WITHING by Emma Cocker

withing Delphine Chapuis Schmitz --- Emma Cocker --- Laressa Dickey --- Sabina Holzer --- Ines Marita Schärer --- Litó Walkey This is an emergent ‘thematic node’ for exploring the relation of languaging and bodying: How does languaging affect bodying? How does bodying affect languaging? How does movement inform wording? How does wording inform moving? How can we explore ways for languaging/bodying with, through and from sensing and somatic practices? How to find wording and worlding for the polyphonies of somatic experiences? scores - notations - situations – conditions Initiated through the mutual witnessing of shared resonances and affinities during Convocation II, we conceived this ‘node’ as an emergent framework for experimenting together, for sharing embodied practising, for testing possibilities for a bodily becoming of language/words. Since November 2023, we have been meeting online to explore how we might create shared conditions and situations for practising body/languaging, both through being-with (online) and being-apart (offline). Currently, our shared exploration unfolds through the rhythm of rotation, an evolving constellation of ‘pairings’ and ‘proposals’ based on a bi-monthly cycle. For each bi-monthly iteration, a pairing (two of us working together) devises a score/proposal/invitation/focus which we then all collectively test, enact, activate, reconnecting together after a period of practice (1 month) for sharing materials / findings / discoveries / reflections from the shared research process. Being in doing. Being in practice together. Body/Language. Between the two, activating the between. Moving between different modalities, shifting from one to the other. Tilting towards. Along-siding.

AN INITIATING IMPULSE

Collective text/poem from Breathing Together > reading together

Rest in each word for eternity.

Explore the s p a c e.

Three gestures of pulsing,

several gestures to overcome.

Breathe four times, at least.

Exist like a fold.

Movement - space - repeat.

Establishing a tension,

listening as a carrier.

Body with support,

a patient collapsing.

Patient ethics allows,

changing receptive relations.

Something is opening.

Screen-writing as an encounter.

Weave the relational landscapes

which constitute us, as multiple.

Read try not to read find a rhythm.

It seems like we reverse it.

A standing infinity symbol.

Always being interrupted, always speaking.

Take a daily walk, softly adhering to protocols of interruption.

Disnaming descriptions from the edges.

Like an invisible dance.

Seeking the limits of chance.

Turn the observation into a particle, an atom, at-home.

In this body, in this skin, in this movement,
in this language, in these times.

The book has been waiting.

Decide to forget.

PART 1

- Take time to tune into your body, beginning with a practice of attunement of your choice. You can for instance explore: How is your breathing? Do you feel your breath around your heart and chest, or in your belly and lower back? Or both?

Let the light of your surroundings enter your eyes. Everything you see is a reflection of light. Soften your gaze and feel the reflected light touching your eyes.

- Explore at least 3 different ways for reading and returning to the collective text/poem from Breathing Together. For instance:

- Reading slowly out loud.

- Skimming, glimpsing.

- Stretching and bending the poem as if it were a muscle.

- Caressing the poem as if it were a body.

- Circling with it. Turning it over.

- Reading with eyes closed.

- Allowing one’s eyes to freely roam the page.

- Noticing attraction to specific words or phrases.

- Read in one’s memory

- Visualising/recollecting/memorising/(mis)remembering

PART 2

- Come to lie down in a comfortable position.

- Have on hand a notebook or piece of paper.

- Again let light touch and enter your eyes & vision.

- Reconnect with the previous practice(s) through your body.

- Listen to what comes back, what visits, what returns.

- Trace/observe the sentence(s) emerging - let them appear.

- Notate it once with eyes closed, once with eyes open, informed by the light touching your surroundings and your eyes.

* BELOW - sentences that emerged from PART 2 (as one text/poem)

PART 3

REST with the sentence

BECOME with the sentence

EXPLORE with the sentence

PULSE with the sentence

OVERCOME with the sentence

TRAVEL with the sentence

FOLD with the sentence

LISTEN with the sentence

SPEAK with the sentence

DISNAME with the sentence

FORM with the sentence

GESTURE with the sentence

FUMBLE with the sentence

FILTER with the sentence

SHARE with the sentence

WAIT with the sentence

FLIGHT with the sentence

REMEMBER with the sentence

WALK with the sentence

TURN with the sentence

REPEAT with the sentence

HOLD with the sentence

SUPPORT with the sentence

COLLAPSE with the sentence

HANG with the sentence

DISCOVER with the sentence

LEAVE with the sentence

CONTROL with the sentence

ADHERE with the sentence

DANCE with the sentence

FORGET with the sentence

ALLOW with the sentence

OPEN with the sentence

RELAX with the sentence

CARRY with the sentence

SEARCH with the sentence

WRITE with the sentence

ENCOUNTER with the sentence

WEAVE with the sentence

GROUND with the sentence

SEEK with the sentence

DECIDE with the sentence

CONSTITUTE with the sentence

REACH with the sentence

BREAK with the sentence

REVERSE with the sentence

FLOAT with the sentence

SIT with the sentence

STAND with the sentence

INTERRUPT with the sentence

ADDRESS with the sentence

MOVE with the sentence

LIE with the sentence for reading

BREATHE with the sentence

__________ with the sentence

- Verb the sentence(s)

- Choose 3 - 5 different possibilities for verbing the sentence from the list below.

- Spend at least one hour with at least one of these in the coming days.

- Notate the process of verbing the sentence(s) in a format that can be shared.

* BELOW - notations from the process of “verbing the sentence” from PART 3.

PART 4

- Take the notation from Part 3 and reactivate it - looping, returning - through applying the process of Parts 1 - 4.

- Repeat the process 3 times, on 3 different occasions.

- Then after 3 circuits/rounds of the process from Parts 1-4 move to Part 5.

PART 5

- Gather the sentences/notations from the whole process

- Choose again one of the verbs from the list in Part 3.

- Listen to your breathing. Close your eyes for some moments. Open your eyes and let light enter your eyes & vision like a gentle breeze.

- Let the word and the experience support the distillation of the sentences/notations from the whole process into something that can be shared.

* BELOW - distillations from PART 5.

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