To change our life lies in a disarming experience of our own body.
This book sets out on a journey to revolutionise the understanding of what our body is and does, so as to reorient our approach to life. It is a return-journey to an original awareness that acknowledges the ability of our body to co-create reality, the evidence of which has been disclosed from the ancient times to the present day.
We let go of our body as a given and bounded object, in order to experience ourselves as embodiment: the process through which we become our own body, along with the World that we experience and make sense of. We are not given a body, but we become one, just as reality is not given, but becomes, along with our biological, emotional, and cognitive responsiveness.
Awareness of embodiment is now an intimate and collective urgency. It offers us a ground-breaking paradigm for regenerating the personal and global reality that we have become. There is no possibility for a free World, until we become a free body. We are all a human body; therefore, each of us has the ability to harness our innate process of embodiment, and unlock the potential for regenerating our own becoming together with a World through which we can survive and thrive.
Ultimately, this is a manifesto of a libidinal desire awakening in the depths of our flesh. We must let this libidinal force disarm us, erupt within us. We are asked to sense our own body, to feel it, to listen to its innate intelligence, which breaks through the illusions of separateness between inner and outer.
LETTER TO THE READERS
Let us start with the truth. Becoming yourself is a damned massacre. When you decide to undertake an independent path, which goes off the beaten track, uplifting mottos like: “yes, you can”, or “follow your heart”, sound like keys that can open the gates of your ideal wonderland. These sentences don’t say much, though, about the actual process that is embedded in their meaning.
When I was little, I fell in love with the human body. As an adult, I have dared to want to make a life career out of that persistent feeling. I have wanted to learn about the significance of the body, to unravel its potencies, to understand its expression, and share its beauty. To explain to the outside world the reasons for a love relationship is practically impossible. To persevere on my path was to practice a faithful deafness to common sense. When it comes to love, it has nothing to do with common sense. It is harrowing; it is violent and unpredictable; it is bliss and trust. Love is a quest for returning to the origin, to the unbound, the uncut, the unlimited.
To follow my heart was to follow the path of many other people. I searched for knowledge and experiences that would let me disclose the depths of my body and understand those of others. I moved to different places and countries; there were many stops on the way, many waits, diversions, accidents, and surprises. Days, months, years went by, as I navigated through a sense of gratitude for the wisdom I was taught and a sense of wonder at the inspiration I received; a sense of guilt for the uncountable amount of money spent; a sense of responsibility for the impact of my choice, and my absences, on my beloved ones; a sense of growth and an untangling of my insecurities; a sense of frustration for the unpredictable tasks and obstacles I had to confront; a sense of loyalty to my own inner voice; a sense of failure and loneliness in the times I got lost on my way; a sense of happiness and connectivity with wonderful people who challenge themselves and persevere in their process of becoming. From a fierce battle between these senses, what ultimately wins is a disarming experience of self-gestation and self-birth. I have become the choice I made, and the generous gift of awareness that this love story has brought me. I have also become the absence of the things that I had to give up; things that I missed out; things that I will never be or have – as any choice we make excludes others. The value of our choices lies in the limited time we are given on earth. Life does not allow us to go back or hold our transience, but it does allow us the possibility to save the time we spend, by embodying the experience of our transformation, through which we can regenerate ourselves.
This book contains such a lived time; it contains the essence of what and how I loved. I want to thank you for choosing to read this book, and for sharing it with others, if the book supports your own becoming. I thank you deeply for benefiting from my past, and for contributing to my future becoming, along with the becoming of the people I will be able to reach. This may let us begin a cycle of mutual self-births, through which we can regenerate the time we have been given.
All the best, and take care of your body.
Oriana