The Poetics of EcoSomatics: on body, mind, and ecology

This book chapter explores some of the work I have been investigating in the garden, through movement, writing, and film. It draws on permaculture and on Releasing dance practices, particularly Skinner Releasing Technique, in order to discover more about what the parallels and overlaps are between the two. It is part of ongoing work as a gardener and dancer, a long-term research endeavour on an inner city urban allotment, entitled And So We Sow, developing since 2017.
Eco-Somatics is described as an area of research and practice that combines the knowledge systems of somatics and ecology to expand our sense of self, and to include our wider relations by re-rooting us back into our bodies, and awakening our sensory perceptions (Cudney & Rozek 2022). If we reflect on how our relationship with the land(scape), plants and nature informs embodiment, this allows a moving towards deeper understanding of Eco-Somatics. Perhaps if we spend more time with our hands in and on the soil, and more time with our embodiment, we can have a deepened relationship with our inner and outer landscapes simultaneously, and so with the poetics of eco-somatics.