{"id":147,"date":"2020-04-15T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adrianharris.org\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2020-06-02T11:52:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T11:52:53","slug":"glen-mazis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianharris.org\/blog\/2020\/04\/15\/glen-mazis\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Mazis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Glen Mazis is a philosopher and poet whose writing frequently merges both skills. I came across his book Earthbodies<\/em> (2002) during my PhD research on embodied knowing and found it hugely exciting. Mazis explains that \u2018bodies\u2019 are much more than we realize. We think of our bodies as bound by the surface of our skin, what Andy Clark calls the \u2018skin-bag body\u2019. Mazis, like Clark, believes that\u2019s an illusion, and to explain why he introduces the term \u2018earthbody\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the West we typically emphasize ownership of objectified bodies. Bodies are beautiful, ugly, fit, sick, strong or weak. And somehow \u2018owned\u2019. But \u201can earthbody isn\u2019t \u2018yours,\u2019 it\u2019s the world\u2019s\u201d. For Mazis \u201cyou don\u2019t \u2018have\u2019 this body. You are part of a dynamic process that we might call \u2018earthbodying,\u2019 if we weren\u2019t so used to referring to ourselves with nouns\u201d (Mazis, 2002).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term earthbodies describes a process<\/em> more than an object. Earthbodies are \u201csensual, perceptual and feeling conductors through which richer meaning flows than we can grasp intellectually\u201d (Mazis, 2002). Mazis emphasizes how fluidity and connectedness constitute our embodiment. Countless threads of connection pass though earthbodies, weaving each individual into the wider fabric of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To write of the \u201cfabric of the world\u201d is particularly appropriate because it\u2019s a phrase used by a philosopher that Mazis is profoundly inspired by; Merleau-Ponty. Several strands of thought come together at this point: Mazis, Abram and Gendlin all draw on Merleau-Ponty and all four argue for some notion of the \u2018body\u2019 as an open, interactive process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conventional notions of the body in Western culture stand in blunt opposition to that radical notion. As Mazis points out, the idea that you might be an open, process in fluid interaction with the world \u201cmay sound fantastic to you because we have been taught to close our bodies, lock our knees, and brace ourselves for life and its tasks\u201d (Mazis, 2002). This numbing shut-down means that most people \u201cfail to experience the pull, the tides, of the earth\u2019s motion which stream through us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Merleau-Ponty distinguishes between the objective body \u2013 the body regarded as an object \u2013 and the phenomenal body, which refers to my (or your) body as I (or you) actually experience it. But we typically blur that distinction, experiencing our bodies as enclosed objects that we \u2018own\u2019. As a result many people \u201clive much of the time in a state of disconnection and dislocation \u2026 and have little sense of where they are, what they feel and what they sense, especially not in the myriad depths and dimensions of the perceptual\u201d (2004).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mazis points to another way of experiencing our embodied condition that allow us to be more caring, more environmentally aware, more open and more loving. Mazis seeks to \u201creveal the dance of the planet\u201d, so that we \u2013 as earthbodies \u2013 can come to experience the earth\u2019s constant motion as more than merely physical: It\u2019s also \u201cemotional, imaginative, spiritual, linguistic, communal, and natural\u201d (Mazis, 2002).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glen will be joining me for forthcoming on-line Embodiment Conference<\/a>, which is free to attend. My next post will introduce Philip Shepherd<\/a>, who will also be Presenting at the Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n