Going Skin to Skin: A Conversation About Eco-Soma and Sensory Bonding [Episode 15]
Eco-Somatic Educator, Rivka Honeybee Worth, intertwines her love of dance and nature in a body of work she aptly refers to as Eco-Soma. The embodied practices of Eco-Soma are devoted to rebuilding healthy, reciprocal relationships with the living world. In this rich conversation, we explore experiences of fresh interplay between our bodies and the body of the earth, we feel into the presence practice of Futuring, and we consider the fields of possibility that arise from cell to cell listening.
It was joyful to yarn with my Gaian sister from across the planet. Here are the highlights:
- Rivka has recently become the custodian of a protected wildlife area in Taungurung Country and she describes the welcomes she has been receiving from the more-than-human beings there, especially the wedge-tail eagle and other birds.
- The practice of Eco-Soma is about going skin to skin, locating physical presence in space. There are meeting places waiting for us everywhere when we combine consent, conscious touch, and deep listening.
- Futuring is a practice that involves feeling into the potential of what we could be and radiating that outwards. New and old worlds circle into each other as the past, present, and future move through a spiraling, non-linear path.
- Music, sound, and vibration are open pathways of communication with the more-than-humans. We may already have experience communicating with non-speaking beings, like an animal or infant, where we have practiced listening through skin tone or qualities of movement, or even practiced listening through our cells, skin, or organs.
- In the 5Rhythms system (Flowing / Staccato / Chaos / Lyrical / Stillness), Chaos comes before the joy and sweetness of Lyrical. Rivka speaks to the essential nature of “dancing Chaos,” letting intense emotions move through us, allowing for a breaking, a falling apart before moving on.
- Cell to cell meetings provide access to communicating on an even deeper level, finding the sensory bonding places between the cells in soil, in plants, in our human bodies, and beyond.
More About Rivka:
More Resources:
Excerpt from Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember the Plants:”
“Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too.
Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.”
