On Belonging: Somatic Sensing, Beyond-Human Elders & Collective Survival

There is something I want you to remember: you are already connected to elders who embody how to live without supremacy.

You belong to them inherently. They are ready to receive you at any time. With their support, you will re-member what we need to survive.

As our hearts continue to break in the face of incomprehensible violence and loss, we need to root into this belonging for the long haul, feel all there is to feel, and embody the transformative power of reciprocal relationship. Prentis Hemphill reminds us that this is really what politicized somatics is all about. We are not here to regulate our nervous systems into complacency, but rather “to start feeling so that we can re-member the signs and languages of our bodies and let them shift us towards right relationship with all life.” 

I have found that when we trust that we belong, we are safe to feel much more and have more opportunity to re-member the sensory languages of our bodies that weave us into right relationship. For this reason, I encourage you to incorporate beyond-human kin into your somatic practice early on. 

Part of being alive is belonging to a living planet composed of magical, sensing beings that have not lost track of right relationship. Even though human-constructed systems of domination have caused immeasurable harm, life still moves through you. You still belong to a web of relations that has collectively kept life moving towards life for billions of years. It is your birthright to feel that so deeply you know it in your bones. It is our shared responsibility to let it guide us toward liberated futures. 

If you listen closely, you will meet birds that travel by stars, seeds that remember how we survive the harshest times, moss responsible for the revolution that made all terrestrial life possible, flowers that call pollinators home to them with purpose, whales that cycle necessary nutrients from the depths of the ocean to you and me, micro organisms that suspend time, and trees that track the phase of the moon together. They will reflect your magic back to you. They will hold you in grief, fear, uncertainty and rage. You will re-memeber how to embody your role in the collective story of life.  

Held by this web, we re-member how to access the body wisdom that comes through feeling, we expand our imaginations, contact our ancestors, refine our relational skills, generate trust in ourselves and revive hope to re-Source us in our commitments to collective liberation. 

Belonging to this planet is nothing to take for granted in these times of rising authoritarianism and the atrocious violence of conquest. Amidst it all, we are still surrounded by wise, fearless, innovative, and caring beyond-human elders who are ready to engage and hold space for our re-membering all the time.