the poetics of orthobionomy
a 'book' of beginnings
some of the wall of the Medina of Marrakech. Photo by R. Valasek
Coming up: Society of Ortho-Bionomy International sponsore study group: The Body Schema: Ortho-Bionomy from the inside
What's New is Here and in Process
A Brief Pictorial Review of Where I've Been
(and why I've not been here)
Karen outside The Sphere
I have neglected this webbiness for several months. After Atlanta much was going on to keep me from it. Most of the distraction was travel. First stop Las Vegas to see The Sphere, the Postcard from Earth show. The Sphere is a paean to Technology. The script for the Aronofsky film must have been produced during the writers' strike: embarrassingly bad. It's all for the spectacle.
The main purpose of the Vegas stop was to take the trip in stages, and build up our travel muscles. Use the spectacle of Las Vegas as motivation for walking.
On to Virginia to spend Christmas with our son, Cooper. The National Portrait Gallery was at the top of our DC agenda. Most happy to see the portrait of Queen Liliuokalani, which we normally see in her Iolani Palace home.
The courtyard itself was worth the trip to this Smithsonian museum. It is an architectural marvel.
Christmas on 'the farm' (near Culpepper VA) was white, but not with snow. On January 3 we all boarded a Royal Air Maroc flight from DC to Casablanca. From there took the train to Marrakech.
The bride is carried in on a palanquin
For a wedding feast on New Year's Eve.
Back to VA for a couple days then the final leg of the trip, Tacoma WA to spend Karen's birthday with her old friend. Unfortunately Karen came down with a nasty URI our last day in Morocco. No Hockey games, no going out. We bundled up, watched old movies, played games, sipped whiskey, and talked.
Home now for a few weeks, well recovered, even rejuvenated, and inspired. Inspired in part by a David Hockney exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Collage br David Hockney. From the show Perspectve Should Be Reversed, at HOMA
It seems a long time since Atlanta in September, from which much will be developed,
Bust of President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center
. . . and a long time too, since Albuquerque and the SOBI Instructor Retreat and Annual Conference, from which much may develop.
Are we ready for What's Next?
I want to hold small, intimate Residential Experiences in vibrant urban setting. Eight people maximum, including Karen and me. Minimum of 5 days (to count for SOBI as a residential). We want only for our expenses to be covered. Any money beyond our expenses will pass on to SOBI.
If there is a coordinator (and there really shoud be) their expenses and fees need to be included.
Most of the food part will be local restaurants. Whatever lodging is procurred must have a kitchen so eating in will always be an option.
This is inspired by how the Atlanta class turned out, with an Airbnb apartment at Atlantic Station.
Chicago is where we want to go next and we are open to proposals for other places as well. It's hard to say what the cost will be but you can see that with no fee for the Instructor it's probably less than half the cost you'd expect to pay.
We also want to visit the British Isles. This could be great fun in Edinburgh or Belfast. More expense in getting there. Plan your own wander and we all meet up somewhere for 5 days of orthobionomy.
Contact me if you are interested in being a part of a small group Residential.
And Here's a Grander Idea
I want an Anatomy and Physiology grounded on the nature of Life. An A&P of the Body in Relationship, a poetics of A&P. Centered perhaps on the Body Schema, the many ways, and Phases of the Body extending across the globe. How is Care a necessary virtue (and why it gets short shrift in the Virtue lit)?
We will begin with the simplest duality: inside / outside. It becomes clear that Life is the inside of the world and it must have a membrane. So Value is inserted: difference, preferences, selection: all toward the overriding and archaic value: being is better than not being. Becoming is better than unbecoming?
A Five-Day (minimum) Residential (SOBI credit for either Residential or A&P). A follow-on of previous Unphased Wonder Valley Residential.
Aiming for New England territory.
Ideas embodied in orthobionomy practices, praxis.
Three to Four Ortho-Bionomy Advanced Instructors.
Need at least a two-year lead-up; Instructors and coordinators need to be able to commit to regular virtual meetings, and at least one two-day in-person gathering, that is, a class. It could be a hybrid event?
I will set up a separate page to toss in ideas I have for content.
Who would be on your Unphased Dream Team of three or four Instructors?
However, it may show up I will begin a new chapter. For now, I'll call it:
"Anatomy and Physiology of the Body that Isn't"
"My wife and my mother-in-law" W.E. Hill. 1915
You can always come up with other ways of looking at things. That's what the Phases gives us, differnt ways to approach the Body, different portals.
PROLOGUE
The mistake was to think of myself as singular, integral. I am multiple. And "life is round." Different ways to say the same thing.
A 'session' of Ortho-Bionomy is always only a beginning, in the inchoative.
The correct (ortho) application of life's (bios) laws (nomos): this is given as the intended meaning of the coinage: Ortho-Bionomy.
What is Life? What are its Laws? Ortho-Bionomy 'correctly' applies the laws of life while orthobionomy seeks to discover these unicorns.
This 'book' is messy. People are messy though we like to pretend otherwise.
07 February 2023
It remains a mystery to me, the how and why of it. Reading books is felt as an obligation. Sadly, in my 80th decade, I feel I am only now learning how to read a book. I suppose this means, in one sense, that I am quite young, just learning how to read. Young in other ways as well: as aging systems begin to wobble and weaken I am learning technic of how to move, how to walk. how to be this person I am forever becoming.
Once, to claim (proclaim) I'd read a book all I had to do was look upon each and every word of the book. In that sense, I've read (ticked off) an awful lot of books. I have probably started more books than I've 'finished'. A few books I've reread: five times now for The Great Gatsby, Green Eggs and Ham I cannot count the readings. Some books do not begin until after the first read.
It was Heraclitus, one of the first of the Philosophers, who gets credit for the saying that one can't step twice into the same river; you and the river are different moment to moment. Heraclitus might have said that about reading a book instead of stepping in a river; only difference, the text of a book typically doesn't change as does the flow of a river. Ah, but it does, words are as lively as water. What is freighted along in the fluency of language is as vicissitudinous as a river.
This 'book' (which is to say this so-called book is continuously being subject to change. Commentary can be added to by anyone. It constantly seeks a semblance of organization. Typographic errors remain a while, get seen, get fixed.
I aim for transparency and I will always lovingly defend my opacity. Towards transparency, do I need to declare my neurodivergence? It is here to be seen, upfront, in this 'book' of beginnings . . .
(AKA Acknowledgments)
I have had to train myself to move gratitude up to the front. Perhaps I will explore in one of my three Introductions why I have struggled with gratitude. For now I will try some simple lists. The start of one list is simple: Karen Valasek, spouse, partner, co-parent, orthobionomer extraordinaire. I would for sure put Lynn Drummer on the list. Probably next after Karen though in Ortho-Bionomy she . . .
The Phases and the Poetics of Ortho-Bionomy
(Ortho-Bionomy as orthobionomy)
An online Study Group.
[Please note that the word "Poetics" is hyperlinked to its own page where I say what it is I mean the word to mean.]
Theory and practice
Our time together will be brief, we will be apart far longer. We will apportion most of the theory into the apart time. Most of our study group time will be praxis: practice (doing) + reflection, thinking/talking about, making sense, meaning-making. (there is a thing to know about thought: when a thought is only inside it is partial; a thought is complete only in its expression.)
I encourage you to read these notes before we meet up to practice and I know many will not. Some will start and find the writing too something, put off by the 'bad' writing. Many reasons I need not know why you could not do the preparatory reading. I Don't need to know. Yours will be a green experience. We need those in the mix.
There are a lot of words here. That is so that there need be fewer words during the study group time. Chances are good that many reading the notes may feel puzzled, and might find them difficult to grasp.
We will be doing things. If you only do the doings, not read the text, the doings may cause you different meanings. We will want to hear some of one another's experiences of some of the doings. If you read the notes first, which is what I recommend, many things will come into focus.
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An Introduction to Ortho-Bionomy®
Has moved to its own page
For Montana Chapter of AMTA Annual Conference
19 May 2022
Body Schema
Looking back at my list I wonder where this might go next. We won't know until we are there together doing it. But right now body schema is salient. I direct your here to see what's in the glassary on body schema. I hope to add more to this entry, or direct also to Motor Cognition (see References, Jennerod, Marc) but that's not yet written.
Whatever names we use, whatever words, the curiosity at the core is this: How does a concept, a thought, move matter, achange the world. We want to hang our in that hinge. Playing in the "as-if." We will certainly play the childhood game of Simon Says but will be aiming for a different impact, a different take-away (not "You must pay close attention" as your teacher taught you).
As we play this game we will start to look at movement itself, a phenomenological examination of movement, the experience of movement. Heraclitus wrote that there is nothing but movement. Octavia Butler wrote that God is Movement. We will look at movement apophatically.
News flash! There is no Universe! It's been a multiverse all along.
The Extended Organism
If we were to define the body as the site of physiology then the appearance of the body radically changes. Many necessary physiological functions take place outside of what we normally define as the body. We can begin by looking at the microbiome.
CONTINUING WITH MAGIC*
If we can define magic as (subversive) resistance to a fixed point of view, then . . .
The natural metabolism of trauma will be a main focus True healing is reciprocal. That is to say, You get the work through giving the workit's not a zero-sum game. We will be playing with the body schema because if there's magic involved . . .
Orthobionomy clarifies the bond between self, other, and world. Care of the Other through Care of the Self
These three classes offer the best methods that Ortho-Bionomy® has to offer to allow the transformation of trauma. Care of another done from a base of care of the self.
More than anything this is time for yourself but it is far from selfish time.
Orthobionomy clarifies the bond between self, other, and world
The Principle of Reciprocity: Care of the Other through Care of the Self
"Yes, there is beauty
There is love
There is joy.
All you who suffer from the world's
misery defend them."
––EEVA KILPI
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