Marie Garlock, PhD: Mobilizer. Educator. Co-creator.
Love Letter to a Body Being
Love Letter to a Body Being, from Marie
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
a reflection ~ divination
... in writing the above to you, I felt it in my body
each moment in my body, this tug and buoy and lift and current and wave
that is how I know! how I learn! how I sense! how I remember!
I felt it as I wrote it to you!
my body is so wise, the cultivator and attuner of so much, in my learning, knowing, performing, LOVING, people-connecting, leading, writing/communicating/flowing
and i think, if I step back, all the way back, like hawk eye view, like solar system view, on the biochemistry revelations of pain to be transmuted (biochemistry revelation of the longtime wisdom: “all things in the universe are either love, or a call for love”)
that the experiences of these years have been from overriding my body, and it is such a primal-primary form of intelligence and intuition and inquiry and integrity for me!
my body-self is like: “whoaaaaaaah human!! you ARE a body knower-learner-communicator-synthesizer-love-beamer-center-maker-connector-activator-blesser!!”
“whatcha dang doing trying to suppress that!!?! you override and override and overwork and under sleep, you overdo and undermine the blessings that you are/are/are/were/will be. bless and rest, restore and at the behest of all angels who see it wider than you: peace, peace, peace comes from listening, first, to the songs and the quiet, the breath and the story, the movement and the stillness of you-as/in/guided-body. allow, allow, allow.”
yep! more of this!
happening upon
what is unpaved
dancing grounds
protected, visible,
secrets in the open
breath and courage
curiosity and serenity
beckon at each ancient,
each new gate
postlude from the minutiae:
vistas this open breathe back,
the trees abundant, in their summer eminence.
so--why does the human eye get caught on that little dot of nuclear power, emitting its steam and test sirens, an hour-glass broke open at the valley's farthest curve?
be mindful--the crickets are louder! the humidity more thick.
breezelessness more consuming, the corridor splitting cloud and horizon so vast.
regroup--balance your feet in the grass, naked arches slipping over blades, tussled but rebounding, tussled but rebounding
from gentle sways of tai chi, pummels of power stretching, indents of hazy afternoon napping, all these sweaty, overworked humans' pursuit of silence, pressing, pivoting, passing through.
notice--naked arches slipping over blades, baring only their own, greenest growth
look! at what symphony they create in syncopated self-care
all that upward-outward-inward-down expansion engaging their own lot of light, some iota bestowed from shared sun
with their own root dances carved to soil, shared earth
with their own rain soakings, each drop of dew part of a dawn en masse, shared water.
be humbled--each some part of the One, fresh teachers remind the jaded
crisply, tenderly, tenaciously, grass blades carry their skin and veins into an unknown trajectory, photosynthesizing individuation in concert
laughing at the idea of splitting themselves in half, to give away, take for granted, or reject their tiny, vital, blessed lot of water and earth and sun
all, already, there.
cycling, spreading, retracting, cycling--water and earth and sun.
grass blades doing their unhurried and anointed best. rejoicing the inevitable, releasing the inevitable. each to begin again.
How wondrous to grow the { Flipping Cancer } Project ...deep down in.
Example of Outreach to performers and story makers and corporeal-soul movers, to body intellectuals who otherwise consider themselves to be patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals.
More coming, at UNC Hospitals soon! { December 2, 2016! }
{{ Barbara Celebrations! }}
We love you mom, so much. Thanks for teaching us how to be, welcoming the Divine flow, in creative energy and artful service to a higher vision, in defiant spunkiness and fun-out-of-everything, in devotion to beloveds and beauty and a bodacious God, and love ~ love ~ love ~ love.
June 2016 Sources o' Love, Light.
Sacred Works of Art - Body Altars
Giving Thanks:
These ARE MY PEOPLE! {{ grateful }}
Soyinka teaches a workshop: how to be a living altar piece to alter peace ... we make BIBO candles "BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT" as a reminder she gives to do just that, deeply. She leads us through her RACE DANCE curriculum -- a practice in dance/movement and meditation, stillness and breath, a visual, living installation to name the barriers perpetuating and the assets needed for addressing racism & injustice...
Cynthia has an artist's studio: overflowing with sacred visualities, tangible altars she's made (they feel like dreamscapes) ... an outpouring of her spirit trained up to see all the textures, and invite us to touch them too ... to make shiny red take-away boxes that remind us there is always mystery, grace (grace, grace) of physicality ....
Phil lights so many flames: with the stories he tells, the {genius} bodywisdom he culls and curates... the hilarity he finds in the ridiculously-obscured and most-stuck-places, which he cracks open for all ...
13 other participants from India, Canada, Australia, across the US: adorn the studio space with their unique voices and visions for social action that ignites our bodies, minds, transnational collectivities .... Agnotti who leads so fluidly through the light/dark spots -- linking the Constellations of what we must know, Sukhmani as most nuanced clown there is -- traveling the world to bring laughter and curiosity to dampened hearts, Kristin as dancer of thresholds/honorer of all possibility, Robert as Mississippi nourishment-justice and freedom-curator, Candice as the masseuse of souls -- listener to inner-rhythms of the disenfranchised from Berkeley to Delhi when no one else can/will, Libby as Brooklyn Poetess of Embodied Vibe, Arpita as love nymph who decorates the crowns of each head -- no exceptions -- with dignity, Rebecca as Australian cultivator of confidence and gentle-ease among the communication-vulnerable, Jason as the Boston Globe Master-Carrier of every art form there is, Mindy as queen of re-framing embodied compassion, Owen as keeper of the best-hidden hilarities, Marie Bryce as wild-hearted storyteller who finds entire forests of freedom-songs, powerful clear Janina who strings your dreams -- right before you -- onto strands of golden paper cranes.
Stacy Grove plays: the outer-most edges of singing bowls, they hum with the love of all who have sent us here through HeartSpace Spiritual Resources ... her table of instruments buzzes, resonant with investments in people-power and collective recalibrations of what it means to be ill and well, in communicative generativity ...
Kimberley Korb and my mom and I's women's circle -- among the larger community who've supported this trek to train in InterPlay and research health justice / healing economies: show up everyday, in new ways ... reminding with prayer and surprising bits of poetry to "awaken the creative energy body" ... especially when it hurts, or is undone enough to open to new angles, intuited clarities ....
Secrets of Leading -- DC InterPlay Training
Joy upon Joy. To be supported in training-up to do an informed, ethical job of leading InterPlay. Connection with colleagues and mentors, and horizons ever-widening. Thank you to those who show us the way.
.... Sumptuous scholarship, embodied excavations ... And as always, sneaky-deep electric charges when diverse people (across age, race and ethnicity, nationality and professions) spend time in body-intellectual discoveries. New facilitation techniques learned first-hand in voice and breath, story and song, dance and stillness, ease and flow, and letting-be, letting-go.
*Pictured are 3 "InterPlay Arts + Social Change Millennials" Rehana, Marie Bryce, Marie Garlock, with the clear n' compelling training leaders Ginny Going and Tom Henderson. Kate Amoss, who is an InterPlay leader in DC, generously homed us in her chakra-colored, handwoven art-adorned cottage in which she sees clients for counseling (enacted quite creatively) and in which she hosts small community rituals. Tangible love in that space.
*The photos here close with a favorite poster from Chicago, where I traveled at the tail end of this DC training trip, to present at the Nat'l Communication Assoc. on a "Critical Inter/Cultural and Feminist Critiques of Organized Social Change Movements" panel the paper "(Cultural) Economies of Disease: Pink Ribbon Campaigns’ Global Circulation, a Transnational Feminist Reading" (met some remarkable colleagues there!). Hosted so generously by a mentor and inspiration in Chicago, Dr. Bob Hostetter, who runs North Park University's Conflict Transformation and Dialogue program, within Communication Arts.
Breast Cancer Action! HQ Visit in San Francisco
Breast Cancer Action! BCAction. It's real. A view from inside a dream organization: shifting the status quo of breast cancer in the US (its domestic and global reach) today. Hooray for brilliant, bodacious, clear, compelling work that involves community, policy, activism, and embodied, mindful, soul-full advocacy.
Some pictures of the San Francisco HQ of BCA, volunteering / research / connection meetings with staff and leaders. So much admiration, and gratitude, from my whole extended family -- of relatives and fire-starters (especially Barbara Garlock, Deo and Hunter, Andrew, affiliated friend Doris Ann Price, and more....).
InterPlay Graduation: Anointing with Sparkles and Feathers (Oh MY!)
Um, so this is THE - MOST - FUN - GRADUATION that's ever existed! The boundaries continue to just explode open with Phil and Cynthia, Agnotti, Soyinka, and their Wing It! troubadours.
What gorgeous human beings to keep company with: how does one get so dang lucky? All I know is that being blessed and anointed, flower adorned with offerings and prayer reminds you that it is not yours to question "why", but simply, sometimes to receive with gratitude. A thankfulness that enlivens you to dance, and sing, and praise, with less inhibition and fewer "am I good enough?" blocks. To perform and explore, to learn and re-learn and un-learn with contemporaries who share the same commitments to social action, embodied exploration, and spirited weaving of the human and divine -- it's pretty much like receiving a communion or big old forehead full of holy oil. But it's across your whole body, and from the inside out. You accept, are humbled, and proceed to revel.
What a group of teachers and friends. Inspiring, grounding, rooting -- re-rooting -- helping one another listen for the gusts swirling all around them, by which to soar as they never could have before this serendipitous, immersive meeting.
Big Sur
It could be called Big Sur-Real!
Such Beauty and Epic love, in outdoor adventures with Janina Graves. What a powerful, big-expanse way to let the teachings of our InterPlay training settle in ....and unsettle all the layers of bodymindspiritsoul within us. Giving the most profound thanks {!!!!!!}
And here.... are the Redwood Trees that will (and have) become my anchor-place. One, I hope, too, for my family. Very much feeling the encouragement, and bubble-up-to-surprise presence of my mom Barbara Garlock in this place. Her light-refractive flow is here ... so come visit!
Learning and Re-learning .... and an {artists' salon}!
Whoah! Who knew that my call would come so visibly and viscerally so soon? When you ask to learn, sometimes the opportunities whack you upside the chest. The beautiful and painful both exist. Our elders' teachings are gifts, to be celebrated and respected. And the ways in which new generations, as Soyinka says, "teach elders how to be teachers" is equally as true.
Planetary Dance was taught by Anna Halprin at her mountain home studio, and we (Soyinka and I) were kindly welcomed to join by a group of Korean Buddhist nuns. It was an honor to enter this sacred space, and a lot of learning took place regarding leadership and compassion.
