The Body
The Armor and the River
Everything this project argues has to be findable in the tissue, or it is only an argument. These are the two places to go looking.
They are two halves of one argument. The first names the armor that keeps the river from being heard; the second asks the body to move in it, and opens by naming the first. Read them in the order they are shelved and the second one starts where you already are.
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The River Under the Armor
Reich and Lowen · A short read
There is a current of rightness running underneath everyday life, felt in the chest the moment someone tells the truth. Most of the time it is muffled by what Wilhelm Reich called armoring: the set jaw, the raised shoulders, the shallow breath. His student Alexander Lowen spent fifty years on what that armor records and what it costs, since a braced body cannot resonate. It was a defense that outlived its war, and what was built in the body can be set down in the body.
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The River in Motion
Feldenkrais · A short read
The river under the armor is a current, and a current is meant to move. Moshe Feldenkrais, an engineer who wrecked his knee and taught his own nervous system to walk again, found that most adults move in only a few of the ways their bodies allow. This piece follows one standard for getting the rest back: move slowly enough that any motion can be reversed at any instant. Whatever moves faster than attention is armor; whatever moves at the speed attention can follow is river.
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