All this being said, we could still refer back to the fundamental skill-set of embodiment as bodily awareness and choice. This means that we are not just mindful of the body, even in a richer sense of this term, but also alter it. Embodiment is sensory and motor, so can, therefore, be rightly said to be more than mindfulness, if we follow a commonly used modern definition of mindfulness being ‘non-judgmental present moment awareness’. Embodiment is, at heart, much more active. As ever, traditions are varied and much comes down to definitions, and while there is a gentle provocation in the book’s subtitle, it is not a dig at Buddhism or deeper practitioners of modern mindfulness.
Thanks to my Buddhist teacher friend Martin Aylward for his challenge around this and help with this section.
POSTSCRIPT
This poem brings together much of the book in a beautiful if somewhat anarchic form. It is a poetic “mash-up” containing quotes, inspiration and paraphrases from a range of sources, including Walt Whitman, a traditional New Guinean saying, Mary Oliver, James Joyce, George Leonard, Rumi, The Koran, Sonya Renee Taylor, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dylan Newcombe, Gabrielle Roth, Francis Briers, Emilie Conrad, Madeline Aguire, Nandita Muni, Nietzsche, Buddha, Jesus, The Katha Upanishad, Samuel Beckett, St Teresa, Aboodi Shabi, Stuart Heller, Renee Boyer-Willisson, Jewel Mathieson and more!
Note: If I included something you’ve said about the body and not named you forgive me, I honestly forget where I heard things and it all mingles together.
I SING THE BODY IN THE ELECTRIC AGE
I sing the body in the electric age.
I sing the body in the age of over-information,
miseducation and enter-braindrainment.
I sing the body organic, sustainable and unfairly-traded,
for a world gone mad on mind;
a cognitive catastrophe of un-noticing,
a blinding of the great eye of feeling.
I sing the body electric
while the subtle pulse of nature risks overwhelm
and we live an ever-increasing short distance from our bodies.
I sing beyond the body as more than just a brain taxi
beyond a thing that we own
that transports a bloated knowing, controlling and fearing…
I sing of a field of flesh
beyond right and wrong
as the ONLY place where we can meet
and I pray that we meet there!
I sing the body electric in an age where food is
often more toxin than nutrition;
where fundamentalists still make the fundamental mistake
of making our fundamental bodily foundation the foe
where we’re trying to be sensational celebrities
without coming to our senses sensibly
where we have traded our basic interface with reality
and basic core operating system
for pale digital denizen denigration.
There is more wisdom in the body
than in any book or any philosophy.
So don’t believe a word I say
and feel for yourself.
There is no higher authority than intimacy, intuition and irreverence.
Auto-anaesthesia is literally killing us,
as how we relate to the ourselves, is how we relate to each other,
other is how we relate to the planet.
How we relate to ourselves
is how we relate to each other
is how we relate to the planet.
The body is life.
We only feel when we move
and we only know we’re alive when we feel.
Health IS movement.
Sickness is unfeeling and stuckness.
Life IS movement;
when we die, we stop. When we stop we die.
We do not express ourselves through movement –
we ARE ourselves through movement.
We are human movings, not human doings.
Movement is what we are, not something that we do.
We dance first, think later – that is the natural order.
If you want to move your mind, move!
If you want to move someone, move!
If you want to move the world, move!
Education that sits us in rows
and removes movement and play and life
is not education, but only the
indoctrination of unconscious conformity.
Knowledge is only a rumour
until it is in the muscle!
What children learn in schools is not to BE;
not wisdom, or relationships, or about themselves, but how to know, know, know;
how to own, how to grasp, and how to do, do, do!
I sing in a world where body parts are more offensive than poverty
or bigotry;
where describing the sweetness of the otter’s pocket
could deprive this book of liberty!
Nonsense,
There is nothing as sacred
as the doors of the great womb from which we are birthed –
your mama and great earth mama’s mama!
And I know my work here is done
when lovers will whisper what are now obscenities
into each other’s sacred orifices
tenderly,
into the night…with shame only a faded nightmare of
a long forgotten land
I sing where the standard world of working
shackles us to one folded posture, arms handcuffed to a keyboard
eyes bound in the hard stare of fear and anger
straight ahead at the screen;
where clothes make women contorted and unstable
and put a noose around men’s necks,
where the body has become the frozen valley of the shadow of life.
I sing the body electric because the promise of ease
has become the lie of sloth
because the dream of technology
has become the nightmare of roboticism
because where spirit once roared through the human body,
it now whimpers,
afraid to dance a defiant chorus of feeling.
The body is a gateway to God
and if you want to truly shake with spirit,
you must first shake your arse,
and maybe someone else’s too!
Christ has no body but yours
and he prays with his hands, heart and tongue.
If you want to talk with tongues
you must first entangle them
because grace is, well,
graceful!
And if you want to get zen
you have to get down.
Of what is the body made?
it is made of emptiness, of rhythm and of nothing. Of no thing.
At the heart of the world
there is no solidity
there is only the dance.
Our bodies tell our story
in tension, gait and posture;
We move through space like we move through life.
Our stance is our stance to life.
We lean towards, well…what we lean towards.
Every wrinkle tells a story
and how we live is determined and broadcast
every moment in fleshy form.
We don’t just need vagina monologues
but full body dialogues. Full. Body. Dialogues
When we listen and talk
and then listen some goddamn more! With our WHOLE bodies
peace is not just possible
but inevitable!
Peace is not just possible
but inevitable.
Peace is built into the body.
It is how the body works at its best.
God has ploughed peace into our blueprint, if we only listen.
or skeleton clothes hanger
who would snap if a man ever took them
in his arms
and ravished them senseful.
I am not the body of posing black and white, un-souled men
with the tight bodies of fear and self-judgement.
I am not the body of the airbrushed, branded and made
“Mc-me” consumer object.
But I am the body fiercely sexual and proud!
And stop that tittering at the back.
We are not embarrassed children
your shame is violence, not sex.
The body is our gateway to God
the original mystic
the prophets of all religions listen to.
All bodies have one heart that beats
and it is the heart of the divine.
This body of ours is a temple
and God is nearer to us
than our jugular vein.
Open thy hand and know thou art love.
The soul’s detest of violence
is built into the very fabric of the flesh;
only through not feeling ourselves
can we hurt another.
Values are visceral.
My body avoids the religious middlemen
and they’re usually men
but more uptight than middling, the middlemen who deny and repress the body
lest their flock get their truth straight from the source
and they lose their percentage, their control and their fearmongering.
The body is anchored in the here and now
while the mind travels to the past and the future.
Mindfulness is impossible without bodyfulness!
And sweat is as good a prayer as any that insulted silence.
Behind your thoughts
there is a wolf growling.
Behind your thoughts
there is a lover whispering, and a prophet preaching.
The body is NOT an apology.
My body, you had me at “yes!”
My body, you saved me at “no!”
The way we treat our bodies, each other, and the planet are one.
In the body is the truth that we are one.
We start connected
connected through our bodies umbilically, and we lose our little selves
in the big booty of being.
The body is holographic and umbilical in nature.
If you’re not in your body, you are homeless
and there is no alternative.
Let’s get involved and evolved.
This is commonsensual!
To touch
is to be touched
is to be, touch.
I do not just sing about my body, because there is but one body.
I am in you
and you are in me.
We mingle like artists’ paint
in a plasmic puddle
until the colour is nought but rainbow
and the self is pure light.
We are porous and connected
more wave than particle
more verb than noun
I am the body starving in East Africa
I am the body of the sex-trafficked victim
and her best friend
that holds her body as she cries.
I am the body of the molester behind bars
and politician in a prison of lies
I am the body of the Israeli and the Palestinian
the banker and the beggar.
I am the body of all people,
or none.
I beseech you
You only have to show up at the feast of your own life
right here;
the church, library and playground are one
and the doors are wide open!
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
We have come to be danced
where the kingdoms collide
in the cathedral of flesh
to burn back into the light
to unravel
to play
to fly
to root in skin sanctuary and muscular ministries.
We have come to be danced.
And in the end
words fail and fall
like dead leaves from the supple oak of our bodies
And all I have to say is…. thank you.
More Gratuitous praise
“Mark Walsh has more breadth of experience than anyone I know in the embodiment field, which makes this a passionate, authoritative and damn useful little book for anyone wanting to get a sense of what it’s all about, or get some inspiration for an already established practice. Worth reading for the deeply personal stories and poems woven through, too.”
– Adam Barley, founder of ZeroOne movement practice
“Mark has a special ability to make embodiment work relevant and accessible. This down to earth book is inspiring & informative to anyone with a body and an interest in engaging it to make this world a better place.”
– Arawana Hayashi, co-founder of Social Presencing Theater, Presencing Institute
“Mark has a vision, and also has the energy and drive to make it happen. His commitment is to help everyone return home to their body. This is a huge undertaking. This books gently informs you and surprises you as you begin to do your part.”
– Betsy Polatin, movement and breathing specialist, and author of “Humanual”
“Mark Walsh is one of the most committed embodiment learners and teachers I know. This book is an authentic, heartfelt treatise and handbook for how to live a more embodied life. Highly recommended.”
– Curtis Watkins, somatic coach
“This work is a valuable asset to how we navigate life. Practical, applicable, to the point and makes us consider who we are and the effect of our place in any community.”
– Gary Carter, yoga and anatomy teacher
“This book is a potpourri of ideas and personal reflections on the concept and nature of embodiment. Mark Walsh fertilises our sense of being, who we are and how we connect to each other and the planet. He brings an honesty and perceptive thread to the discourse on inter-corporeality. This book has a richness of scents and resources for those of us with a thirst to dwell in our subjective bodies as a way of becoming”.
– Professor Helen Payne, PhD, registered ADMP UK, UKCP, University of Hertfordshire, author
“Mark Walsh brings an informed, passionate perspective out into the world. His down to earth musings, and targeted checklists, especially for facilitators, generate easily digestible food for thought and a call to action. Even though our social/political opinions diverge significantly at moments, we share a mutual focus: the liberation of the body and its full expression in society.”
– Jamie McHugh, somatic movement specialist and artist
“Accessible, pithy, and engaging, captures Mark’s distinctive voice, a compressive overview of such an invaluable subject.”
– Jayaraya, Buddhist teacher, writer and mindful
communication blockhead, dude, guru-coach-trainer
“Mark Walsh is much more than a writer, he “walks the talk” of embodiment with courage and humility. This book is as refreshingly honest, provocative and insightful as the man himself. Highly recommended to anyone engaged in the subversive act of reinhabiting their own bodily truth.”
– John Cremer, author of “Improv” and “The Art of Reading People”,
Speaker of the Decade – The Academy of Chief Executives
“Mark has written both a scary book and a profound book for everyone who has a body. The scary part will expose you to how disembodiment happens and the consequences, the profound part will guide you to becoming reembodied as well as pointing out all the benefits that accrue when you have done that. As someone who’s been engaged in this work for the past three decades, I can say you won’t find
a more direct manual on how to reengage your body.”
– Joseph Riggio, cognitive scientist, master NLP trainer, designer of the MythoSelf® Process
“Reading through Mark’s book was for me like sitting in nature for a day: some quiet moments, some raucous ones, and glimmers of gold. Mark’s depth of practice and experience alone make me want to read what he writes, and this particular form – a short book with digestible chapters – makes it a gracious entry point for those wanting to explore the subject.”
– Liam Bowler, host of The Body Awake podcast, bodyworker
“Mark’s writing is perfectly aligned with who he is and how he teaches: forthright and honest, clear and helpful, fearless and with plenty of heart. His reflections offer both direct instruction for a more embodied, empowered and enlightened life, and an impactful, personal account of his own deepening transformation through the practices he teaches, and has made the centre of his life.”
– Martin Aylward, meditation teacher and author
“Mark is by turns challenging, insightful and compassionate in his writing and coaching of embodiment. For the martial artist, his approach will give you tools, strategies and a clear path to better understanding the true natur of Martial Arts: to, “know thyself”. This book is highly recommended.”
– Matt Hill, Systema instructor, author, aikido sensei
“Perhaps the greatest sickness of our time is the disconnection between body and mind. Not only does this affect our health and wellbeing, but it disconnects us from our inner nature and the natural world around us. We don’t need to look far to see the grave consequences of this. Mark clearly highlights these issues and gives the reader some great pointers towards reconnection and embodiment. This book will give encouragement to anyone who has a body.”
– Michael Kern, biodynamic craniosacral therapist, founder of the Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust, and author of “Wisdom In The Body”