Embodiment & other terms

In the work of embodied education there are a number of terms we use in particular ways that are central to this practice. These terms may have different meanings in other contexts so we define them here as we understand them. Although these definitions are our own words, they emerge out of engaging with a range philosophers and practitioners over many years of research. Visit references & attributions for further details.

What is EMBODIment? 

Embodiment is the ongoing becoming of self-organized, generative and innately creative life. Human embodiment is life as human, composed of ever-changing organic structures, thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, actions, and environments that are integrated as symbiotic living systems coordinating with their context. 

What does being embodied mean? 

Being embodied is an ongoing living process that is vital, durational, ever-changing and innately creative. We don’t have a mind that controls a body, we are an integrated whole that emerges from the fleshiness of our matter. As Guy Claxton says, ‘we do not have bodies, we are bodies’. Our human form is a sophisticated composition of intelligent cells continuously in a dynamic relationship with our context. At any one time all the parts of us are working together in a coordinated way specific to the conditions of that moment. A ‘whole’ approach invites us to have an intention to actively attend to and engage all our parts in a considered way. It is also about noticing how these parts collaborate and co-create to provide information about how to do things moment to moment in any given setting.

What does it mean to Embody something?

Many people go through their lives paying very little attention to anything other than their thoughts. To embody something refers to the process of spending time consciously attuning to and becoming absorbed in the full spectrum of our sensory and perceptual capacities. It’s about being totally involved in the moment. We humans can touch, taste, smell, pay attention to pressure, temperature, texture, movement, rhythm, light, shadow, colour, sensation, sound, our imaginings and more. Our senses and perceptions form a unified whole that is our lived experience from moment to moment. This process is awareness-based and connects us more closely to our sense of being alive. When people speak about embodying something, they refer to the act of bringing it into form through conscious physicalised action - ‘living’ this thing for a time. The techniques are experiential, often non-verbal and consciously tap your cellular intelligence.

What is Cellular Intelligence?

Founder of Body-Mind Centering, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen refers to the 'mind of the cells'.  Drawing upon this work as Live Particle, we recognise that cells of the human organism have an inherent intelligence and that, through attention training, this can be a point of awareness for an individual. It can be intentionally sourced, experienced and engaged out in the world through our embodied intelligence.

What is EMBODIed IntellIGENCE?

Intelligence arises variously from the trillions of cells that constitute the human organism. Humans can experience cellular intelligence through multiple channels; linguistically, logical-mathematically, kinesthetically, musically, visual-spatially, inter/intra personally and so on. All these intelligences constitute us and how we engage with, learn about and express ourselves in the world. These intelligences do not operate independently. Noticing, and how we feel about what we notice, happens almost simultaneously. Senses and perceptions work together to provide a unified holistic experience. Our living systems can provide roadmaps for effective ways to do things.

What Do We Mean by Living Systems?

Living systems refers to the integrated composition of processes that constitute a living thing - all the parts that work together to form a plant, an animal, a human, an ecosystem, a planet. These are all self-organised life forms that interact with their environment and its topography, atmosphere, force and matter. Like the natural sciences writer Janine Benyus, we think of nature as a mentor that provides maps for how living systems work. These maps can teach humans how to effectively and sustainably compose ourselves within our relationships as families, communities, businesses, and ecosystems.

What do we mean by POLY-INTELLIGENT?

Poly-intelligence is a description of our unified whole, informed by our multi-sensory capacities that arise from our design and context. This human experiential mode of being is many things and we have many ways of engaging with, learning about and knowing ourselves and our world. Because of this capacity for multiplicity we use the term ‘poly-intelligence’. We take ‘poly’ from the Greek polus meaning ‘many’ and use it to signify the multitude of human intelligences that operate simultaneously to constitute our lived experience.

What Does Somatic Mean?

The term somatic, coined by the philosopher and teacher, Thomas Hanna, is drawn from the ancient Greek word ‘soma’, which means ‘the living organism in its wholeness’ (Hanna, 1979, p. 6). We humans are that living organism. Somatic practices are experiential, movement-based, multi-sensory activities that invite learners to engage consciously with the whole living organism by listening, moving, seeing, sensing, touching, sounding and imagining things differently.

A ‘mind-body split’ continues to dominate human vernacular, conceptual thinking and many educational systems. Somatic practices provide an alternative ‘whole’ approach to learning that begins with the premise that we do not have a body, we are an integrated whole organism of which our physical form (commonly called our body) is a part, therefore we are body.

What do we mean by Kinaesthetic?

A kinesthetic activity is one that is a tactile, physical activity. Rather than listening to or watching demonstrations, one takes in information through touch and movement, engaging with material experientially. Within a learning scenario kinaesthetic practice refers to understanding and reasoning through actions and the consequences of these actions. A continuous stream of assessing and responding to ones environment occurs as the organism uses sense organs in muscles and other parts to feel positions, movements and other sensation based feedback and information.

What Do we mean by OMNI-DIMENSIONAL?

We recognise that intelligence is a live process that requires multi-sensory inputs in a constant live-feed of information from all things in our environment. Over time, we synthesise and make meaning of things through our experience from moment to moment. Because of this immersive state we use the term 'omni-dimensional'. We take ‘omni’ from the Latin prefix meaning ‘all/everything/everywhere’ to signify the complexity of our organism amidst its immersive conditions, and to deliberately include the remarkable human capacity for imagining which plays a vital process in learning and action. We nod to capacities beyond how we scientifically define a human being. We exist on many planes both literally, figuratively, imaginatively and potentially. Live Particle Learning is not a closed circuit. Like Shakespeare's Hamlet, we recognise that "there are more things in heaven and earth ... than are dreamt of in our [your] philosophy"