embodiment – Embody Peacebuilding

On Care: In Resistance and Refinement

To practice into care is to practice into paradox. Even as this practice embodies a remembrance of our inherent interconnection, so too does it elicit a confrontation with our edges. And in these murky spaces between connection and boundary, I find myself wading in inquiry. The questions are many, however two are feeling particularly sticky for me this week:

How do we navigate encounters with resistance to care we may extend?

How do we grapple with the ways in which our care is imperfect?

These questions feel alive as I reflect on my experiences of both receiving and giving care in contexts that were anything but clear. I am writing this piece not for clarity on answers, but rather to better understand the contours of questions we will inevitably encounter in our relational lives.

As a teenager and into my early twenties, I experienced multiple hospitalizations and endured various forms of intensive treatment for an eating disorder. At different times I experienced a constellation of hospital stays, weekly health clinic visits, intensive outpatient programs, a residential program, and regular sessions with multiple therapists. The intensity varied, however for several years, some level of treatment formed a constant in my life. There were times in which I acknowledged the need for these interventions. I could understand the risk to my health and the risk to my life that my eating disorder created (even if at times I felt ambiguous about the consequences of these risks). There were also times – when the eating disorder was strongest and thus when the level of treatment was highest – that I resisted the care that my parents and health providers were imposing.

In these moments, what I felt was anything but care. What I felt was an attack on my agency. Their perception was that my voice and choices were distorted by the eating disorder. In return, I felt that whatever I would express in terms of my physical or emotional needs was dismissed – at times partially and at times fully.

The severity of this experience varied according to the type of treatment I was receiving. I am deeply grateful to have worked with amazing therapists, a brilliant nutritionist, and to have had (and continue to receive) invaluable compassionate accompaniment from my mother. In contrast, I also experienced treatment protocols whereby I felt completely silenced – perceived and treated as a broken, self-destructive object that needed fixing.

In these extensions of care, which ranged from fierce compassion to dictatorial, there were many times I struggled and resisted. In this resistance, there was a significant difference in how I felt care and pushed through the resistance my eating disorder put forward. This difference was the felt sense of love, compassion, and humanization in how care was extended.

There were moments my resistance was met with harshness and berating. My attempts to express the raging discomfort I felt in my body were discounted. My emotional experience, my agency, my personhood – all disregarded. This led to fights, fractured relationships, sometimes even attempts to run away.

There were moments where my resistance was met with patience and compassion, a recognition of the challenges I was experiencing and a holding firm to what would support my recovery. I felt seen and held, and often the conversations that unfolded from these instances bolstered the relational fabric of care and supported the progress of my recovery. In these moments, I truly felt care, even as I was pushed beyond what felt comfortable. In fact, it was this quality of care that enabled me to do so and thus enabled my recovery.

Part of my recovery journey has entailed a recognition for the ways in which my individual experience of an eating disorder is an expression of family, cultural, and structural dynamics of hurt, harm, and injustice. Carrying this lens, scaling from the individual and relational levels to the systemic, I am brought to a recognition that in the work of justice and liberation, there will be times in which our extension of care will not be perceived or received as such. Our work toward assuring collective wellbeing – which entails a confrontation with powerful and destructive individual and collective patterns, shaping, and systems that prevail in the world we live in – will be met with resistance. There are many ways in which we can meet this resistance in the name of building a more just and dignified world. Without any of these invalidating different strategies, I find myself wondering:

How can we notice when our extensions of care diminish or uplift the humanity of those we are caring for?
What possibilities for transformation unfold if we meet resistance with fierce compassion?
How do we nurture the patience and build the resource to accompany and create the conditions for resistance to transform over the long term?

During the first six months of the COVID pandemic, I moved to Paris to accompany my grandmother through the French confinements. A remarkably strong woman, up to that point she was living in her apartment alone. However, as a 99-year-old, who turned 100 one month into the pandemic, it was clear she needed additional support through the strict confinements that characterized the early COVID response in France.

In my mid-twenties at the time, I had no previous experience as a live in carer for someone in old age. But more than a carer, I was a grand-daughter who wanted to do her best to ensure the safety and wellbeing of her grandmother, to take care of her as best I could.

My grandmother was often in significant discomfort and pain. In an effort to ease her discomfort and to attend well to her needs, I took over many of the (by then diminished) tasks she would have previously done. Much of this was to do with meals. I would prepare her food, set the table, serve her, cleat the table, and do the dishes – all tasks she would have done before.

I thought this was helpful until one day she reflected something to the effect of, “Before you came, I knew where things were in the kitchen, and now I don’t remember. I used to be able to do certain things, and I can’t anymore.”

With all my good intentions to do as much as I could to care for my beloved grandmother, I ultimately diminished her agency. There are times I question the extent of the repercussions of this, how this might have contributed in certain ways to her decline. For when we cease to practice certain actions, we lose our capacity to do them. And for such an elderly person, this loss is permanent.

I wish I would have known better. Rather than do so many things for her, I wish I would have accompanied her with greater attention to providing assistance while creating conditions for her to continue moving and doing as she would have before. There were times we did this well. For example, we would prepare vegetables together to be cooked, or I would set pots and pans in place for her to be able to cook simple things without needing to lift and move objects that were heavy for her. There were many other times I defaulted to doing too much, motivated simultaneously by a desire to care fully for someone I love as well as a strong inherited tendency toward control.

It has been over two years since my grandmother passed away. I remain ever grateful for the many wonderful moments we shared during the time we lived together in the final years of her life – playing Scrabble, listening to her stories, sharing songs we loved, going for outings along the Seine (once the confinement restrictions eased). I also often experience doubt and regret for the ways in which my care was imperfect.

From this experience, I am trying learn and grow my care practice – not to strive for a perfect care, but to care in more helpful ways. Again, I wonder…

How can we extend care in a way that uplifts the agency and dignity of those for whom we are caring? For our care not to be of a quality of doing for, but of accompaniment?
How can we presence the patterns and shaping that contribute to the ways in which we care, some of which may be motivated by love and others that may be motivated by fear and control?
How can we approach and embody care with transparent reciprocity – to clarify needs of individuals and in relationship, and to revisit these needs for if and when they evolve?

Placing these two stories alongside one another, I am struck by the parallels. In the same way I received care through control in my mid-teens, years later, I replicated this pattern. This is a simplifying observation, as there were many counter-examples both to the care I received from my parents and to the care I extended to my grandmother. Regardless, the parallel is striking, and invites a deeper reflection into how the ways we practice care in the present are shaped by our previous experiences both giving and receiving care.

If we seek to co-create cultures of care in our relationships, our communities, or organizations, and ultimately our world, must be willing to grapple with the complexities and paradoxes that shape how we experience care individually and across scales of relationship. My wish and my hope is that this grappling can be done with curiosity and compassion; in service of deeper understanding of self, others, and the systems we inhabit; and in the company of caring community to accompany our growth and healing.

The inquiries and reflections in this piece are elicited by and drawn from my participation in the RISE for Relational Facilitators training from the Courage of Care Coalition. I extend deep thanks to Brooke D. Lavelle and Maha El-Sheikh for crafting and holding this beautiful space, and to my fellow training participants for their reflections and contributions to co-creating the experience.

Practice is in the Return

There is a growing tide in the social change ecosystem that recognizes the role of self and collective care as necessary not only to support the sustainability of activists and social movements, but also to be in integrity with the vision and mission of the work. Such an approach to activism has been described in different ways in different contexts. A powerful current of this approach is that of healing justice. Cara Page and the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective describe healing justice in the following way: “Healing justice…identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence, and to bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.”¹ The cultivation of practices that support the transformation of trauma and violence and nurture healing at individual and collective levels is a crucial pathway toward sustaining activists and movements seeking peace and justice.

For individuals, organizations, and communities engaged in social change, a question thus arises as to how are such practices cultivated and sustained. In contexts filled with urgent and competing demands, and risks to personal and collective safety, accessing and prioritizing care practices is often perceived to be a distraction from the ‘real work.’ It is only through attending to our own care, healing, and wellbeing, however, that we can be sustainable and in integrity with our work toward the building of just and dignified futures.

To support the development and consistency of care practices, I wonder if it could be supportive to intentionally consider specific elements of practice. Beginning in January of this year, I began a journey through which I have been learning about the nature of practice in new ways. These learnings and reflections are by no means intended as a definitive claim about practice, rather they are insights that have emerged through my embodied experience and about which I am curious in how they can be applied to other realms of practice.

Over the course of last year, I followed my friend Julie’s journey from vertical to vertical, from standing on her feet to standing on her hands. The journey unfolded through 365 days of daily practice, slowly building the strength and developing the balance to hold a free-standing handstand. I was curious and inspired. It was a joy when the coach and guide, Damien Norris, extended an open invitation to participate in this journey by making the instructional videos available on YouTube.²

January of this year marked the beginning of my handstand journey. It also marked the beginning of what has proved to be fairly challenging year, one filled with seasons of grief, displacement, and isolation. Most of the year, I was able to easefully integrate the training into my daily routine. Some days and weeks, however, I have not been able to train due to travel, sickness, or other circumstances. In both the regularity and inconsistency of my training, I’ve become deeply curious about the nature of practice.

Practice holds inherent a repetitive quality, requiring a regularity of participation. In the case of the handstand journey, the invitation is extended into daily practice. Each day, there are particular movements to train, beginning with hollow body holds and slow progressing over time. And yet, the days and weeks in which I was unable to do the training, the practice did not disappear. The practice has been as much in my active participation in the training as it has been in my choice to return to it, be that each day or after a week away. The essence of practice has been not only in the training, but in the choice of return.

Fairly far along into the handstand journey, I am confronting a new obstacle in my practice. Having recently dislocated my elbow, I am unable to bear weight on my left arm. For the first couple of weeks after the injury, I drifted from the daily consistency of my practice, disappointed and unsure when I would be able to return. Eager to continue in the journey, but uncertain of how to do so in these new circumstances, I reached out to Damien, who graciously offered a variety of suggestions to adapt my training.

Returning to consistent training has felt amazing. Whereas my body feels challenged by some of the new movements, the felt sense of return to the practice, which has become a source of sustenance and stability through this year, has been one of comfort and a deep settling in my core. Although I continued to move and train in the days and weeks since the injury, I would not have been able to return to the specificity of handstand training so soon were it not for external accompaniment and support. The guidance and encouragement were essential in a circumstance where I was in doubt about my ability to remain active in the practice.

While I remain far from the ability to hold a free-standing handstand, as I find my way there, I am learning deeply about the nature and components of practice. At this moment, I am present to three key components that facilitate and comprise practice, namely, the physical act of training, the choice of consistent return, and accompaniment along the way. As I continue in this handstand journey, I am curious of what more I will learn.

Enacting and sustaining generative change, whether at the individual or collective level, requires shifting habits of being from those that perpetuate harm or dis-ease, to those that support healing and wellbeing. Such change involves the integration of new practices into our lives. This is much easier said than done. Emergent from an understanding of the nature and components practice – behavior, accountability, and accompaniment – we might invite ourselves into a set of inquiries that help to identify not only the activities and processes that can support us, but also the conditions and mechanisms of accountability necessary to make these practices sustainable. These inquiries may sound like:

For individuals

What are activities or experiences that support my wellbeing and bring me joy?
What conditions need to be in place for me to consistently and regularly participate in one or more of these activities?
Who can support me in to remain consistent in my practice?

For organizations

What rituals, policies, and processes can support the wellbeing of employees individually and the organization as a whole?
What conditions need to be in place to ensure these practices are regularly and consistently upheld?
Who within or outside the organization can support consistency of practice?

For communities

What activities, traditions, and rituals can support the wellbeing of our community?
What conditions need to be in place for these practices to be regularly accessed?
Who in our community can support consistency of practice?

As we seek to adopt new practices to nurture care and support transformation, perhaps any clarity emergent from such inquiries could support us, illuminating what will enable greater accountability to ourselves and each other as we strive to embody and bring forward greater peace in ourselves and justice in the world.

accountability

consistency’s key

practice is in the return

each day, try again

¹ To learn more about the work of the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, you can check out their website, http://kindredsouthernhjcollective.org/.

² If you’d like to start your own journey to handstand, you can find Damien’s guidance through all 365 days available here.

On Care and Dignity

I am in the early days of learning how to move and be differently in my body.

I took a fall while rock climbing this week. Dropping to the earth from fifteen feet up a wall, my body tried to protect itself. I landed on my outstretched arm and dislocated my elbow.

I remember being on the wall. I remember being on the ground. I don’t remember the moments in between.

I am learning how to move with three limbs.

There are many things I can do with my body. There are many things I can’t anymore, at least not alone.

I am learning how to receive care and assistance in new ways. At the same time, I am present to my desire to find new ways to do physical tasks independently. Things like opening a jar or cutting a piece of fruit. I notice my resistance to offers to do tasks for me, particularly the tasks I can still do. My independence and agency are cherished, even as the reality of our interdependence is in a particularly strong expression these days.

I keep remembering my grandmother. I wish I could apologize. Sometimes we learn too late.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, I moved to Paris to accompany my then 99-year-old grandmother through the weeks and months of confinement. I’d never been a sole and full time caregiver for an elder before. In my deepest desire to help her, to relieve her of any burden of excessive effort, I began doing nearly every task for her. I thought I was helping. Instead, I overtook the daily routines and tasks that she still had the capacity to do.

Only now, as I move slowly, finding new ways to accomplish what were previously simple tasks, am I able to experience an embodied compassion for what my grandmother was trying to communicate to me.

Perhaps when we offer or express care, it is not always best to ‘care for.’ We may be wiser to ‘care with’ – to acknowledge the agency and capacity of each person in the caring relationship, both those offering and those receiving care. In this way, to extend care is not to do something for someone. Instead, to care with is to accompany another, offering assistance if and when an endeavor exceeds their limitations in a given moment. Such an embodiment of care allows for a fuller acknowledgement of reciprocity in relationship. I may extend care in a certain expression, and receive care in another. Further, whereas I may currently be in a position of being largely receiving of care, and in the future, I will be able to offer care in return.

Our independence does not negate our interdependence. Just as our interdependence does not negate our independence. These are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps, rather they are mutually constitutive.

It is in the claiming of my own agency that I am able to be present and in service to others.

It is in the recognition of the connection of my life with that of all beings that I am not only called into service, but also supported and sustained through community care, accountability, and nourishment.

There is great power in both agency and compassionate relationship. May we embody the bridge that joins these expressions of humanity, in doing so, honoring the dignity of ourselves and each other.

On Patience, Perseverance, and Practice

Through the alchemy of forests and friendships, my love of rock climbing has recently been rekindled. I am a novice climber, delighting in and curious about all that this movement practice holds. In the short time that I have returned to climbing, I have found myself curious about the interplay it offers between patience, perseverance, and practice.

Patience. From the Latin patientia, meaning “the quality of suffering,” which is present participle of pati, meaning “to endure, undergo, experience.”¹

Perseverance. From the Latin perseverantia, meaning “steadfastness, constancy” or the “quality of continuing or enduring.”

Whereas patience conveys a particular orientation to the experience of navigating challenging and painful circumstances, perseverance evokes a commitment to endure through the circumstances, to stick with it. This necessitates practice – the repetition of an action; trying and trying again and again and again.

When I climb, my current approach is primarily to repeatedly work routes that are (for me) accessible with a bit of challenge. Every once in a while, however, I mix in attempts of routes of a higher difficulty. These attempts often go like this:

Approach the wall.

Try out a starting position.

Fall.

Try a new starting position.

Get on the wall.

Fall.

Walk away.

Approach the wall.

Get into the starting position.

Reach for the next hold.

Fall.

Rest.

Approach the wall.

Get into the starting position.

Reach for the next hold.

Grip.

Shift body.

Step up.

Fall.

Rest.

The pattern is consistent. Try. Fall. Try again. Fall again. Over and over. But each fall is not a failure. If I am attentive enough, each time I fall, I notice what didn’t work and what I need to change: how to shift my body position, how to move my leg, how to bend my elbow, how to place my foot. Each time I fall, I have the opportunity to fail better. Eventually, with enough perseverance, I might fail my way to the top, completing the route. This might happen in one climbing session, or over the course of days or weeks.

It is not purely a matter of persistence, however. If, in my repeated attempts to climb a route, I become frustrated or overly fearful – tense in body and mind – I fall much sooner, unable to reach the height or a hold I previously attained. And so, I am learning to be patient – not to force, but rather to take my time and approach each new attempt with curiosity and ease. When I approach the wall, I exhale and relax my arms. As I reach for the first hold and step my feet up, I whisper to myself “easy, easy.” When I intentionally choose and cultivate fluidity and ease in my movement, even as my muscles and strength are strained, I climb much better and move nearer toward my goal.

If I successfully complete a route, I try again. Movement coach and my dear friend Julie Angel shared with me an approach to learning a new movement skill that says: Once is never. Twice is maybe. Three times you have it. I’ve integrated this into my climbing practice, reclimbing each route. Every time I do, I find new ways of moving, positioning, and placing my body that are more fluid, steady, and assured. Cultivating these patterns of movement and mind, I find myself stronger, more courageous, and more creative in my attempts at new routes, new challenges.

Climbing, I am finding, offers an invitation to practice patient perseverance, to repeatedly embody and enact a quality of presence and engagement with challenging and difficult circumstances. In another framing, it is an invitation to practice a quality of presence and engagement we carry in our navigation, and eventual transformation, of conflict.

John Paul Lederach suggests that the transformative work of peacebuilding lies in the fostering of a certain quality of relationship, particularly between people who are differently situated or differently minded in society.² At the core of this is the quality of presence we carry in the conflicts we encounter, a compassionate presence that honors the dignity and humanity of those around us, especially with those deemed as “other.”³ The cultivation of such a quality of presence requires patience, perseverance, and practice.

We must be patient for we are all human. We all carry wounds and we have all caused harm. In the process of reconciliation and conflict transformation, we must be patient with ourselves and others as we make mistakes and stumble along the long and arduous journey of relational repair.⁴

We must persevere for the conflicts we face within ourselves, in our relationships, and in our world are vast and complex. They will not be solved with quick-fixes, instead asking of us commitment to the process, especially in moments where the challenges we face seem insurmountable, when our endurance and perhaps even our hope is tested.

We must practice for so long as we live, we encounter conflict. With each such encounter we are given an opportunity to embody ways of moving and being in relationship that center dignity and care.

Whether at the crux of a climbing route or the impasse of a conflict, cultivating patient perseverance can help us to transcend the limitations we may initially perceive. We persist in the challenging moments, trusting that there is a way through. We will fail often, possibly many more times than we succeed. But perhaps, with enough intention and presence, each time we can fail better, moving us closer in the direction of generative change.

¹“Patience,” Etymology, https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=patience.

² “John Paul Lederach – The Art of Peace,” The On Being Project, November 8, 2021, https://onbeing.org/programs/john-paul-lederach-the-art-of-peace/.

³ Lederach, John Paul. “Compassionate Presence: Faith-Based Peacebuilding in the Face of Violence.” Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series. Lecture, February 16, 2012. https://digital.sandiego.edu/lecture_series/3/.

⁴ It is notable here that the word patience shares a root with compassion, which comes from the Latin compati, com meaning “with, together” and pati, translated as “to suffer.” In other words, compassion is the quality of how are together with or alongside suffering.

Arboreal Resilience

Moving along paths that meander through a sequoia forest, I delight in the nourishment the space offers to my senses. Feeling the clay earth beneath my feet, softened with newly fallen leaves and branches, echoes of a recent storm. Hearing the gentle whisper of water flowing in a nearby stream. Receiving cool, damp air into my lungs, laden with the fragrance of life renewing itself on the forest floor. Relishing in the colors and contrast that fill the space: emerald moss blanketing rock faces; amber oak leaves and auburn sequoia needles underfoot, the bright jade of new growth extending from branch tips, not yet darkened by the seasons; and inky shadows tucked into the pleats of tree trunks.

Navigating the forest floor, I cast my attention from the smooth crest of a new fern unfolding from the soil to the towering canopy of trees hundreds of years of age. I listen for lessons of arboreal resilience.

Burls and Wounding

When a tree has been wounded, when a branch is cut or the trunk damaged, the tree adopts a new pattern of growth around that space. The burl that grows in swirls and lumps is a wood stronger than that of the rest of the tree. In enveloping its wounding, a tree finds a new strength.

How might we learn from the wisdom of burls? How does this wisdom live in us?

When we experience wounding, physical or emotional, we develop new patterns of protection around the space of injury. In the case of a physical wound, our cells coordinate to promote repair. When a bone has broken and is supported to heal, it knits itself back together and that area of bone becomes denser, stronger than it was before. In the case of emotional injury, we develop adaptive mechanisms to navigate and protect ourselves from the harmful dynamic. These mechanisms are myriad and may look like heightened sensitivity to the body language of others to detect potential threat, difficulty trusting others and/or oneself, or disconnection from one’s internal landscape because that space has been filled with too much pain. These processes occur through the innate wisdom of our somas to enable our survival. Such adaptive mechanisms may be helpful for immediate survive, however over time they may deepen into patterns that become harmful to ourselves and people in our lives.

To facilitate healing, conditions must be created in which repair and transformation can take place. If a bone is broken, to heal the physicality of the injury, it is most supportive to set the injury in a cast so the body can be undisturbed as the wound mends. Creating a supportive and nurturing environment in which we can address and transform wounding in our somas is a more complex endeavor.

Perhaps people in our lives are unwilling to create space for or recognize our healing. Perhaps the wound is too raw or too deep, and more time is needed before we are ready to engage in healing work. Perhaps the layers of stress in our lives are currently too numerous and too heavy such that our resources must be allocated toward making it through each day, not delving into wounds we carry. If external and internal conditions arranged in a way that devoting effort toward healing is possible, staying steady on a healing path is an arduous practice in itself. The self-protective patterns we have developed and no longer serve us are powerful, they may be the only way in which we have come to know safety. The journey of healing is one of spiral form, a circling path. With slight adjustments in each rotation, we gain new perspective and train new helpful patterns of being within ourselves and with others.

Through our experiences of wounding and healing, how might we attend our spaces of wounding in such a way that, like a burl grows on a tree, envelopes the injury with care? How can we engage in our healing in a way that does not attempt to resolve or erase our experiences of injury, but enfolds them with strength and adaptive patterns of growth? How might we nurture slow, steady, spiraling integration of our wounds as parts of our beings?

Navigating Loss in Collectivity

The growth of a sequoia is one of encircling community. This is particularly pronounced when an elder tree has been felled. Around the severed trunk, new trees sprout forth. The loss of the mother tree creates space for new growth, not just of one new stalk, but many.

What might we learn from the wisdom of encircling community? How does this wisdom live in us?

The emergence of encircling community in the wake of loss is reflective of our individual and collective responses through grief. In teaching about the nervous system, our primary responses to threat are often named as: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. A fifth response exists that is less commonly named: flock. In the shadow of the loss of a loved one or a large-scale disaster, as humans we find solace and shelter in community. Our coming together, at wakes, funerals, and through other forms of ritual, creates spaces where we can be supported ourselves and support others. As a collective gathered in shared grief, we find resonance in the emotional experience of those around us. Such rituals allow us individually and collectively to begin to integrate the deep heart wound that is the loss of a loved one.

The importance of gathering in the wake of loss has been brought into sharp relief particularly during these difficult months of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many lives have been lost, most of whom have passed away alone, unaccompanied by their loved ones. For the family members, friends, and communities who survive, they are unable to gather in their grief, to come around one another. The healing journey through grief is thwarted, as the rituals we turn to are no longer safe or permitted.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought immeasurable pain for millions of people. So too has it illuminated strength in and of community. Through seasons of self-isolation and physical distancing, mutual aid networks emerged and strengthened. In response to the threat of COVID-19, exacerbated through social structures that place black and brown bodied people and impoverished people at particular risk, communities find protection and support through coming together. Communities have mobilized in care to ensure community members’ needs would be met, particularly those most vulnerable.

Through our navigation of trauma and potentially traumatic events, how can we find support in community? Whereas trauma isolates, fragments, and disconnects, how can we nurture spaces and communities of care to extend support to one another, particular our members who are suffering? In a society that praises individualism and discourages vulnerability, how can we be radical in our collectivities and the authenticity of our communication of how we are (when it is safe to do so)? How can we engage in healing processes that help us re-member ourselves, individually and collectively?

Discerning Inspiration

Through the process of photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb light, water, and carbon dioxide, transforming these elements into oxygen and chemical energy that is stored in the plant for food. This chemical energy is stored in the form of carbohydrates, contributing to the cellular structure of the plant. It is in absorbing light, water, and carbon dioxide from the external environment, a discerning inspiration, that trees and plants are given the necessary energy to grow.

What might we learn from the wisdom of the discerning inspiration of photosynthesis? How does this wisdom live in us?

We are shaped by the environments in which we are raised and the environments in which we live. This includes factors such as our familial culture, dominant societal culture, epigenetics (the way in which our ancestral history lives in our bodies), the physicality of our environment, and many more. As we navigate through life, there are factors influencing us about which we are aware to varying degrees. The extent of our awareness is often reflective of our societal positioning. The nature of privilege and oppression is that they obscure the very structures by which they operate and suppress a questioning of these structures by those who benefit most from their existence.

In the United States, a powerful factor that shapes the social, political, and economic environment is that of white-body supremacy. This form of violence, which, as Resmaa Menakem shares, is not a question a race, but a question of belonging in humanity, weaves through the structures and relationships that constitute this country. To the extent that it is part of the environment in which we live, without an awareness of how white-body supremacy works on us and through us, we continue to inhale and enact the values and practices it upholds.

Through increased awareness of the factors that shape our environment, and thus shape us (such as white-body supremacy), we can become more discerning about what we absorb and integrate into our somas. In photosynthesis, a plant does not absorb every element in its environment – it absorbs that which it can integrate and will support its growth. How might we invite the same discernment in that which we absorb and integrate into our beings? How might we recognize what in our environment nurtures our growth and what impede connection and perpetuate harm? How might we be discerning about what we have absorbed, integrating only that which nourishes our individual and collective flourishing, and expelling that which does not serve us?

On Arboreal Resilience

Opening to the wisdom of the trees, the teachings of arboreal resilience are many. As we are of nature, this wisdom is inherent within us as well. May we look to the world around us for guidance to remember the depth of knowing we hold within our individual and collective bodies.

Arboreal resilience reminds us how we can tend to our wounds with patience and strength.

Arboreal resilience reminds us how we can and do turn to one another to navigate through moments of difficulty, of loss and of disaster.

Arboreal resilience reminds us that we can be discerning about how we are shaped by the world we inhabit.

Arboreal resilience reminds us that this knowing is not a construct of the mind, but a wisdom held in the fiber of our beings.

May these reminders support us in co-creating a world that centers healing, community, and belonging.

tend arboreal

resilience. adaptive

growth, patient and strong.

References

adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Embodying the Moral Imagination :: Chapter 1

Laura Webber, M.A.

Below is an excerpt from my master’s capstone project, “Embodying the Moral Imagination: A Theoretical and Pedagogical Framework Exploring the Value of Practices of Embodiment in the Education of Peace Practitioners.”

Peacebuilding, at its essence, is about relationship. The practice of peace is to support generative relationships that allow for individual and collective thriving, and to support in the transformation of relationships that inhibit this experience. A conflictual relationship is one characterized by dissonance, whereas a peaceful relationship is one of harmony. Harmony does not necessitate sameness. In fact, it only arises through the resonance of varying frequencies. While certainly harmony and dissonance are sonic experiences, so too are they felt in and through the body. As the body is that which mediates our experience of the world, it is that through which we experience violence, conflict, and peace (Acarón, 2016). To the extent that peacebuilding necessitates a facility in navigating various landscapes of conflict, presence to these landscapes and the movement of the body through them is of great value. To this end, attending to the symphony of sensations and experiences that emanate from within and impact the body offers a way to attune the vehicle of the body to and through the navigation of conflict landscapes (see Figure 1 for an illustration of conflict landscapes).

Despite this value of embodied presence, little attention is paid to nurturing embodied self-awareness[1] and exploring the possibilities of practices of embodiment in peace education. With regard to the relationship between practices of embodiment and peacebuilding, there is precedent of this integration in both theory and practice (Acarón Rios, 2016; Acarón, 2018; Alexander & LeBaron, 2013; Beausoleil & LeBaron, 2013; Deer, 2000; Eddy, 2002; Eddy, 2016; Jeffrey, 2017; LeBaron, MacLeod, & Acland, 2013). Even so, the literature pertaining to practices of embodiment in peacebuilding is, as yet, fairly limited and far from mainstream. More extensive literatures exist with regard to the role of emotion in decision making and conflict resolution, the value of creative and arts-based approaches to peacebuilding, the potency of embodied practices for healing, and embodied pedagogies in education. Through an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from the existent literature, I seek to address the following question: How do practices of embodiment inform and deepen our understanding of established disciplines of peacebuilding and enhance the capacity of peace practitioners to navigate conflict landscapes?

Prior to mapping out how I will explore this question, it is necessary to provide clarification about its constituent elements by offering working definitions for the terms employed.

Embodiment is a nuanced concept. While there exist many definitions, the definition employed here is drawn from Thomas Csordas, who offers that embodiment is “attending ‘with’ and attending ‘to’ the body” (1993, 138), therein evoking the multidimensionality of embodiment wherein, the internal experience of sensations and emotions in the body is not separate from the dynamics that exist beyond the boundary of the skin. We perceive the world through the body, and cultivating attention and awareness to the body as our vehicle of perception serves to broaden and deepen that which we can perceive, within ourselves and in relationship with the world around us. Yet, as Csordas observes, “although our bodies are always present, we do not always attend to and with them” (1993, 139). In seeking avenues to deepen the attention we pay with and to the body, specifically with the intention to support peace practitioners in navigating geographies of conflict, I suggest three transecting landscapes of consideration: the intrapersonal (one’s relationship with oneself), the interpersonal (one’s relationship with other people), and the external (one’s relationship with the space one inhabits).[2]

The term “practices of embodiment” refers to practices that are guided with attention with and to the body. To this end, such practices are not about the form, but rather the quality and direction of attention they invite.[3] In other words, these practices are contingent upon the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what.’ For example, breathing can be a practice of embodiment if, when breathing, you draw attention to the texture of the air in your throat, the shape change of your body as the air fills your lungs, or the way in which a slow and steady exhalation can soothe and ground you.

For the purposes of this exploration, the disciplines and practices of peacebuilding that will be engaged are those articulated by John Paul Lederach in his book The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Peacebuilding (2005). This text emerges from Lederach’s decades of experience in the field supporting the work of peacebuilding. He explores the question of how we might transcend cycles of violence that grip the human community, even while remaining embedded within them. The capacity to transcend violence, he offers, lies in the generation, mobilization, and building of the moral imagination (2005, 5). The four disciplines of the moral imagination are:

“the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence” (2005, 5).

In the writing of this framework, I strive to embody the elements of these disciplines. Accordingly, this framework is predicated upon an understanding of the web of relationships we carry within ourselves (the interconnection of body, mind, and spirit) and the web of relationships we inhabit that connects all people and all things. Through both an exploration of practices of embodiment as they support peace practitioners and the elaboration of a pedagogical framework in which such practices can be engaged, I consider ways we may practice paradoxical curiosity to transcend restrictive dualism of mind/body, self/other, and beyond. With an acknowledgment of the relative absence of embodied practice in graduate level peace education, this framework itself is a creative act, encouraging a new way of imagining peace education. In this light, I acknowledge there may be some risk in offering the possibility a different paradigm that invites us to explore alternative domains of learning, integrating body and mind.

In the theoretical framework laid out in the following chapters, I will explore the value of practices of embodiment for peace practitioners as they support a navigation of these three interrelated landscapes mentioned above: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and external. For each of these landscapes, practices of embodiment support peace practitioners by respectively deepening and broadening internal awareness, enhancing relational skills, and illuminating social and structural dynamics. Thus, my thesis holds that practices of embodiment support peace practitioners by nurturing deep presence, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating intentionality relative to oneself, others, and the spaces we inhabit.

Beginning with an exploration of the intrapersonal landscape, such practices support peace practitioners not only in the intensity of a conflictual moment, but also promote resilience and longevity. Practices of embodiment increase interoceptive capacity, a connection to the felt sense in the ability to feel what is arising internally for an individual as well as the ability to perceive what is arising for others. Such attunement and perception strengthen our intuitive sense, which enables peace practitioners to pick up on subtleties in a conflict dynamic that may hold the seeds for the conflict’s transformation. Practices of embodiment enhance our capacity for self-regulation, an essential skill in the navigation of the complex domains of conflict, violence, and injustice (Eddy, 2016). Practices of embodiment can also support healing and the processing of emotion. For peace practitioners who may be drawn to this work resultant from past experiences of trauma and who are likely to encounter potentially traumatic experiences during the course of our careers, engaging in practices that can support such healing is invaluable. Similarly, practices of embodiment can support the longevity and sustainability of peace practitioners, as such practices can increase resiliency through enhancing skills of self-regulation and providing avenues through which to process intense emotion.

From the intrapersonal landscape, we move outward to the interpersonal landscape – from relationship with oneself to relationship with others. Three primary areas of consideration in this landscape are processes of attunement and co-regulation, the cultivation of kinesthetic empathy, and presence to non-verbal communication. The ability to connect authentically and presently with others is in many ways contingent upon our level of presence to ourselves. As cultivating trusting and transformative relationships is central for peace practitioners to be effective in our work, presence to our internal landscapes in relationship to others is vital. The ability to attune and connect with empathy and compassion with others is valuable not only for peace practitioners in the relationships we cultivate, but is imperative for communities affected by violence and conflict. Thus, not only are practices of embodiment that support the navigation of the interpersonal landscape beneficial for practitioners, they can also be adapted and shared as a means of building connection and relationship between individuals and groups in the peacebuilding process.

The third landscape of consideration pertains to the external landscape we inhabit. Spatial awareness is of great value of peace practitioners, in the way in which we create and co-create spaces, as well as the space we hold within ourselves. Practices of embodiment can support an exploration of the way the body inhabits physical, social, political, and historical spaces. Integrating practices of critical self-reflection, attention to the body offers an avenue to consider our own positionality, the identities we hold that are expressed through our bodies. With regard to ethical considerations for peacebuilders, and attention to the way in which we are perceived by others relative to dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression, is crucial. This elicits further sensitivity toward structural violence, the impact of oppression on the body, and the histories carried by the body, which draws on research around epigenetics and the transgenerational transmission of trauma. Further, we are brought to reflect upon the way in which spaces shape us and the way in which we shape the spaces we are in, a dynamic and everchanging process (Acarón, 2016).

Practices of embodiment, drawing attention to and with the body, thus offer myriad benefits for peace practitioners. With regard to the ways in which such practices can enhance and deepen understandings of established disciplines of peacebuilding, we turn toward various pedagogical literatures, and most specifically approaches of experiential education. As shared by Rae Johnson:

“Scholars in experiential learning (Boud, 1985; Kolb, 1984) assert that we learn about the world and ourselves in an interactive, ongoing action/reflection cycle. As we encounter new information and experiences, these interactions with the world change our view of ourselves and our relationships to others. From an experiential perspective, learning is a complex, holistic activity that is deeply informed by who learners are, what they already know and believe, and how their life experiences have influenced and affected them” (Johnson, 2014, 82).

In a future curriculum, I will offer means through which to explore disciplines of peacebuilding as set forth by John Paul Lederach in a deeply experiential way. More precisely, the disciplines of peacebuilding will be explored through practices of embodiment, as a means to bring theory into form and truly ‘Embody the Moral Imagination.’

Through the theoretical framework provided in the succeeding three chapters, I address multiple ways in which practices of embodiment can enhance the capacity of peace practitioners to navigate geographies of conflict. Moving from the intrapersonal to the external landscapes, I seek to illuminate the connections between the micro and the macro, and the ways in which attention and awareness in each landscape provide the foundation from which greater nuance and discernment can unfold. The penultimate chapter details a pedagogical approach that allows for the cultivation of these capacity enhancing practices simultaneous to a study of theory in peacebuilding. Through the map this exploration offers, we find the value of practices of embodiment lies in the ways they offer opportunities to deepen our awareness – of self, of other, of society – and harness such nuanced awareness to support a movement toward healing and peace.

[1] Alan Fogel defines embodied self-awareness as “perceiving our movements in relation to other people and our surroundings, registering the textures and depths of the senses, and exploring the intricacies of our emotions in relation to others and the world” (2009, 10).

[2] This triadic framework elicits the three interrelated branches of peace Toran Hansen puts forth in the article “Holistic Peace.” These branches are: “‘peace within’ (inner peace), ‘peace between’ (relational peace), and ‘peace among’ (structural/environmental peace)” (2016, 212).

[3] This interpretation of practices of embodiment aligns with Christine Caldwell’s notion of bodyfulness, which she differentiates from embodiment: “I would define embodiment as awareness of and attentive participation with the body’s states and actions. Bodyfulness begins when the embodied self is held in a conscious, contemplative environment, coupled with a non-judgmental engagement with bodily processes, an acceptance and appreciation of one’s bodily nature, and an ethical and aesthetic orientation towards taking right actions so that a lessening of suffering and an increase in human potential may emerge” (2014, 81).

References

Acarón, T. (2016). Shape-in(g) Space: Body, Boundaries, and Violence. Space and Culture, 19(2), 139-149. doi:10.1177/1206331215623208

Acarón, T. (2018). Movement decision-making in violence prevention and peace practices. Journal of Peace Education, 15(2), 191-215. doi:10.1080/17400201.2018.1463913

Alexander, N., & LeBaron, M. (2013). Embodied Conflict Resolution: Resurrecting Roleplay-Based Curricula Through Dance. In C. Honeyman, J. Coben, & A. Wei-Min Lee (Eds.), Educating Negotiators for a Connected World (pp. 539-567). Saint Paul: DRI Press.

Beausoleil, E., & LeBaron, M. (2013). What Moves Us: Dance and Neuroscience Implications for Conflict Approaches. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 31(2), 133-158. doi:doi:10.1002/crq.21086

Csordas, T. J. (1993). Somatic Modes of Attention. Cultural Anthropology, 8(2), 135-156.

Deer, P. I. (2000). The Body As Peace: Somatic Practice for Transforming Conflict. (Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Resolution & Somatics Dissertation), The Union Institute Graduate School, Ann Arbor, MI.

Eddy, M. (2002). Body Cues and Conflict: LMA-Derived Approaches to Educational Violence Prevention. Movement News of Laban Institute of Movement Studies.

Eddy, M. (2016). Dancing Solutions to Conflict: Field-Tested Somatic Dance for Peace. Journal of Dance Education, 16(3), 99-111.

Jeffrey, E. R. (2017). Dance in Peacebuilding: Space, Relationships, and Embodied Interactions. (Doctor of Philosophy), Queensland University of Technology.

Johnson, R. (2015). Grasping and Transforming the Embodied Experience of Oppression. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 14(1), 80-95.

Lederach, J. P. (2005). The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

The Choreography of Resolution: Conflict, Movement, and Neuroscience. (2013). (M. LeBaron, C. MacLeod, & A. F. Acland Eds.). Chicago, IL: American Bar Association.