Embodiment – living in awareness through your body – is also the way to feel interconnected to everything and everyone. As I turn my attention within my body, beyond my skin into my tailbone for instance, and I begin to explore how my tailbone moves ever so gently, I feel how it is connected to tissue and fluid, how the small muscles hold it in place, how there is a living web of aliveness inside my pelvis. Just as there is a world of beauty under the still surface of a lake, or the waves of the ocean, there is a world of unimaginable complexity within us – a living breathing ecosystem.
As we connect up the dots in our own bodies we become aware, in a tangible physical way, that we are a part of everything. Our breath, our blood, our hearts are totally dependent on the air and water which surrounds us. Our bodies are supported by the ground – the living Earth – through our feet and legs. We are warmed by the sun, and soothed by the moon. As I consciously begin to acknowledge the ways in which I am intricately interconnected, I enter into deeper and more alive part of myself.Feeling and sensing are the ways we embody – feeling an emotion, feel into how it lives in my torso, how I tense or erupt in laughter when hearing someone speak. A gentle doe bounds across the yard, and I soften in sweet connection. We are inextricably linked, and by attending moment to moment, we become aware of the living web that holds us. As I write this on the page my muscles are firing and my breath is moving, stirring the fluids inside me. If I am engaged and excited, my breath moves in deeper waves. If I am bored or angry, my breath takes on a different shape. I look out the window, called by the insistent pecking of the woodpecker, and my breath changes again. I am amused and delighted, and ripples swirl in my belly. All the while I am connected through my bones to the chair, held in gravity and the embrace of the air around me.
In the morning I write and move, exploring on the large area rug in my living room, noticing what words come without agenda, following the voices in my body. An ache or a stiffness somewhere in my body, or a sensual stretch, each morning some new way in. Extending my fingers, the skin on my arms gently pulls over my muscle, I am drawn to my ribs and the movement of my breath. My heart stirs in recognition of the subtle effort.all around its resting place. All of this and more in a moment, then in the next moment I become aware of the birdsong outside. If I follow the feeling evoked by the sweet tones, I will feel a corresponding movement inside me. Life can be very simple if I begin by noticing what is within and around me. It is a path that never ends, deepening in embodiment I grow in ever expanding joy, held in a web of interconnection, grateful for each moment.
Gratitude is another way to enter the web of connection.. When I feel stuck or disconnected, gratitude can be a way to reconnect. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of moving from the top of the head down, feeling grateful for each part of your body. Or I feel my gratitude for the tree outside my window, for the shelter from the sun and wind it provides, or its gentle beauty and presence. In that moment I once again feel interconnected and held by my surroundings. I am not moving through the world, over a landscape, I am embodied and embedded within its contours. I become aware that I am a small part of a vast and intricate living Earth, wild and free, changing moment to moment, and yet held in an elemental web of mystery.
The Nature of Us – Sabrina Page has an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, a background in movement and dance, focused on embodiment. She has been deeply influenced by her connection with nature, shaped by playing in woods and water growing up. Sabrina’s writing explores the earth community, love, body, embodiment, interconnection, our planetary moment, music – and the creativity and possibilities inherent in being human.