Tag: Remember Your Body

Remember Your Body (part two)

We call our bodies, vehicles…we drive them here and there and have great expectations of them.  We realize the body has needs and we give it sustenance–a snack on the fly, perhaps?  As writers or artists, we can become so engaged with our craft that we put the body’s tender loving care at the bottom of the list—maybe we’ll get to it–tomorrow.  For instance, that exercise program that you know is going to be good for you that gets postponed until…when?  Or that healthier way of eating to which you want to ascribe–one day…when?

I have driven, pushed and prodded my body.  I plant myself in front of the computer, at my writing desk or art table.  I expect–performance.  When I’m in the creative flow, it’s easy to forget that my body is an animal with actual needs.  Typically, I’m good at feeding myself healthy food.  I walk daily. I’m not so good at regular exercise or showing up for my tai chi class. Stretching, yoga, heart rate exercises, etc. These are areas in which I need to make a conscious effort.

What about you?  Do you have an exercise routine, a good eating regimen, an overall healthy, balanced lifestyle?  This is something a writer needs to organize into his/her daily routine.  It is intricately connected to your balanced writing practice.

Is your body your “horse and hound”?  May Sarton, the poet, wrote about her body in the following poem:

Question

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

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Read this poem aloud at least two times.  What is the author is saying in these few short verses?

Today, there is no writing prompt.  As a writer, contemplate how you care for your body’s daily requirements.  If you don’t have an exercise routine, how might you begin one.  Start off small; check in with your wise body to see which way it would like to move…that way you are more likely to stay with it.

Happy Body Day.

RememberYourBody2

Remember Your Body (part one)

Today, let’s begin with a…

WRITING PROMPT (1):
Sheila Bender, poet and writer, reminds us that “The body is the starting place for what we know.”

How do you interpret this quote (from Sheila Bender’s book, Writing Personal Poetry)? Write for twenty minutes. When you feel satisfied with your first writing, ask yourself “Is there anything else that wants to be said?”  If so, write some more.

****
In our times, we hear talk of “cellular memory” or “body memory”.  Some say this is fictitious, an unproved theory.  My body has proven itself to be a wise guide. My body brought the awareness of early trauma to the surface of my psyche before I was cognitively conscious of it.  Then the work of healing began.  In laywoman’s terms, “body memory” acknowledges that the body has stored life experiences in its organs, bones, tissues and cells.  It can also refer to generational trauma that our ancestors carried in their cells which was passed onto us as their children. Without getting scientific (I don’t have that background), I’ve found that my body holds many stories and memories along with the old trauma. Something that many can identify with is when you get goose bumps or when suddenly you have an upset stomach in a tense situation. The body recognizes something and reacts.

In this regard then, the body is a field to be mined, a point of entry for your writing. Over the years, I have mined my body as a means to understand and heal myself and to integrate what has, in some way, been disowned.

****

WRITING PROMPT (2):

Try this if you like, choose one part of your body (women sometimes choose their hips)–and give it a voice to tell its story.

Poem by Lucille Clifton entitled Homage to My Hips

“These hips are big hips.

they need space to 

move around in.

They don’t fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

They don’t like to be held back.

These hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go 

They do what they want to do. 

These hips are mighty hips.

These hips are magic hips. 

I have known them

to put a spell on a man and 

spin him like a top.”

Today, thank your body.