“In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth---the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren't the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond all joy to be bikini-ready and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of cesareaen sections, chattering companionably in a language I don't understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It's a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I've suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique. We don't know ourselves in context. But there is evidence of wintering here, freely shared like an exchange of precious gifts.” WomenBodies Book:Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times Source: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
“We take off our shoes, or we turn on our ears. We press our hands together in a gesture of prayer, or we remember the full extent of our lungs. Perhaps we even arrange ourselves cross-legged on the ground, or perhaps we dance or walk or swim instead. When we want to escape the surface, we activate our bodies, and they show us a different intelligence, pointing to a mind that resides not just in the head. Our knowing is diffused throughout all of us, distributed through muscle and bone, pulsing through organs and conveyed in the blood. We put our feet to the ground to listen with all of it. Not all that we know is verbal. Much of it--sometimes I think the vast majority--is somatic, the concern of the body. I learned this most keenly when Bert was a baby, and I used to reach towards him in the back seat on long car journeys and feel his foot press into my palm in reply. There was communication there far beyond words, and far more soothing to both of us. When I used to sit him on my lap and kiss his soft head, I was aware that information was being exchanged between us, transmitted through my lips and received through my nose. I could not even tell you what it said. Our bodies have answers to questions that we don't know how to ask.” CommunicationConnectionBodiesNonverbal Communication Book:Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age Source: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age