Somatic knowledge and the body as a ‘slow mind’

100_8583Gave the platform for exp.003/2009 a first coat of paint today. Choosing the color was difficult. I wanted violet at first, being the color of exploration, but this was too sad. Chose a yellow with a tinge of green, as this is energetic and jumps at you from a grey background.

When the platform is finished, I will hang a microphone over it.  Then you will be able to store your thoughts and memories in your body by saying them aloud, because your voice translates to vibrations that go all through you.  Somatic knowledge – stored in the bones?

Later: Checked Wiki on Somatics:
In the Gnostic view, Hylics, also called Somatics (from sōma, “body”), were the lowest order of the three types of human. The other two were the Psychics and the Pneumatics (from pneuma, “spirit, breath”). So humanity comprised matter-bound beings, matter- dwelling spirits and the matter-free or immaterial, souls.  Somatics were deemed completely bound to matter. Matter, the material world, was seen as “evil” in the Gnostic world view. The material world was created by a demiurge, in some instances a blind, mad God, in others an army of rebellious angels as a trap for the spiritual Ennoia. The duty of (spiritual) man was to escape the material world by the aid of the hidden knowledge (gnosis).  Somatics were human in form, but since their entire focus was on the material world, such as eating, sleeping, mating, creature comforts, they were seen as doomed. The Pneumatic saw himself as escaping the doom of the material world via the secret knowledge. Somatics were thought to be incapable of understanding.

Somatic psychology is an interdisciplinary field involving the study of the body, somatic experience, and the embodied self. Some writers describe the “body as a slow mind”, and this re-examination of the fundamental mind-body dichotomy has coincided with research into neuroscience, embodiment and consciousness, and an unconscious mind that ‘speaks’ through the language of body.