25 November 2020
Themes
Ranting, survival, health, trauma, recovery
Tentacles of enquiry
“I didn’t mean to start off with ranting”. Some of us needed to vent, to release energy and frustration.
..Processing is part of the process…
Coming back to the question: How to take care of ourselves within capitalism? Needing to look after ourselves, to slow down, eat well, move and rest… but we need to work. Can dropping out be seen as a kind of stasis? Some people had time to feel better, in a way going to work feels normal and motivating when things feel chaotic.
How does the body process trauma? As one of us undergoes PTSD therapy related to long term Covid we talked about muscle movement therapy whilst thinking about the trauma.
…drumming rhythms…
…whilst talking…
…activating long term memory sites in the brain…
We consider other kinds of rhythmic movement: walking, art, dancing, sport.
A member of the group sends us the words “I’ll share my memory as my body understands it”.
Movement, noise, ceremony, reminds us of church. The kinds of rituals we aren’t usually in touch with. For some of us, art is this thing that gives us a purpose to do something physical or repetitive … dropping out allows us to self-reflect whilst moving … gardening, painting a wall…
…and processing…
you don’t need long term memory in an emergency, you shut off those pathways so it bounces around and the body responds in the way it first experiences it …
In our collective practice we often do labour intensive pieces that involve hand traced words, poems, stories. Tracing the letters feels familiar as a kind of muscle memory. Many don’t even realise these pieces are hand drawn yet the act of making them feels grounding…
…and processing…
“you spend all day cooking it then you eat it in ten minutes”
Not being able to process injustice quickly enough…seeing behaviours that repeat but feeling unable to act quickly to intervene…bringing about change by addressing things in real time, how? How can we learn this? Feeling shame about inaction. Being heard doesn’t have to mean being aggressive, it can mean being vulnerable (as vulnerability defined as strength.) Considering this in relation to our method of conversation as collective research.
In relation to privilege: dropping out or unwillingness to drop out (or step out) or stand out?
Thinking of exercises in disrupting. It takes 300 times to repeat something to make a habit…if we lessen the steps to make it easier we remove the barriers…
“I can speak two languages, one is ours, one is dog. Can one of you speak two languages?”
Where do you hold tension in your body? Jaw, back, joints…(as much in the brain as the body) At what points can you intercept it? Human interdependencies … by asking for help we challenge this individualised problem. How to bring our commitments into every action we make, to exercise and practice?
Leap frogging resources
- “WHAT CAN A BODY DO?” Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor take a walk
- PANDEMIC: RUN! RUN! RUN! By Dr Kai Syng Tan
- The Transformative Power Of Practice By Staci K. Haines and Ng’ethe Maina
- Poem from Politics of Trauma by Staci K Haines
JW
