Relearning Loveliness

I recently co-facilitated a workshop for folks working in racial justice with my colleague Sonali Sangeeta Balajee. It was a day of the intersections of somatics and social justice, a day of exploring the truths shared between the individual body and the social body. We focused on restoring and rehydrating our purpose and presence and used this powem by Galway Kinnell to guide us:

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on the brow

of the flower,

and retell it in words and touch,

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

We used the poem to talk about re-teaching — not teaching but RE-teaching, — reminding us that loveliness is innate, brilliance is innate, equity is innate. As a multi-racial, multi-positional team, Sonali and I talked about the fact that in both the individual body and the social body, IT IS OUR NATURE TO BE FREE, we talked about liberation as the dismantling of what interferes with our freedom.
The days when I get to use my work, use Alexander Technique, to create conditions where people can come into contact with themselves, and even for a moment, experience a little more freedom, those are magical days.

I am grateful and awed by the brilliance of those who showed up.