“There's a kind of thinking that happens through the act of moving.” -Natalia Espinel, Colombian artist and educator

          I'm collaborating with Natalia Espinel, and we're playing with “invitations” toward different embodiment movements. Nothing is “supposed” to happen if you try these invitations—we hope instead that the movements become something for you as you do them. Here’s one of our invitations, if you would like to try.

“Changing the Vertical for the Horizontal”
We are so often sitting, straight up, holding ourselves 
tight. 
		The floor is always calling us. Gravity.
Going to the floor is a kind of surrender.
 								Perhaps 
you will move there,
					now,	
						slowly and mindfully.
Lay on your back, arms at your sides, feet a foot or so below your hips.

Relax. 
  	Breath by breath,
				relax
Your feet, your neck, your shoulders.
Your arms, your lips, your mind. 
When you are deeply relaxed, 
	perhaps you will return to other movements,
When you are disconnected from your body,
	perhaps you will return to the floor.

	A meditation, after we’ve tried:
	For us, the vertical is related to control. It is like focusing intently with your eyes. It is part of the construction of power, of ableness, of intentional arrangement of yourself and the other. It feels connected to the hierarchies woven through those constructions, and the hierarchy of dividing life into work/rest, worthy/unworthy, of building “achievement” from opportunity from presence.
	The horizontal releases control. It is like awakening to peripheral vision, to the unconscious, to a sensorial relation to the world. Instead of holding ourselves above we surrender into. 
	Now that we have surrendered to the floor—what now? 
	¿Ahora que nos entregamos al piso, ahora que?