Presentation for Dr. Enoch Page’s Anthropology of Consciousness class. U. Mass-Amherst, 11/02/08. The typing was messy, perhaps better as content extracted from the form, so this is a translation:
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*What are the intonations, rhythms, and textures that come from our body and our living experiences in our bodies?
*Where do the multiple practices and lineages that we have access to and intersect with live within us, and amongst us?
*What provides that possibility of rich integration of what we learn and come to know?
*Where are the spaces inside of us and how does our attention move?
*How does what is the language when it comes from our physical knowing?
*How is thinking a physical act, and what are the subtleties that come from learning new ways of thinking?
*What is cultural expression as it changes moment to moment?
Here, I am proposing that we find source language, sound and our voice and text from our embodiment.
Embodiment: an awareness and sensitivity to our physicality, perceptions, and relationship to our environment as we come to speak.
You know the difference: when you witness someone talking but it is unclear to whom the address… when someone’s speaking moves you. Here, i invite us to speak from being moved.
One way I find this is take place is by transmigrating/crossing through media – writing, moving, sounding, speaking . . all the treasures of our experience of being alive and with form. to use our form and explore our form to a full capacity.
Why?
By stepping outside of our image of our identities, public language, the normalized western dominant ways of proving ourselves through presentation, we need not abandon our sense of self for community/society. Rather, accept: we do not know, and we know. Our opinions can change and yet, we have bodily wisdom. Allow for the changing and in fact be a part of its composition through kee observation and seeing what can emerge.
This will be part of the transformation of our being and our societal organism as well as our relationships to our families and communities.
There are so many ways, and here I ask you to be open to listening to what intonations and new language come from within, from and through you. What pours forth, and can you tune into this?
*What is our indigenous experience from the perspective of our embodiment?
*How do we embody, each one of us, multiple cultural experiences?
*How is the process of thinking action?
*What is a single act and a single action?
*What is the language that arises from our embodiment?
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its intonation
its tone
its texture
its music
Prosody – all the elements of language not about semantics or meaning, but the music! (thanks for the word that opened the door, Robert and Daria)