Detailed Discussion: Somatics

"Somatic" ~ from Latinized form of Greek sōmatikos "of the body," from sōma "the body"

I specify "Soul Care and Somatics" to highlight the vital ("of or manifesting life," from Latin vitalis "of or belonging to life," from vita "life") role of our embodied nature in living intelligence, health and well-being. I steer away from saying "the body" because this typically refers to "the physical body" as something distinct from "the mental mind." But, there is literally no difference. The "body" is the mind.

In short, somatics refers to the many, interlocking dimensions of our embodiment: movement, sensation, perception, feeling, affect, emotion, intuitions, gut feelings, physical exertion, metabolism, etc. In the past few generations of industrialized societies, people have been dissociated from their embodiment to a degree never before seen in human existence on Earth. In such a dissociated condition, true health (Old English hælþ "wholeness, a being whole") and real living intelligence is impossible. To live as fully mature, intelligent and adaptive humans, we must develop our "KQ" - kinesthetic intelligence.

Somatics and Holistic, Ecological Knowing

Cultivating somatic sensibilities is essential for a soul/ecosystem-oriented life because it is through and in the body that we experience reality as an integrated whole. Contrary to popular misconception, "knowing" does not occur in the brain. Knowing occurs in the body - which is why I call it the embodied mind. The brain is part of the nervous system and is primarily concerned with coordinating perception, action, and behavior (despite the common misbelief, "thinking" does not occur exclusively in the brain; if you look inside a brain, you won't find any concepts there...). But to really know something -- to understand what it is, how it works, what it needs, how to relate to it, how to properly use it, etc. -- is a matter of a felt sense distributed throughout the living, breathing, feeling body.

Somatic feeling, sensing is the basis and prime characteristic of holistic, ecological knowing. Conceptual cognition provides a partial picture of reality: it divides, distinguishes, delimits, and delineates. Qualitative cognition (feeling, sensing) enables us to perceive and move within a situation as an integrated whole. The organ system primarily responsible for this integrated perceiving is the fascia. 

"Fascia" is far more than just ligaments and tendons; it is a complex, three dimensional web of tissues and viscous fluids that permeates the entire body, coming into direct contact with literally every cell in the body. Fascia is what gives us our anatomical structure, but it is also our primary sensory organ. On average, fascia contains 10x the number of free nerve endings than muscle (although muscles are technically part of fascia), and some areas of the fascia have more nerve density than the skin, tongue and eyes! Anytime we feel anything -- emotions, temperature, memories, intuitions, gut feelings, pain, joy, anticipation, empathy, etc. -- we are feeling fascia.

Because fascia pervades the entire body, it serves as an interface among all other neurobiological systems and functions. Fascia is what synthesizes and integrates experience from all other sensory and perceptual channels, including the five senses, exteroception, proprioception, interoception, memory, kinesthetic awareness, and conceptual imagination. This integration of the multiple dimensions of our somatic awareness is what enables us to experience situations as unified wholes, rather than as a set of individual things separated by physical space. In other words, we experience ourselves and our environment as an ecosystem when we are robustly connected with our somatic/embodied mind and we can feel with nuance, complexity, subtlety, and diversity. 

Concepts only give us the tips of the giant icebergs of phenomena that constitute reality. They reflect what is easily visible and obvious, above the surface. But "below" the surface -- within the body -- is the large majority of what something really is. This is the realm of feeling, sensing, intuition, instinct, and non-conceptual memory. And we access that realm through the fascia - through movement, action, dynamic sensing.

Living Intelligence v. Computation -- Or, why AI isn't real Intelligence

*coming soon...