God, and we cannot continue fighting with that which God created. Therefore, we had to develop an agricultural system that was outside the boundaries of modern agriculture; we arrived at the agroecology system. Lilian explained that for them, agroecology is a model or a system that incorporates the reality, social issues, culture, and nature of rural families. For example, if we use the theme of soil, which is seen as the paternal connection between a father and his child, the future of the Pueblo Mapuche [the political movement promoting Mapuche identity and community] greatly depends on the conservation of the land and the ability to continue living there. There is a direct connection with cultural values and culture. However, there is a stretch between the conservation of culture and the rural life and poverty situation. Obviously, we have to develop the agricultural system so that it becomes sustainable. So, that these parents can give their children soil of the best quality. What we have actually seen in the latest studies is that Mapuche farmers that received good soil, passed poor soil to their children, and now their grandchildren have soils that do not serve them at all and are not productive. The soils are totally destroyed and have lost all their levels of organic material. So we have developed a way to make the soil more productive along with all of the natural resources, the diversity of crops, the recuperation of natural forests, recuperation of natural springs, and all of which is natural. Gerardo adds that with the destruction of the soil composition, They have lost their quality of life. For example, a farmer works so hard to maybe sell some sacks of green beans; this earns him almost nothing. So it is not very good for them - so much work with little money and meanwhile losing soil quality. However, with another system that is more natural, they will come out better because they will make more money, take care of their soil, and will also protect their future. At least, we are encouraging the people to use their farmland to provide their own food and to work outside. Lilian explains that Another topic that is more important than the basic aspects we work with is the security for them to be able to feed themselves nutritiously within their own traditional rural and indigenous cultures. This has almost been totally lost in Chile. And so here, we are concentrating on this primary concern to help provide the opportunity to grow food for family consumption. First, the family for their own security advances to grow food during the whole year, which provides a diverse diet with products that are their own, including medicinal and aromatic plants; not only traditional products but also foreign produce that increases the variety of their diet, to construct the best environment, diet, and preservation of seeds. Lilian showed me a new poster they had made to promote the school's farm project that highlighted the project's name in Mapudungun and displayed a basket full of vegetables native to the Americas. Lilian and Gerardo also encourage farmers in the local and surrounding community to save seeds from season to season. For a farmer with limited resources, seeds are like gold for they represent next year's crop. If farmers collect and save their own seeds, then they become more independent from outside forces. By collecting the best seeds year after year, they also create a stronger local landrace selected to perform best on their own soils. Lilian explains that another topic that we are trying to promote here is about seeds and that rural farmers have a right to conserve their own seeds. It is the right of humanity and of rural farmers to conserve and improve seeds and evolve their culture. The Mapuche culture is not the same now; over the last 60 years it has changed a lot. This variety of potato, just as the evolution of the culture, is essential to the livelihood of the rural farmer and needs to be conserved by the rural farmers and not by nontraditional companies - so that they do it themselves. Therefore, to achieve this we have to discover a way to share this with the farmers. You cannot tell them to increase their diversity; they have to want to ask for it. Because of this, here we cultivate native varieties of potatoes, corn, squashes, and quinoa and all other crops that are important for the culture of the rural farmer so that it is driven by their own hands and not from the financial support of some company. Lilian and Gerardo's project also incorporates flowers into their agricultural system. On limited agricultural plots (many Mapuche plots are between * to 5 acres) it is often assumed that flowers are a frivolous use of space. However, they perform an important role in pest control by attracting beneficial insects and their aesthetic qualities add beauty and hope to poor communities. At the school demonstration farm, they grow many types of flowers - both native and foreign. Recently, they have made a commitment to concentrating on redeveloping habitat for native Chilean flowers, bushes, and trees. Lilian explained that We are also trying to develop the idea of gardening with identity. To take maximum advantage of native flora, species that have adapted to these climatic conditions and soils. They are very beautiful. We have to conserve them for their diversity, and so we are investigating and trying different gardening designs. We are working to reproduce these plants with the knowledge of their habitats and growth. The school's demonstration farm includes over 140 different species of plants on just * acre! Lilian says, "This is the diversity that we are driving. This includes medicinal plants, trees, and plants for human consumption like vegetables, and maybe we have even more at this moment - it is a great diversity." Diversity is an essential component of food security. If farmers plant many different crop species and lose one crop to pest and disease, then they still have the other crops to live off of that year. Your food security dramatically decreases if you plant just one or two crops and experience such a disaster. Lilian and Gerardo use the school and its demonstration plot as a way to create interest in alternative agriculture within the community. Their agricultural practices differ from the messages 'modern' conventional farming promotes, and many community members are skeptical about their agroecology methods. However, Lilian and Gerardo do not push them. Instead, they offer their farm as an example of a different way to approach farming. The children at the school participate in growing the foods and bring some of this knowledge home with them. The school also holds classes for adults on nutritious diets for children. They hold workshops on how to prepare soils, make compost with straw, plant, etc. The foods grown at the school are not sold but are used in the school cafeteria and as an exchange with local farmers. Lilian explains that, We practice a system of interchange. We began producing plants from our seedbeds that the people, our neighbors, needed and they had guano or manure from their animals that we needed. This exchange program has various objectives. One is to show the usefulness of our model and the other is to create a complete relationship with respect to the earth - something that is not just given to them from the government so that they see that here, on a land that before did not produce anything now fertilized only with the manure and straw that they bring, it has created all this produce. They know that this result does not bring in huge capital, but that the more materials they bring in, the more it will grow. Therefore, we started with an exchange of vegetables, and now we have an exchange that includes everything: vegetables, eggs, honey, chickens, rabbits, and more. For example, someone will bring a sack of manure and take with them lettuce, a bit of Swiss chard, a bit of carrots, anything that makes an equal exchange. Or someone might bring a bag of manure and take a kilo of honey. About seventy percent of our produce is for exchange with our neighbors and thirty percent is used to feed the students and school personnel. The effectiveness of the project depends a lot on the individuals that Lilian and Gerardo work with. The students bring all that they learn home to their families, but not everyone adopts the same principles on their individual plots. Gerardo explains that, "Some things are applied but this is a more complicated topic. It is not always like this We thought that it would happen more like this, that they would repeat some of these things, but it is not like this. Their system is very adverse to ours." Lilian adds that It is about half and half. They practice conventional chemical agriculture. Professionals that come to help them, bring their chemical product. It is easier and they think it is more modern; there is a heap of social belief in this. But, now there is more interest in what we are doing. They always ask us about alternative methods of preventing disease or plagues, because they see the results here. They come here to consult with us. Also, we have had cases with families that have children at the school and produce food to sell that is polluted by chemical agriculture, but they prefer to come here for the organic food to feed their own families because it is healthier and tastes better. There is acknowledgement that this type of agriculture is better, however increasing its application is complicated because of the other organisms with which they work. Gerardo agrees, adding, "to have a farm that requires a broader understanding is very complicated. It demands a higher level of comprehension of the process. On the other hand, conventional agriculture is easier because you just apply a chemical, but many times they do not apply it very well either." The Chilean government subsidizes chemicals for the rural farmers who cannot afford them, thus they become locked into a more industrialized form of agriculture which is based on following the chemical company's recipe rather than years of traditional agricultural knowledge. Furthermore, many times there is a lack of training in the safe use of agrochemicals. On my way to Rulo, I saw a man applying pesticides from a backpack sprayer on the small plot in front of his house. He was only wearing sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt, directly exposing his skin to the chemicals. However, as Lilian explained, agrochemicals are seen as the modern way to farm and safety precautions are often overlooked. Lilian explains that the reliance on government subsidies is very paternalistic. The government sends them the seeds and the technical support that has given them these ideas, all is a gift. It doesn't cost anything to the family, and the chemicals also, they pay for a percentage of them at best. Because of this competition, our own project is much slower, but it also reaches much deeper Our objectives are passed through the children and through the exchange program - they know that they will not start to see the results until five to ten years. For example, with the exchange program we are sending a message that the manure that they have is much more valuable than money. Never will the government sell you an egg for guano! All of the focus is on manure, because it has a lot of value. Therefore, our message is much more intense. The other interesting effect of our project is nutrition. At first, the families only asked for the products they were familiar with: squashes, lettuce, cilantro, tomatoes, and corn, but now there are families that ask for celery, eggplant, Italian squash, cucumber. This goes to show that they have already begun to change their diet. They come and ask for all that we grow here, a great diversity. If there is something that we are growing that they are not familiar with, they take some home, ask how to prepare it, and try it. This is how they continue to improve their diet. Lilian and Gerardo's vision rests on the success of every small movement forward towards increased sustainability. Lilian thinks We have to make opportunities to develop a system of agriculture to help the people. Currently, the systems of agriculture and natural systems have collapsed. The only alternative that humanity has is to develop our systems to be more natural so that we preserve the cultural and natural diversity for the future. Systems that are positive for identity and conserve all the natural resources are the only alternative we have for humanity. The Mapuche people have to begin like they did in the past, they have to develop, increase in numbers, experiment, and try new ways to preserve the ecosystem. Lilian and Gerardo's school has become a model for other communities that would like to establish similar projects. Lilian explains, Some schools or organizations of rural farmers that would like to start similar programs come and take a tour a long tour, seeing all of the technical experiments and afterwards we all meet in the dining room and converse about these themes. It helps to keep planting new seeds. We also go to expositions to present to people about what we are doing. We have been doing this for many years and have received recognition from institutions like the CONAMA [National Commission for the Environment], for example, or other institutions that know what we are doing and consult us when they need to. Lilian and Gerardo have committed their lives to using organic/agroecology agricultural methods to catalyze social change within their community. They had the opportunity of higher education and have used it to enrich the lives of the oppressed Mapuche people by reintroducing them to an agriculture that was their own and that provided them the tools to be healthy and successful farmers. The Mapuche are tied to the land. It forms the central aspect of their culture and political identity. As Lilian and Gerardo explained, organic and agroecology principles take a long time to materialize into tangible success, but the outcome is much more sustainable in the long term. Their school and the demonstration organic/agroecological farm have activated social change within the community. Slowly, Mapuche community members have begun to diversify their diets and consider more environmentally-friendly methodologies. They have learned ways to increase their own food security, empowering them to become more independent from government subsidies. By incorporating traditional Mapuche foods and farming practices, they also establish a daily connection with their heritage. When the fruits of their labor are successful, they gain pride from their cultural identity and traditions. This confidence is passed down to their children and over time will help build bridges towards a healthier community and indigenous identity. Rhonda Patzia, Walk-ing Be-ing is the verb that says the dimensions of depth in all verbs, such as intuiting, reasoning, loving, imagining, making, acting that are always there when one is really living. Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology, 24 I am fascinated by the concept of walking meditation for two reasons. First, I can't walk well ­ sometimes not at all. What a challenge, then, to attempt an awareness practice that represents a barrier to me in name alone. I theorized that the experience might be profound for me, considering that every shaky step I already take directs my awareness to my feet and legs. The second reason that walking meditation intrigues me is because I was told not to bother with it. All the Web surfing I did on the topic directs physically challenged people to sit while meditating. The info never lauds the potential awareness breakthrough of attempting it with a bum gait. It told me to remain still. But I don't want to. With MS, I can only tentatively plan the night before for the next day. If I wake up with a fever ­ as I often do ­ I can barely get out of bed, and a trip to the bathroom sends me ping-ponging from wall to wall through my hall of squeaky floors, dodging my dog. She thinks we're playing. This morning I awake refreshed, but still have to go through a.m. alertness rituals, which include a cup of ice water, a heat sensitivity pill, and green tea. Halfway through the green tea, I'm coherent enough to find my glasses, at which point the world materializes enough for me to embrace it - slowly. I dress, and although I feel good, out of helpful habit I pick up my left leg with both hands, aim it at the leg hole of my shorts, and drop it through with adept precision. Alert and clothed, I'm ready to meditate. I'm ready to move. I begin. Even though the Internet suggests stepping out the door to feel my feet rest on the ground for a minute or so, I begin by struggling with putting on my biking gloves, wrestling my wheelchair out the swiftly-closing-in-my-face front door to my too-small-for-both-of­us front porch, and throwing my 20 lb. roller down my rail-less concrete steps, across the aggravatingly lumpy grass, down the insufferably chaotic driveway, and to the grassy, concrete sidewalk that runs in front of our new home. Once I get to the sidewalk, I stand upright and breathe, planning to really begin the meditation at this point, even though I remember that one major "rule" of walking meditation is to make the practice my own. Tomorrow, I think, maybe I won't cuss at my wheelchair. Two women are coming my direction, so I pretend to be inspecting my wheelchair tire as they pass. No time to be friendly, I think. I'm meditating! Pushing my chair slowly down the sidewalk, I breathe and think about my feet first. My sock is all bunched up with my left foot, the one with the new brace that is a bit uncomfortable on my ankle, but not enough to stop me, and the doctor says I'll get used to it, in time, always in time, but doesn't my body fall apart even more in time? Chronic. Progressive. Exhale. I feel my feet lift and set down and I try to be intentional about walking in a straight line, which the brace helps on account of the plastic sole not letting my foot drop and drag. Two years ago I asked Mike if he noticed that my gait was a little odd, a little shaky. He smiled. I like what I am doing with my feet, like feeling them, so I relax them and move up my leg to feel clothing and wind on my shins, then knees, then thighs. I am attentive to how they are all working, relax them one by one, and then move up to my hips and pelvis. The sidewalk no longer has grass in the cracks, but large cement filler nodes in each ­ like keloids. My wheelchair goes up and down them every couple of steps. I like the roughness. I feel it moving my whole body. The how-to sheets for walking meditation talk of imagining that my pelvis is carving a three-dimensional triangle as I move down a path. This imagery is fun, but I'm swaying terribly, which frustrates me at first, until I imagine how interesting my triangle must be. I go around a smooth sidewalk next to a hilly pond and park area. My muscles work differently as I go uphill. My back, neck, arms, all tight. I relax them and re-relax my legs. I feel like a rag doll and wonder that I am still moving so easily. I circle the pond, but when I go downhill, my chair wants to run away with my body. I take control again with attention to my legs, arms, back. At the bottom of the hill, I need to rest. I push my wheelchair to the grass and collapse into it. My body feels warm and tingly. Four ducks float in the pond, move a little, dive a little, bob some more. Their legs must feel good hanging through the cool water. I feel the breeze on mine. I breathe deeply. My eyes close. But I hear voices! Distant? No, near. My eyes start open and dart around and around like tracking lasers, like desperation. Do they see me? What do they think? Do they know I'm meditating? They probably think I'm praying ­ but like a christian. Wouldn't want to give 'em the luxury of that thought, dammit! Inhale exhale inhale exhale . I feel my eyes in my head again and forget what came before this breathing. Do I roll myself home? I enjoy walking. I exhale and stand. I relax my muscles. The birds. I begin The breeze on my legs and across my face. I feel cool. The sidewalk cracks. "Bump, bump." "Bump, bump." Happy. Content. "Bump, bump." "Bump, bump." Wheelchair bars in my hands. Waving to a passing car. "Choock choock." "Choock choock." Old woman in a nightie. Alone. Cutting a hedge. She doesn't look up. I pass, solitary. "Choock choock." "Choock choock." Shadows. Birds. Leaves moving. Wheelchair up the driveway. Gravel. Crunching sound at my feet. Muscles shifting. Backyard. Park. Sit. Movement of light. Feel it. Breathe -lived and written September 2003 **** Rhonda Patzia, Dancing I used to leave before the dance started. I liked to join fellow Goddard College students in sitting to watch the Cabaret, but the thought of so many exuberantly moving people intimidated me ­ and reminded me of before. The production ends. I don't leave. Reflexively and nonchalantly I jab my fist into my gut to see how my bladder is doing. It feels okay, so I beeline toward the alcohol. I fill the bottom of a styrofoam cup with straight vodka. I think about first having another beer, but the alcohol content seems inadequate at a time like this ­ a time when people are already beginning to move rhythmically around me. I feel dizzy, see a semi-removed place on the wooden bleachers, grab yet another cookie on the way to it, and I lean there, cup and cookie to my mouth, knees pulled way up across my chest and face. I'm wearing my winter hat and coat in case I leave. I like the dim lights. From my distance, I observe the buzz of the room, from milling margin folk to those falling onto the dance floor and abandoning their bodies to the music. If I let my eyes' focus go limp, which the alcohol helps, I just see one big blob of movement, like an amoeba. The center seems to be shaking ecstatically, while the corners gently sway. I lift my cup to my lips and vodka spills all over the front of me. My body jerks. I laugh. I straighten my knees to the floor and take my hat off. I let my eyes slip in and out of amoeba-mode, but from either perspective the movement is stunning. I feel jealous, then nostalgic, then proud of the movers, then then then I think I might cry. I set my vodka down. Friends sometimes fall from the dance floor to sit a while with me, and although we try to scream casual chitchat over the music, I'm more mesmerized by our rhythm of nodding our heads and smiling. I feel cozy, like the room is holding me. I take off my coat. Scott must see me feeling my body because he grabs my hands. "Wanna dance?" he asks. "I'll hold you." I don't hesitate, and I literally fall with him onto the dance floor. I grip both of his hands tightly and test my legs. They won't move much, but they're not giving out. I attend to my upper body to feel the rhythm sway it from side to side. I fly my arms in the air with his. I'm leading. As I get braver, he holds just one hand and we attempt some shaky spins. I'm dizzy and laughing, then I run into somebody. It's Juliana. I photographed her earlier in the week: a Colombian woman fully naked in a snowfield. Juliana startles, recognizes me, grabs my free hand, and I have twice the support, which lets my legs collapse and recover, collapse and recover. I throw myself forward, and they catch me and pull me upright. I fall backward, and they have learned our rhythm. I'm not scared about my improvisation. When the song ends, I can hardly stand, but I hug Scott. He's still holding me and helps me to walk back to my spot on the bleachers, where I collapse in a little puddle of vodka. My legs and arms are tingly, and I'm breathing hard. I look back to the dance floor, smiling, seeing beautiful movement. I don't let my eyes go limp again. - lived February 2004; written April 2004 **** Rhonda Patzia, Picturing Bodies In August 2003 I began a project of photographing female friends and acquaintances at Goddard College, most in some state of nakedness. I did the project in order to offer us all a unique experience of ourselves as bodies, to begin the work of supplying our culture with real images of real women, and to prove to myself that, despite my challenges with multiple sclerosis, I was still able to move through life with passion, vision, and strength. The work synthesizes my skills as a professional photographer with my studies and meditations about feminism, female embodiment, and wellbeing. The discipline of so acutely seeing women has transformed my eyes and my life. ... She sees suddenly that her legs are woman's legs. Her shoulders drop softly and infinitely. Her belly rounds into dark hair. She is moved to call herself beautiful, to see the abundance of her skin. Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature, 194 I never imagined that so many would strip. I never expected that women at Goddard College would take off their clothes for my camera, for me. I told them they could if they wanted to but only if they wanted to strip. "Just for you," I said. "Nobody else has to see." "Only if you feel comfortable enough." "But wouldn't it be nice?" So many exposed women in one place, one week. One. For me each session was like a meditation. Attention. One person at a time only. Vital. Just one, or it became noisy and not so much about us and how we moved together. "What makes a good portrait?" some ask. Breath. I would begin each session by breathing before we met, whether early morning or evening. Inhale With hushed morning tones we chatted, we subjects, on the way to a spot worthy enough to contain us ­ the forest usually. We talked more concretely of the upcoming shoot. What did she want? Where would we go? And I would sometimes have to breathe for her. Exhale Upon arrival at our destination, slowly I would move and spin to notice light and how it fell on her, background and how it accompanied her, foreground and how it hid and exposed, camera settings and how they helped it all, and anything else that would express her, express us. Inhale If she wanted to feel her body uncovered, comfort with this kind of exposure took more time for some, and less for others. But remembering that rhythm depends on the space in-between, we rested when we needed to. Exhale I would attend to our breath in flashes as the time unfolded, breathing through tightness and inflexibility. "What do you want me to do?" most would ask, not sure where to put their hands, how to hang their arms. "Tell me what you want." Feel yourself move. Just Feel. Inhale I was aware when my eyes were not attentive to the woman before me. Breathe I could feel when too much of a focus on line and shape and f-stops and film burning made her start to disappear before me. Breathe and breathe Most sessions were quiet and about the presence of bodies: hers and mine. Bodies: ours. I was present enough to forget all that wasn't before me. She was present enough to forget what stood in the way. And we were both present enough to forget the rest of the campus as we danced our way toward incarnation. Anne was my first, since I knew her already, knew she was open, knew that I myself needed to get used to such a new rhythm between women. I don't think she saw how I transfigured there, breathing in and out, in and out, there in the tall grass that flew up between us, sometimes revealing, sometimes hiding. I need a new perspective, I thought then, a higher angle. So I crawled onto her truck's tailgate and forgot. I forgot my legs, forgot I couldn't. Forgot. See how Lynn, whose study focus is grief, hunches, giggles, then straightens there in the trees that become her. And how Debbie laughs, calls me crazy, and says with light in her eyes, "I'll take it all off, but just skin. No breasts or crotch. Just skin. Only skin." Sylvia's body is not so much her own yet. I saw that. I saw her eyes leave and float somewhere beyond, behind me, ripped from their sockets, I think, by a life of high fashion, of modeling body alienation. "One good picture terrified me," she said. "I worried that in the next I would be too fat, too old, too freckled. You know what I mean. Not good enough." I knew what she meant. Elaine hates everything above her neck. "Not my face," she said. "I don't like my face at all ­ or my brain, but that won't show up on film." I didn't tell her that it all shows up. I respected her self-loathing and photographed her nude silhouette. But I regret it. I regret that I pictured her as a shadow ­ like a man might. Lise, an advisor, sees right through me. At the residency, I felt uncomfortably naked around her, having already exposed myself to her through language for an entire semester. "I'm not going to take my clothes off," she said as we ducked into the trees, having heard the rumor. "I wasn't expecting you to," I said. We both felt awkward. I could tell this as I stood there exposed, noticing how the light fell through her skin. Carol and I locked ourselves in an upstairs bathroom with nice window light, and we wonder still that nobody tried the handle. "Just my breasts and necklace," she said. Carol Scott, named for her dead grandfather ­ Carroll - and dead brother - Scott. Both dead. But laughing breasty in a corner by the toilet. Alive. Carolyn has breast issues. "Boys always made fun of them," she said. "Girls too." Carolyn didn't want to get wet or dirty and theorized beforehand about easing into nudity, exposing her crotch first. Carolyn with her breasts and her ideas, losing all her clothes at once, flying her arms in the air and thrusting her body forward to say, "Look at me! Look at me!" I looked. I could hardly hear quiet Olivia say okay to a portrait, could hardly hear that she wanted to wear clothing, could hardly hear much of what she mumbled. But I felt she really wanted to, felt that she might someday speak louder - yell maybe. Emily stripped in the trees with such attention that I could see her feeling it, see her knowing something new. Was it air? Skin? Relationship? Was it the integrity of being a beautiful body there with nature, there among her own? Melissa, Favor and I swam naked at the quarryin the early morningwith the haze. We photographed one another half on land, half in water. Morning-touched bodies tiptoeing over pointy rocks and squishing through mud to rest in the ease of water, and nakedness, and connection. The haze cleared as we went on. Anne photographed me in a field of flowers. "No, they're weeds," she laughed. Beautiful nevertheless, I thought, when seen up close without the cover-up of a name. I felt beautiful too, without clothes, without symbols, for the simple reason that I was standing naked in a field of white and green things shooting up around me. Jeanne was my last and thanked me for asking, for taking the time for her. Earlier in the week, she wore clothes for a session. Later she wore none. In the meditation room, she wore none. In the trees, she wore none. "Do you realize what you are doing for women here?" she said to me throughout the week. Did they realize what they did for me? "What does embodiment feel like?" Lise asked me. Like I felt when picturing women. Passion. Connection. Joy.   -lived and written August 2003   Emily Von Strien, Molecules of Home In the last three weeks, I have been on a total of eight different commercial airplanes. It is unusual for me to be in the air as much as I have been. As I am sitting here writing this, I realize it is a fitting metaphor for my life right now. One thing about these recent trips is that I've noticed patterns about the way I fly. I noticed that after I locate my seat, jam my oversized carry-on in the compartment overhead, scope out the individual I will be sharing an arm rest with for the next three hours, the first thing I do is tune into the rushing sound of air being pushed through those small vent holes from virtually every inch of the cabin. It is a combination of a hiss and a drone. After a few minutes it is an easy noise to ignore, but, for whatever reason, I don't. I think it's more the idea of the air than it is the sound of the air. It is air that is going to be pushed through the cabin and recirculated over and over and over. I think at some level a part of me is acknowledging that the air I'm going to be breathing into my lungs for the next three hours is the air that has already visited the dark lungs of every other passenger on the airplane. However microscopically, for the next few hours, I'll be breathing in what every body on the plane is breathing out. I imagine other people's worries, toxins, anticipation, obsession, annoyance, fantasy, viruses, love, and fatigue riding out on some soft molecule to meet up and exchange with molecules of my uncertainty, restlessness, and sense of obligation. Among other things. On the molecular level at least, the exchange is always a fair trade. I lean my head against the hard plastic examining the inside space between the two layers of the oval window. I wait to hear the announcement requesting my full attention for the safety demonstration. I wait for the moment before the plane starts to accelerate. I wait to see the concrete runway turn into a smear. I wait to see the ground fall away. I wait for the feeling of being pushed back in my seat. I wait for the mechanical clunk-clunk sounds of the landing gear being tucked away in the belly of the plane. I wait for all of the heads in the plane to level with each other. I wait for the ding of the seat belt sign. I wait for the announcement of the cruising altitude. I wait for the beverage cart to stop at my aisle. I wait for the cue to deliver my rehearsed request to the flight attendant who jabs my personal boundary bubble with her overly powered face, "What are my options for carbonated beverage? I'll have ginger ale, please. Just a little ice. Thank you." I wait for this well-known sequence of airplane travel to play itself out. All the while I'm still holding on to my breath, like Diane Court in the last scene of the movie Say Anything. The only differences being that this undefined anxiousness of mine does not physically translate into a dewy visage, which is totally fine as there is no Lloyd Dobler next to me squeezing my hand reassuring me that everything will be fine once I hear the ding of the seat belt sign going off. That every little scenario that my little head could ever bother to conjure, that once I hear the ding - it is just the assurance of the ding I'm waiting for - it'll be all dreams-do-come-true and happiness. Forever. Welcome aboard United Flight 117 Portland to Chicago O'Hare. At this time, please direct your attention and follow along as your flight attendant reviews the emergency safety placard located in the pocket of the seat in front of you. Okay. In front of me, what do I see? When I pull the pocket toward me, I see pale crumbs stuck in the crease of the blue upholstery pocket. Some crumbs fall away, once given my little extra stretch on the elastic band. Some kid's crumbs, I imagine. Cookie crumbs. Pretzel crumbs. Bun crumbs. Seeing pale crumbs in the cracks of dark upholstery reminds me of mini vans and very large people who lose and later find things that had been who-knows-when swallowed into the deep, warm folds of their body. Glossy magazine. Shiny advertisements. The emergency safety placard. Cheap headphones, the navy colored cord twisted and knotted around the headset. My hand reaches deeper into the pocket scanning some of the more sketchy, undefined textures while searching for one last item. A small disappointment. There are certain expectations that come with air travel. One of mine is to find a crisp, white motion sickness bag stashed away in the seat pocket along with the safety placard, the headphones, and the pretzel crumbs. It is a reassurance of sorts. Just in case. These days, I have been a thirsty dog lapping away at reassurance in any shape or form. It doesn't seem to matter if the reassurance arrives via federal safety regulations or the awkward there-there's from an unsuspecting stranger. All I know is that I can't seem to get enough reassurance. There is some deep rolling swell of motion in my head that tells me I am not going to be okay. We are not going to make it out of this one alive. This plane is equipped with four emergency exits - two at the front of the plane and two exits in the rear of the cabin. Federal regulation requires all passengers to be in their seats when the seat belt light is turned on. To buckle, insert the metal tab into the metal buckle and pull the strap tight. To release, simply lift the flap. Simply lift the flap. Lift to release. You tell me that by releasing my muscles, I'm stronger. This is difficult for me to accept. Releasing into my body, exhaling, loosening, shaking all of the tension through my limbs, like a horse shaking off the flies, I am more equipped to defend myself . My body is more efficient. Follow along. Pay attention to the illustrations. You will be more stable. You'll be more rooted. The secret is in letting go. The more you let go the stronger your position. Don't hold on. It is the worst thing. Holding on pulls your muscles from your bones, it pulls your bones from your bones, your mind from your heart. It pulls you away from the earth. Letting go, releasing, sinking into yourself pulls you into you. This is what you said to me over and over. Like I said. This is difficult. Other things that are said: Pampered wisps do not a cloth doll make. And there we have, a lesson that is easier to speak of, than it is to - How'd you say - live by? And also, Every wise child is sad. Really? That's what they say. I don't think I'm supposed to know when the air pressure is adjusted mechanically. Most of me doesn't acknowledge when the air is pushing more pounds or when fewer pounds than normal are pushed onto every square inch of my skin. All of this surface area of mine is doing what it does and doing it well. Though it fails to register the shifts in air pressure. It seems as if just the deep, buried parts acknowledge the shifts. The parts that don't see what is really going on instruct me to open my mouth wide until there is an inaudible pop and the pressure in my ears feels normal again. And it is that way with my emotion. I don't notice the shift in air pressure that allows for all of this old sadness of mine to rise to the surface. But some intricate function of my body registers a change and gives the go-ahead to let the old stuff, normally anchored down, to float up, breaking the surface, instructing me to open my mouth wide and say something. Or maybe to say nothing. Maybe just to breathe a little bit. I don't know where all this old sadness is coming from. It always seems that after some time, sadness should dissipate the way when a cloud sheds its moisture the cloud isn't there anymore and the moisture takes on new missions. It just seems like that is the way it should be for this sadness of mine. Moisture is released. Let's move on. This particular sadness feels like the far-stretching bed of white clouds I am looking at through my window. There is a memory of being very small and riding in the back seat of the car with my mom. I remember asking her seriously what it was like to jump on clouds. She didn't understand. I reminded her of how everybody who gets married jumps on clouds. Was it fun? Was it scary? I watched the back of her large, still head and waited for her answer, but she didn't say anything. I am left to believe it was so fun she'd been rendered speechless about the whole occasion. Someday I'll jump on clouds, and I won't lose my tongue. (Sometimes I wish I could have my young mind back. A mind that knows it doesn't know and at the same time, knows what it does know without question.) Every time the airplane changes altitude, there is a feeling of sinking or lifting, lightness or heaviness. I know we just began our descent because I feel my body lifting slightly in the seat. I imagine the co-pilot double-checking some computer read-out indicating that the airplane has begun its descent at just the right angle. I imagine my body taking a minute to catch up when the computers in the control board initiate lower altitudes. For a very short moment, my body and this machine are not moving in the same direction. These are the only moments - moments when I am not moving in the same direction or at the same speeds as my surroundings - that I realize that I'm even moving at all. In some strange way, it is a reassurance. I'm getting somewhere. The pilot announces our descent and estimated time of arrival into Chicago O'Hare. The feeling of lightness is followed with its converse, a sensation of heavy hands on my shoulders pushing me back down. This feeling of lifting and releasing, of lightness and heaviness stays with me for days after my trip. I have a hard time explaining it to people. I tell people it feels like I'm still on the airplane, still somewhere between here and there. I tell people that there is motion in my head that doesn't feel like it belongs to me. It is a displaced motion of air and pressure and gravity. It is displaced. And when I think about it, that is just the best way I can explain the sadness. If there were to be a sudden change in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from overhead. Even though the bag may appear not to inflate, the oxygen is flowing. The oxygen is flowing. The oxygen is flowing. Remember, always secure your mask before offering assistance to others. In the 1920s, Amelia Earhart would have to take her own oxygen tanks on flights. She wisely advised, "Beyond sixteen thousand feet it is well to have [oxygen] on tap if a pilot intends to stay aloft a long time or to go higher". Amelia writes about how she would push her plane and her lungs to grab hold of oxygen that was scarcely there. On Amelia's first trip over the Atlantic, she intentionally left behind the life preserver to save on weight. It is as if she didn't give herself any other option but to make it all the way across the big, big water. Even from way up here there is so much water. People who aren't from the Midwest just don't get how massive the Great Lakes are. Even from way up here I can't see the shore lines. I push my face against the small oval window in the plane, and with some concentration I detect the smallest white specks, whitecaps, on the surface of all that blue. I see short lines moving across the surface of the water. Sea gulls, must be. In some part of my brain, a generic soundtrack of water, wind and crying gulls pushes out the white noise of the ventilation system and the drone of the jet engines and the dinging of the seat belt sign and the coughing and the baby crying. For a moment or two, I'm back on earth breathing cool lake air. I wonder how far up I would have to be to fit the entire circumference of this expansive body onto the back of my retina. How much distance do I need to put between me and my watery life down below before I have, as they say, true insight? Is this what I want? A scenic overlook? The blue in my eye filling me up more and more? Maybe I just want descent, plain and simple, into something unknown. Something dark and intricate. Something smarter than all this surface area that keeps me from spilling myself all over everything. I can see buildings and dense city grids. I am descending onto earth freshly thawed. Waiting to hear the ding, I pull out my ticket from the front pocket of my backpack. I want to look at the words. Both my name and the final destination are printed in heavy black ink. It says I'm ultimately destined to land some place well-established with green. It is not exactly the type of reassurance I was hoping for, but for the moment and the time between connecting flights, it will have to do. Notes on the embodiment and writing workshop ­ residency, Sunday 20th June (Participating were Goddard faculty Lise Weil, Ellie Epp and Karen Campbell, and students including Emily Van Strien, Rhonda Patzia, Favor Ellis, Carolyn Hauck, Melissa Lockman, Layla Holguin-Messner, Michael Deragon, Cyndi Deville, Mercy Morganfield, and many others.) Q: What's your understanding of embodied writing? What do you think is the opposite of embodied writing? How do you get to embodied writing? Will you read an example? Emily: The opposite is when there's information you have to get through and part of you is elsewhere. And when you're talking but not hearing what you're saying. An example of embodied writing is the piece I read last night, about feeling the airplane lifting and releasing. When you write about the sensation, there seems to be something bigger. It's more vulnerable to write from the feelings rather than the thoughts. [reads Rhonda's incontinence piece] Rhonda: In a way I'd say that all of my MA work was about becoming embodied. It's writing from sinking awareness into my body, radical acceptance of my whole body.The opposite is writing that's not grounded in time and space. Favor: I know that my writing is embodied when I read it in public and I cry, and when I see meaning I didn't realize was there. When it feels foreign and scary that's when it's embodied. I am part of a writer's group called the Dangerous Writer's Group, and one of the things that happens in this group is that when we are talking about a piece we say "put it on the body." What is usually meant by that is, write how the hand moves holding the teacup, but the way I mean it is more, how does it feel inside my skin. I write about nature as myself. I'm the wind, someone else is rock. It puts me in a place where I have community, connection. When I write in an embodied way, I learn from my writing. I teach myself through the symbolism. [reads a collection of poems including the one that made her cry last night] Layla: I think of the opposite as forms, writing that's empty, mimics somebody else. When I write that way I get a headache and feel tired. I do yoga and have a ritual for daily grounding to bring myself into presence. [reads a piece about an initiation ritual structured as a birth] Carolyn: It's interesting how very subtle things can create powerful feelings [leads us through an exercise from Julie Henderson's The lover within that works with feeling qualities of the energy field]. Melissa: A question I work with is, where do I feel the writing in my body. Can I write something that makes me feel a certain part of my body. I use meditation to get to presence, here and now. I also work with someone who uses a technique called somatic experiencing. She'll ask me, what is your felt sense right now. You can actually change something this way: if you can feel it right now you can let it go. Writing from a dream is another way. We sometimes talk about a body voice. My body has as much to say as what comes out of my head. Another thing I'm interested in is the embodied reader. How does it feel while you're reading it. [reads an anxiety-producing piece and asks people where they felt it ­ Favor says she felt a current up and down her left side, which she thought might be a shield. Cyndi says she felt pressure at the forehead.] Michael (to Melissa): You scared the hell out of me. [After all the responses to Melissa Lockman's poem, there's some very energized talk about rhythm. Mercy says "Words are energy," this after wondering if her own writing is embodied. (Lise goes, "Are you kidding?") She goes on to talk about rap music as the rhythm of rage. Juliana gets very excited and says that embodiment IS rhythm. "Tasting each word in your mouth" - somebody says this. But who? And a propos of what?] Michael: I can't say anything about the opposite of embodied writing, because if I'm not surfing I can't write. I tend to write my poems when I'm out there on the water waiting for a wave. I remove my ability to control what's around me when I step into the water. I remove the ability to control the atmosphere around me and immerse myself in the ocean. You put your body through immense experience. When you go under, your mind goes white. When you come up it's like a birth cry. I look at this beautiful body that is most of the world. Looking at the water and being underneath the water are two different things. I try to write from all the perspectives at once. [reads from a piece called At once] Mercy (to Michael): Almost every line jumps you from one feeling to the next. It's like organized chaos. This afternoon feels like being at the Louvre. You know how sometimes reading is just like watching a television screen. This kind of writing is more like appreciating art and music. Lise: Yes! That's exactly what MeLissa Gabriels has been saying about the writing of Nicole Brossard and France Theoret: it's literature as art, as music. Cyndi (to Michael): When you read your work I go away, I'm not there. Ellie: One thing nobody has spoken about yet is writing that talks about other people's bodies. I think when you are feeling your own body one of the things that happens is you're very aware of other people's bodies. An example is a passage where Nadine Gordimer describes her character sitting in an airplane looking at another passenger's hands. She describes them so accurately you can see them. Lise: That's amazing, I've been sitting here thinking something so very similar, actually I've been having this illumination - listening to Melissa's poem in which she enters the lives of other women around the world, and Favor's poem in which she becomes the wind, and Michael's poem in which he's everywhere, and thinking about what Mercy read last night at the reading, how she entered her nephew and spoke through his voice, I was thinking about how it's being embodied that allows us to enter other bodies. Far from being narcissistic or self-referential - it's when we go deeply into ourselves that we touch others, have access to other worlds.