Amanda's Somatic Exercises

Conrad Somatic Exercise Number 1:

Gut Wrenching

Insatiable hunger

Not for food, but for freedom

To escape the cages

Of the mind

The city

The police

Race

Gender

Economy

What is freedom? Is writing freedom? is resisting conventional language an act of freedom? Is not writing, freedom?

Perhaps there is freedom in community-

When you replace the Capitalist I, with a Collective We.

When we come together in love, suffering, messy, chaotic, scary, dancing,

We form unexpected connective tissues that

Would surprise some

But mean everything to us.

I am not writing.

Amanda's Somatic Exercise:

Find a quiet space, and leave your cellphone and electronics in another room.

Turn off the lights, and lay on the ground.

Close your eyes.

Clench your fists extremely tight for ten seconds- then release.

Clench your abdominal muscles very tightly for ten seconds- then release.

Clench your feet very tightly for ten seconds- then release.

By this point you should be feeling relaxed and tranquil.

Now start to think about the cages in your life. Those that constrain you, or the people you love.

Realizing that the peace you felt was manufactured and an illusion in comparison to the very real issues that plague the world. This should immediately ignite some tension, but it is important to sit with this tension, because it is productive.

Remember, it was all good, it was all fucked.

Write a poem about what is all fucked