Today I came to the realization that I am not writing my somatic exploration posts in the way that I would like to. The point of these exercises is to stumble upon an embodied writing. By embodied writing, I mean writing which doesn’t come straight from my rational brain, but instead comes about when I attempt to give equal attention to each of my senses. I am clearly thinking when I write, but I try to write with a more intuitive voice.

In editing my first somatic post and in the formatting of my second somatic post I realized that I am missing the point. I am removing the my intuitive voice from the writing out of fear of who might read it. One important component of somatic writing is not listening to the fear, but instead trusting the immediacy of the voice that comes through. From here on out, I will give a brief explanation of where I am at and the circumstance of the writing and everything else will be directly from my notebook, unedited.

This is my writing from the thunderstorm that took place on May 4, 2017.

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Thunder comes and shakes the ground. Two flickers leap from a bush, the sh-shing of wings. A scrub jay stands on a power line and sings, welcoming the storm. I kneel down and the gray chicken approaches me cautiously. More thunder, this time I notice my ear drums vibrating with the rumble. How can I explain to you how the thunder feels resonating in my chest? I am not only hearing the thunder with my ears, I am hearing it with my body. Sometimes we forget how jumbled our senses are.

It’s something like zen, sitting here in the rain trying to listen to an approaching storm with the whole of my body.