Earthing for Earthlings

INTENTION // a space to land

I’m interested in alternative ways of learning, unlearning, connecting, Being and Belonging and have been experimenting with relational, participative and embodied learning labs entwining art, sound, sensory possibilities, embodiment and ecology as tools for creating connection. This is what I call ‘Spacemaking’ and has been taking place both in real life, online and also in hybrid form for over 20 years.

Sharing the Earthing for Earthlings workshop on behalf of the Post-Grad Community in collaboration with the Climate Emergency Network’s Earth Day 2024, felt like a symbolic moment to offer a space to land. An opportunity to practice mapping our ecologies via dialogues with nature using sensory Spacemaking.

…it can be a lot when engaged in activism to ‘pour into your cup’ or ‘refill the well’ (are these expressions?!). I’ve found it necessary in my own practice to bring more attention to rest and spaciousness as a way to create longevity in my activism. Burnout is common and all too prevalent, so I'm interested in how we bring more longevity to and pun-de-road. Direct, immediate and urgent action is great, necessary, but - and - we also want to be in this and available for the long haul, so it’s essential to take care of ourselves in order to take care of each other. Centring care (both self + community). To me, these impact each other and are entwined and interconnected. We are part of wider ecosystems.

This workshop was intended to be a space to land, a practical soft-soft explorative lab for humans, pets, plants etc to come as they are, explore and/or entertain ideas around rest, ease and our connection to and with nature.

I was keen to offer tools which could be explored, adapted and used not just in the session, but which could also be taken forward as a way to create space wherever and whenever we need it.

I’ve been ever-curious pondering the question: what pedagogic possibilities can be found in our inherent connection to, with and as nature?

So we invited a neuro-emergent, participatory and multimodal approach which is interested in not in ‘solutions’ but generative and expansive ‘explorations’ which decolonise ways of Being, knowing, feeling and learning.

This relational, participative and embodied learning opportunity entwined sound, sensory possibilities, embodiment and ecology as tools for creating connection.

We explored a practical practice experience, mapping our ecologies entwining embodiment, ecology, sound, somatics, movement, meditation, breathwork and creative explorations to help support us rest, digest, ground and connect at this time where - there’s a LOT going on…

This offering of a space to land was a soft-soft explorative lab for humans, pets, plants etc to come as they are, explore and/or entertain ideas around care, ease and our connection to, with and as nature.

METHOD // technical delights

Winfrey and Grace (Jones), beloved plants, who I collectively call the ‘GEWLS’ (as a gender neutral term) were co-hosts of honour, providing a soundtrack for the session using the method of biosonification: translating the energy of the plants into sounds, which accompanied us in our embodiment explorations.

Having explored this concept in various forms as part of installations, radio projects, djing and also in-person during workshops, I was keen to experiment with offering it online via a Zoom setup at home with Winfrey and Grace, as I hadn’t explored this particular rig.

Using Zoom to host this setup brings about its own special sauce of limitations, namely resolution of image, and quality of sound. This is impacted further when you have more than one input for sound sources. I had three. lol.

The three separate sound sources were:

1) sonification from biodata reader, attached to Winfrey, offering a continuous feed triggered from Winfrey's energy. This is impacted of course by things like soil, temperature, light source, water (I gave Winfrey a few spritz’ before we began) and so on.

2) more sonification of biodata, attached to Grace, triggered by touch, connected to samples I could play out on top of the soundscape from Winfrey. The triggers were connected by sticky pads, which were carefully placed on Grace’s leaves. Crocodile clips connected these pads to a circuit board which then triggered samples. I was cautious to use sounds I felt complimented each other, which didn’t have too much shrill or startling intensity as I wanted the sonification to feel fluid and harmonious.

3) my voice via wireless microphone not in any way close to the importance of the sounds from the GEWLS, but I wanted there to be a clear channel which could be heard yet not dominate the composition. As the mic was directional, it could also eliminate other noise (e.g. traffic, sirens, seagulls, scaffolding assembly, etc). My mic was connected to a compressor to control the level of the soundscape when I spoke (so not to add tooooo much noise because I wanted to create a ‘soothing’ environment). So I did my usual Janet Jackson / Anneka Rice / Britney Spears practice runs as I do anytime before holding space with mics, particularly when moving. I didn’t want there to be any annoying ruffle sounds - which is trickier than it seems when you’re mostly laying / rolling around on the floor! Respect to divas everywhere!

I managed to get around this 3-sound-source-saga via a mixer which also functioned as a sound card, connected to Zoom.

Is this tmi?

Anyway.

After hours of testing in the days running up to the event, finally a breakthrough in making this project work online in the way i’d hoped.

I set the GEWLS off about 45 minutes before we began the session, running more tests and they seemed happy and very talkative / musical! I think they knew we had special guests!

PROCESS + PARTICIPATION // on: access and co-creation

On: access and co-creation
The event strived to be an accessible space where everybody felt welcome as part of this co-creation. Participants were asked to bring ‘themselves’, and wear something comfortable to move and rest in.

Attendees were also prompted to bring any sensory supports for comfort which could include tactile supports (stim tools, stress balls, stones), good smelling stuff e.g. oils / candle, plants, animal friends and so on.

I like to encourage agency and freedom for people to show up as they are and create conditions which feel most comfortable. That includes how they interact with the space, so I invite people to choose their own adventure, camera on or off, setup as they like, and also, a very important part, to remind us rest is welcomed so if they want to sleep through the session, it’s more than ok, in fact, it’s celebrated (and someone did in fact sleep through the session, which I’m always thrilled to hear about!)

I explained what lay ahead in terms of what people might expect. This involved an introduction to the GEWLS and a short consensual-plant-touch demonstration of what could be seen/heard and how I was ‘playing’ the plants through touch during the session, as well as sharing tools they might want to use (everything an offering which could be taken or left), along with what they might expect from the session. I find it can be helpful to have a little context along with open space to ask questions as I am on hand if anyone wants to ask me anything - the chat was left on and we began.

We started in an active rest position and all ‘movements’ were shared with ideas for adaptations and offerings to apply to your own place/mood/body/vibe. I’m a big encourager of each of us remembering, or at least inviting, a practice of tuning into our own ‘body-mind’ wisdom…I wish there was another less-cheesy way of saying this, but essentially, I always hope to share ‘teachings’ as an open-ended offering, a question, experiment, conversation or curiosity. An ingredient which can be tried, customised or left behind.

As a disabled human I’m passionate about disability justice and also as a human who is interested in liberation for all of us, the ‘seat of the teacher’ is something I’ve been curious about since starting my teaching journey ‘officially’ in 2010. It’s a relationship which has been uncomfortable at times, particularly when there can be an expectation of hierarchy. I’m into dismantling ideas of dodgy power dynamics or top-down teaching which places the teacher as somehow ‘above’ students. I find it more interesting to approach my workshops as more of a creative laboratory. A co-creation of ‘knowledge’ which we are experiencing individually, and as a group (along with Grace and Winfrey). This feels more exciting to me and hopefully others too.

I also understand there can be expectations of wanting to be ‘told what to do’ so I try to create containers of care and weave that into all parts of the process, not just the event itself. For example: in the planning stages of this workshop, I'm creating a structure based on ‘mood’ or an ‘experience’ I’m hoping to create. This is where I find my socially-engaged approach comes to life, because once I ‘get into the room’ I surrender it all. All the planning. The need to ‘keep’ a rigid structure. Or get to one particular ‘destination’. And instead try to meet who and what’s there and start from that place. This offers a practice in presence, meeting people where they’re at, taking into consideration the energy in the room. The different needs people have. The weather. The pets. Anything at all. It’s all threaded into the experience I'm sharing and that we’re co-creating. Because we are nature, we are a part of the environment, and to me, Grace and Winfrey’s contribution is symbolic of this. They are ultimately energy (as we and the things around us are) and the GEWLS create their own impact on the session. I had no control over Winfrey in particular’s contribution other than volume. Grace, moreso, although I couldn’t remember all the sounds connected to the triggers, so it was also spontaneous as to what sound was heard depending on where I touched.

BODY TALK // on: the ‘movement’ part

Throughout the session I offered intermittent ‘somatic movements’ to explore, and attendees were invited to adapt and experiment with their experience to and with each prompt in their own space and time.

Somatic movement, like a lot of ‘bodywork’, can have different effects on people. e.g. it’s common to experience a spontaneous yawn, sigh, perhaps watery eyes, tummy rumbles and more. These are all signs of ‘release’ - which I think is a good thing. The body-mind-etc naturally wants to release tension, but most of the time we are in our busy modes, unable to slow down or pause long enough to let this happen. Perhaps we’re clenched with to-do’s, overwhelmed, stressed out and understandably so! Again, there's a LOT going on. An understatement! So the somatic ‘work’ in my opinion, is much about inviting a slower, softer approach. The opposite to what we might be used to. This can present its own challenge of course. I shared this is still absolutely part of my own practice, so if we’re noticing signs of tension or stress, rather than feeling discouraged, instead we can explore talking to ourselves in a gentle, tender way with understanding that we’re holding a lot. It can take time to unravel tension, but that’s ok, because even the tiniest attention to our tension can create more space.

We work with what’s there and do the best we can with what we’ve got (insert Mimi “imado the best i can with what i GHAT!” etc etc) - it’s all part of our experimental lab and process-play baybee!

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