Returning Home to Our Bodies | Free Book
A body-based healing model that interrogates what we’ve been wrongly taught about hierarchies of nature and the body—and pushes back against the white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism embedded in modern embodiment practices.
Pushing back against a consumerist, pleasure-centric somatics industry that privileges product over process, Abigail Rose Clarke reminds us that truly meaningful embodiment practice nurtures our relationships among self, nature, and community.
Combining the rigor of the scientific method with the poetry and lyricism of movement and somatic studies, Clarke’s somatic learning system—The Embodied Life Method—centers the body as a guide through today’s most seemingly intractable social and environmental challenges, reclaiming the body as a source of liberatory comfort in times of great uncertainty and yet, possibility.
With tools and practices to help us better understand and dismantle the many ways our bodies are weaponized to serve domination systems, topics covered include:
Harnessing the vitality of curiosity and experimentationUsing nature as a guide to possibilityEmbracing the necessity of differenceExposing the lie of universal isolationDismantling the fallacy of hierarchyUncovering the truth of endless capacityAwe as a driving force for transformation
With methods honed over decades of inquiry, teaching, and practice, Returning Home to Our Bodies provides a lucid, body-based model of healing and restoration—one that imagines a world beyond systems of domination, marginalization, and isolation to nurture embodied, whole-community liberation.
In The Press
“In this book, Abigail Rose Clarke has synthesized some of the most
important processes of our time and woven them into a single process.
In a unique and radically new way, this book gives us simple and
manageable ways to grasp what it means—and feels like—to be human.”
—Patty
Townsend, developer of Embodyoga
“Returning Home to Our Bodies
is tenderly expressed and full of precious insights that remind even
the most self-aware reader that being present in oneself is real,
deliberate work.”
—Soleil Ho, cultural critic for the
San Francisco Chronicle
“Abigail uses poetic,
down-to-earth language to illuminate the magic of our bodies: the
processes, rhythms, and science of being human that are, in fact,
quite fantastical. With keen insight rooted in both spirituality and
scholarship, this book describes how nature’s wisdom can inform our
activism and support a radical reimagining of our bodies in
relationship with the world.”
—Mira Weil, DTM, MPH, doctor of
Tibetan medicine and sexual health educator
“There is such
a poetry to the way Abigail Rose Clarke coaxes a new understanding of
our bodies into being in this book. You will find yourself marveling
at what the body is made of, what it can do, and what it can reveal to
us, if we are truly attentive to it. This book is both a guide and a
companion in a quietly radical quest for changing how we experience
ourselves and, from that, the world.”
—Tina Antolini, audio
journalist, The New York Times
“Abigail’s book
reminds us to look to our soft, gliding, attentive, and queer animal
nature. So that we might practice presence. So that we might practice
awe. So that we might heal, not as an end goal, but as an activity of
our true nature. Thank you, Abigail. This book is a gift, and a
celebration.”
—Autumn Brown, cohost of
How to Survive the End of the World
“Somatic
educator and embodied poet Abigail Rose Clarke invites you to come
home to the present moment and to your body, and to join her as she
gently explores the meaningful metaphors she finds in the sciences of
ecology, biology, neuroscience, anatomy, and physiology. Clarke
encourages us to live into these metaphors to question the cultural
assumptions that lead to so much inequity, pain, horror, and
suffering. She guides readers into gentle, meditative practices that
can open us to embodied experiences of grounded calm, and sometimes
even joy and love—and the awe of being alive.”
—Barbara A. Brehm,
health coach and professor of health sciences at Smith College
“In
Returning Home to Our Bodies, Abigail bravely integrates, not
alternates, between spirituality and science in this breathtaking
work. Abigail blurs the lines between science and magic in a way that
values both data and the divine. This incredible work of integration
has made the study of somatics feel so whole and so close to my heart
and mind in a way that no other work ever has. To quote Abigail,
‘there really is no distance between us and this wisdom,’ and now
there’s no distance between you and returning home.”
—Colin
Bedell, astrologer, author, and creator of Queer Cosmos
“I am thrilled to endorse Abigail Rose Clarke’s
remarkable book that explores the mysterious and rich area of
somatics. This book has left a powerful mark on me and my relation to
the universe.
What truly sets Clarke’s book apart is her
creativeness in connecting somatics to scientific concepts, igniting
the reader’s imagination and opening doors to new possibilities. As a
scientist, I appreciate her adeptness at bridging seemingly disparate
worlds, weaving a tapestry where scientific understanding
harmonizes with somatic wisdom. One powerful example was how she
guided a meditation using the anatomy of the connection between the
heart, breath, and pericardium in a way that my heart can optimally
relax. Many of the meditations of the senses she eloquently shares in
this book really resonated with me also.
As a scientist
specializing in quantum physics and pioneer of a somatic movement
modality utilizing therapeutic tremoring called Shaking Medicine, I am
keenly aware of the difficulty in balancing scientific and spiritual
principles. Clarke does this so poetically while maintaining
scientific accuracy. Her book educated and inspired me on the
interconnectedness of my being as a whole within my environment.
Abigail
Rose Clarke’s book is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to
explore somatics. Whether you are new to somatics or well versed in
the field, her words will inspire and guide you on a transformative
journey of self-discovery. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to
anyone seeking to expand their consciousness, deepen in connection,
and embark on a profound somatic exploration.”
—Dr. Keith Motes,
quantum physicist and founder of the Shaking Medicine Foundation
“If
you find yourself picking up a book called Returning Home, it
is perhaps because you might be feeling lost or unmoored. In a world
of self-help books and media, Abigail Rose Clarke throws weary
travelers a solid buoy to hold onto in a vast ocean of commodified
wellness tactics. In doing so, she invites us to be held by the
incredible healing and love that already exists all around us. By
witnessing the miracle of our body, the breath in our lungs, the
ongoing life cycle of all things, Abigail beautifully compiles a list
of ancient healing practices we have known, and perhaps lost, but can
come back to. When you feel like you can’t turn anywhere else, you can
return to your body, you can return to the world around you, and you
can return home.”
—Uzma Chowdhury, writer, teacher, and
sociologist
- Title: Returning Home to Our Bodies | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-20 17:41:27
- Updated at : 2024-10-26 20:52:41
- Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/210817047-9781623179397-returning-home-to-our-bodies/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.