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50 EMBODIED LEARNING
how to center the body
To arrive at the present moment, try to drop your awareness to the level of sensation. Notice your heartbeat, breath, temperature, and muscular tensions. Depending on the senses available to you, what do you hear, smell, taste, feel, and see? Is your mood heavy or light? Is it dispersed evenly or collected in a particular area? The following guide uses spatial dimensions (length, width, and depth) as a framework for centering bodily knowledge and agitating the politics of design. This exercise derives from First Nations practices and draws on the somatic teachings of Richard Strozzi-Heckler and Thomas Loxley Rosenberg.
length = dignity
To become aware of your length, begin at the crown of your head and relax your scalp, ears, jaw, throat, shoulders, chest, back, ribcage. Take another
deep breath and continue through the rest of your physical body. This is your length, your dignity.
Social forces define our bodies from the outside. Our bodies are raced, sexed, gendered, abled/ disabled, and more. For example, I don’t inhabit only a disabled body. I also occupy a body that’s been policed by gender norms. The effeminate
man undermines standards of masculinity. The philosopher Aristotle, in his study of metaphysics, established a tendency in Western society to smooth complexity into transcendental categories— and our bodies, shaped by internal and external forces, wear the scars.
The physical environment shapes us, too. I have an urban body rather than a suburban or rural
body. For example, I can’t see the horizon from my seventh-floor apartment in San Francisco; my body noticeably shifts when I can see it.
Rebirth Garments is a fashion company tailored to bodies that occupy myriad genders, sizes, and disabilities. The company was founded in Chicago by Sky Cubacub, a nonbinary, queer, and disabled Filipinx designer. They write, “For me, every day is a performance where I bring my body as a kinetic sculpture into the consciousness of the people
I interact with. . . . I embody the spirit of Radical Visibility, and Rebirth Garments is my soft armor.” Sky is always cloaked in brilliant colors, textured fabrics, and a hint of chain mail. Rebirth Garments embraces the bodies and fashion society often rejects and punishes. Sky amplifies identity and reshapes dignity one outfit at a time.
SKY CUBACUB; PHOTOGRAPH BY COLECTIVO MULTIPOLAR