CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

[Cheerful theme music begins]

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

Writer and somatic facilitator Abigail Rose Clarke reminds us that truly meaningful embodiment practices nurture our relationships among self, nature, and community. In her latest book, Returning Home to Our Bodies, Abigail offers guidance for harnessing the vitality of curiosity and experimentation, accessing nature as a path to possibility, embracing the necessity of difference, exposing the lie of universal isolation, uncovering the truth of endless capacity, and exploring awe as a driving force for transformation.

In this episode, Abigail is joined by second generation astrologer, intuitive, somatic educator and practitioner Renee Sills in a conversation that imagines a world beyond systems of domination, marginalization, and isolation to nurture embodied, whole-community liberation. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 6th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Renee Sills: Hello, Abigail.

Abigail Rose Clark: Hi, Renee. So great to be here with you. 

Renee Sills: It's a pleasure. I'm so excited for this conversation. 

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, me too. 

Renee Sills: When I came across your work, I immediately ordered your deck and your book. And I don't know if you do this. I imagine a lot of witchy folks like to pull cards before public talks and such. So I have your deck here. And I pulled a card to support this conversation. And I pulled the foot.

Abigail Rose Clark: Oh, I love it. Nice. 

Renee Sills: It says on this card, trust in what holds you. And I thought this card was so amazing to get today because we're in Pisces season and the moon is an Aquarius. And in the body, Aquarius and Pisces rule the feet. Aquarius rules the ankles. Pisces rules the soles of the feet, bottoms of the feet. And so that felt fortuitous. It felt auspicious to get that on this day. And it helped me prepare for our time together just by feeling my feet. And it inspired me to ask you what is holding you today and right now as you come into this conversation.

Abigail Rose Clark: That's a great question. Thank you. I always start with the relationship I have with gravity as a supportive force. Not just downward pull, but also this buoyancy that lifts up because gravity is not just a downward pull. There's also the normal force that is a supportive buoyancy that comes from the earth and into the body. So in a literal sense, I have that, that I can feel through the chair and the floor and the structure of the home. And then right before, as I, it's a little late here, so I was trying to keep myself on the East Coast. And so I was trying to keep myself engaged, but also not start anything because I knew that I had to be aware of the time. And so I danced a little bit and specifically danced cumbia, which is like just enough of like a specific footwork that it felt like I was in something. So it's funny that feet would come up because I was really loving just that feeling of moving my feet in a very specific pattern that I love so much. What about your question?

Renee Sills: Yeah, that's a good segue to the second part of that question. And I know that as an embodiment guide, the different parts of the body and systems of the body are vast and all of the wisdom that comes through them would not be able to be contained in the hour that we have, including just the feet. But feet are really fundamental, I think, locational standpoint for a lot of us who teach embodiment work. And I know a lot of times I begin with the feet and the feet are anchors that I return to. What are feet in general or your feet specifically teaching you or telling you these days? What fascinates you about feet?

Abigail Rose Clark: So I have been noticing recently that I have been feeling, I've been noticing a kind of collapse in my inner foot more so than I have often been noticing it. I think I've just like, there's like a certain increased depth of awareness there. And also I think just I'm sitting more than I have in the past. It's kind of the irony of being a body worker, embodiment person who writes and now it's having a lot of conversations through Zoom, et cetera. And so I've been noticing that I do really need to find that sort of lift through the feet and then that also goes all the way up through that inner line of the leg and into the pelvic floor. Because if I don't, there's just this little, it's just this little collapse. And I know that we have a similar background in body-mind centering. And so I do think that you would probably be able to notice the change in my stance. I think a lot of people who have studied it for thousands of hours would be able to notice it, but it's really, really subtle. But the sensation in my body is very significant when I am alive through my feet versus when I'm just sort of placed there. And so yeah, I've been really being sure to give my attention to that both when I'm in my movement practice, but then also just moving around my day to notice if I've just sort of settled into a bit of a collapse or if I'm alive all the way through my whole body down to my feet and then feeling that aliveness go all the way up through to the crown of my head, really. So I guess I could say that my feet are just, they're serving as just this little reminder to stay here, right? Because what I notice is that if my feet have collapsed, it's often because I'm future tripping more often than not, or maybe I'm stuck in some past thing, but I'm not here. And when I'm here, it's really much more possible to be really here with my feet and the rest of me.

Renee Sills: I love that. I'm not remembering exactly where it is in your book right now, but on Monday I shared a passage with a somatics class I teach and I was reading, maybe you can tell us what part this is, but I was reading about the cell membranes and how you're talking about differentiation and individuation as being necessary for relationship and how through our semi-forest permeable boundaries, we can also find places to come into contact. And when you were just talking, I was really feeling how the relationship of my feet and my seat in this moment coming into contact is helping me support myself and support my stance.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, that's it. There's a whole chapter on the semi-permeable boundaries and the chapter opens with the line we're creatures of relationship because we're creatures of boundaries. You can't relate to another if there's no other. So this idea that, yeah, I feel like a lot of, there's a mistaken notion in some of the spiritual circles, certainly that I've been in, that merging is somehow the goal and it's not, right? At least I feel really clear that it's not, that if we can instead hold as true that there is a universality to our experience, we're alive, life has a certain layer to it that is keeping us in communion, we could say. But I'm me and I'm different than you. And because of that difference, we can find this really incredible edge between us. We can find similarities. We've been finding them this week as we've been talking before this conversation. It's been really fun. But if we were exactly the same, that would quickly get boring and it wouldn't have that vibrancy. But if we can look for the vibrancy between the other, then I think that's where a lot of the fun lives. And in a similar way, like in my, to take it back to that sensation of the feet or the seat, if I'm collapsed into it and just sort of, and forget that it's there, take it for granted or not really engaged with it as a supportive structure, the floor or my own feet on the floor, then I've lost some of that vibrancy. So that the vibrancy of being in relationship with another is really beautiful to me.

Renee Sills: What you're saying is giving the wisdom of earth, which is very deeply counter to a lot of people's assumptions, the wisdom of Sagittarius, which is your sun sign. And in the realm of esoteric astrology, the ruler of Sagittarius is actually the earth. In classical astrology, Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, but in esoteric astrology, the work of Alan Oaken and Alice Bailey, some people call it soul centered astrology, Sagittarius is ruled by the earth. And yeah, and so there's this poetry in that, right? That to understand everything, start right here. And as above, so below.

Abigail Rose Clark: That’s cool!

Renee Sills: Yeah, yeah. Something to think about.

Abigail Rose Clark: This whole time I thought it was just my force rising that was giving me all this earthy vibes, but no, that's great.

Renee Sills: Yeah, yeah. The visionary vastness potential of Sagittarius is most deeply realized when it can become manifest. And so when you're talking about, oh, if I'm not really in my feet, I'm probably future tripping, right? Or somewhere out there. The feeling of being out there can be wild and amazing and all kinds of things. And so many downloads can happen, da da da. But if we can't bring them here, then in some ways we get a little bit lost as long as we are contained in these flesh suits that we're in for this life.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, that's really cool.

Renee Sills: So I was looking at your chart, you gave me the opportunity to work with your chart a little bit in preparation for this. I'm going to use your chart to frame a couple of questions. So for folks who can't see Abigail's chart, I will just say that Abigail is a Sagittarius sun. She was born in the season of Sagittarius and this is November, December season. And she was born when the sun was in alignment from the Earth's point of view with the outer planet Neptune. So you were born at the sun-Neptune conjunction. And that happens about once a year that the sun aligns with Neptune and it happens when Neptune is on the further side of the sun than us. That is when we can have that perspective. And also when Neptune is moving at its fastest in apparent motion. And when there's a solar conjunction, the energy of the planet that the sun is together with becomes fused in the solar consciousness. The sun is such an important body in our charts and of course in our lives. And it represents in many ways kind of like intrinsic energy and basic imprint, energetic imprint of consciousness that's moving through a body. And so just I'll read a couple of keywords out for a Neptune conjunction. They might include a deep, sensitive, soulful kind of energetic. Neptune aspects can bring in interests and resonances with metaphysics and spirituality. Neptune loves artistry and poetry. It is sensory and immersive, like to have full body experiences. Neptune and Sagittarius are both energies that speak to dreamers and idealists. And then you have this duo in what's called the eighth house. And the eighth house is considered to be the house of the occult. I had an astrology teacher who termed this place the altar. And some will consider it a place of magic and transformation. And so thinking about also this resonance of Sagittarius with the earth and with the wisdom of the earth, which is of course the wisdom of the universe. A question that came up to me is what, you don't have to get super specific if you don't want to, but maybe you do. What are some early memories or an early memory of recognizing your relationship with the vast intelligences that are here? And that can include all kinds of things, spirits, invisible, subtle realms. Have you always known this connection? Do you have any early memories of sensing it or feeling it move through you?

Abigail Rose Clark: Ooh, gosh. You know, there is this one memory. I remember very specifically being in the tub as a kid and feeling this like all over tingling sensation and like knowing that it was something magical and being like, this is not just like, this isn't just like shivers or something. It was like this feeling of like true aliveness. And none of the adults in my life really understood it. I asked them questions. They're just like, nah, it's probably just you were like cold. And I was like, no, it's not that it's not that. And so I was an only child. I grew up in the rural area. So I spent a lot of time alone in the woods and it became this kind of like, I didn't know what a dowsing rod was back when I was that little, but I would use that word now to describe it where I could just, I would sort of like move till I found it and then see how long I could feel it for. And now in my somatic work, I sense it as this feeling of like cellular aliveness where it's just this kind of all over tingling and there's, I'm grateful that I've been able to develop more of a fluency with different sorts of feelings and different sorts of sensations. But yeah, so that was one. And then, you know, in my book I talk about, there's a chapter where I invite people to essentially go with me to a very special spot in the woods where I grew up, which is right where the wetland meets, like it's right where the woods, the woods sort of squishes out into the wetlands and just this, how it was this sort of liminal space. Again, I was, you know, I was little, I didn't know what liminal meant, but I knew that it was this kind of magical in between place and it felt very, it still feels very alive. And so there is this sort of, I think in some ways there's parts of me that's just like, oh, wouldn't it have been nice to have one of the adults in my life be like, oh yes, I know what this is, this is magic. And you can, you know, you can feel it in these certain ways. But in another way, it was kind of this special little secret that I had that nobody else really knew. And so it meant that I didn't have anyone else's ideas about it. And I, but I could feel it really strongly down there in that little spot where it was just so, you know, I couldn't see it. You can't see a single other house.

You can barely hear any cars. It's this sort of tucked away magical spot. So that's definitely one of the spots. And then another thing, my mom got me a microscope when I was young. I think I was maybe like seven or eight. She got me a microscope and like one of those chemistry kits that I'm sure not able to be bought anymore because there was definitely all sorts of little like vials of chemicals. I don't think, I think kids in the eighties were like a special breed, but I took the microscope out to the duck pond and got little samples and saw just all of this life that I couldn't see with my eyes, but then I could see with the microscope. And that was also this other, like I have a very clear kind of visceral memory of being out there and watching the world just kind of come alive and being like, wow, well, if that's in this one little drop of pond water, like what else is there? You know? So those are some pretty significant memories.

Renee Sills: I'm going to carry the symbol of an eco tone into my work with the eighth house. The eighth house is the place where when you read like a pop astrology book, it says other people's money is. It's right. It's a place of merging energies and where we come together and our money, our ideas, our presences, our pheromones, you know, get all kind of mixed up and a sense of pure individuality may be always a myth, but any kind of sense of that is pretty lost in the sauce. And so sun and Neptune conjunct in the eighth house, I would imagine definitely would resonate with consciousness of where interrelationship is all the time and have a lot of sensitivity. In the body, the sun, all the planets are associated with different parts of the body. And one place that the sun is associated with is the heart. And Neptune is sometimes associated with the pineal gland or the place where, you know, our, our dreams might somehow be inspired by or the darkness can infuse and help bring us into a kind of more magic space. And your sun and Neptune are right at the end of Sagittarius at a place where if you were to look in that direction in the sky, you would be looking towards what's called the galactic center or the galactic core the, the place where our galaxy is swirling around. And you know, this is one of the reasons why Sagittarius is seem to sometimes channel other worldly information kind of just pours through them. And so a sun Neptune conjunction in this space especially in the eighth house, I would imagine has a very strong embodied experience of really being a channel of some kind and feeling that what might be moving through the body is not necessarily only of the body, but really comes from a larger source. And then the eighth house is also a place of inheritances. And so this kind of brings up a question for me about what and who, and again, feel free to go beyond the human but what and who has poured into you or pours into you. And do you feel guiding and helping assist craft your work and your life?

Abigail Rose Clark: Good. Yeah, that's all it makes me think of. I remember when I was teaching yoga classes, you know, weekly many classes a week, there would be I'm sure anyone that teaches, especially something that can kind of it. Probably anyone that teaches can can relate to this feeling where when you're in the zone, it just feels like it feels like you catch this wave and everyone in the room is with you and it's just like, this is amazing. And then sometimes you don't catch it and it's just like, is this ever going to end? I just want it to be over. Oh, my God. Yeah. Um, but so, you know, that feeling, that's when I was in my, I was doing that when I was in my 20s. And that feeling was just so amazing. And I remember talking with, I call her my somatic mom, Patty Townsend, about that feeling because it was just so it was just so good. Oh, my gosh, it was just so good. And sometimes it would come in through meditation also. But and I remember her talking about just, you know, I remember coming in to talk to her one time when I just had the most astounding somatic meditation. I was like inside the cell. I could see everything. I could feel everything. I was just like, oh, my gosh, I'm here. This is this is amazing. Time was on its own, like it like widened and expanded. And it was just it was psychedelic, honestly, like no drugs involved. It was just a really amazing experience. And I rode my bike over to the studio and I was just like, Patty, this just happened. And she was like, great, get ready for it not to happen for at least another six weeks. I was just like, what are you talking about? She's like, that's just how it goes. And sure enough, I think because there was something I was like, I was like wanting it, right. I was just like, come on, let me get back there. Let me get back there. So you know, there are so many places that I feel so fortunate to be filled from both through my own, you know, like ancestral heritage, but then also just the people that I've been so fortunate to learn from. And then, you know, everything that you're giving me tonight about my chart, I'm just like, this is cool. Because there is something that seems like it comes through and the the, you know, my book, Returning Home to Our Bodies. It's very much mine, like I sweat, blood and tears went into making it. But it's also it's not mine. I don't really know how else to describe it. Same with the somatic tarot when I was making the somatic tarot. It was I got woken up in like the predawn hours every day for weeks, months, with this little voice being like, make a tarot deck, call it the somatic tarot, make a tarot deck, call it somatic tarot. And I was just like, I don't know enough to do that. That's ridiculous. But eventually, eventually, it was just like more annoying to get woken up and not do it than it was to actually like get go downstairs and I was living in the jungle. And so I would just like I would light my little candle and listen to the jungle come alive around me and just little by little, go into these archetypes. And it just really like, came through. And that was in 2018 was when I started it. And this deck feels very much alive. Like I feel like I'm very much in a relationship of tending it similarly to the body oracle, the deck that you have, very similarly to the book where now I'm just like, okay, I know I need to I need to care for these beings really that have come through me and have changed me completely in their coming. Right? Like, I'm not the same person that I was before I started writing the book. I'm not the same person I was before I started writing the tarot deck. It's like when there's a big creative process, it changes. So that's also I think, a big part of it is the the practice of listening and letting myself be changed as I go into that creative process is such a it's such a I love that the eighth house is the altar so much better than all the pop books. I was always just like, money like sure, yes, please. You know, it just always felt like a little weird. But yeah, this, this, the creative practice being a practice of Yeah, of like, of being willing to be transformed.

And the creative practice being an altar of transformation, knowing that if you're doing something that really, really is goes deep, you just there's no way that you're gonna be the same person when you finish is when you started.

Renee Sills: Yeah, absolutely. Over the last couple of years, you have been going through a generational transit or a generic transit. A lot of people know about the Saturn return, people make a big deal about Saturn returns. And I always kind of get a chuckle out of it. Because throughout people's lives, there are all kinds of things like Saturn return, but none of them really get the press that the Saturn return does. So at, you know, in people's early 40s, which is where you are right now, folks to get what's called the first Neptune square for Neptune square Neptune. And so Neptune in transit has been moving through the tropical sign of Pisces since 2011. And over the last couple years, it's been squaring your navel placement. A lot of astrology books will tell you that this is a time of deep confusion. And in some ways, the past work has to dissolve in order for the new dream to emerge. It comes around the same period as the Uranus opposition. Some astrologers finally call that like the midlife awakening time, you know, midlife crisis, midlife awakening. And for a lot of people, and I'm here too, right now, there, there is kind of a slipperiness. And so what might have been in the past, it needs to break down, the form needs to dissolve so that something new can happen, some new dream can come in. And sometimes it feels like a big deal. And sometimes it feels like a natural transition. But I feel absolutely certain looking at your chart that you are in a state of metamorphosis and ready to move on, you know, into some next steps. And so I'm wondering if you have any glimmers of the new dreams and the new longings that are taking shape for you.

Abigail Rose Clark: Gosh, this is so I'm going to carry this question and forward. I'm really excited to sort of roll it around like a, like a soft stone. Um, yeah, I have felt myself changing lately. I have felt myself be I think that the work of the eco tone is working on me, where there is a bit of a there's a certain amount of softness that's come in since I crossed that threshold into 40s. And I think and then, and in some ways, maybe it was just like all the existential crises that writing a book was for me, like, Oh, my gosh, thank goodness for my developmental editor who is who first reached out to me about writing the book and then has become a friend to Mickey. He seemed to have a sixth sense. And he would just like send me an email and just be like, so how are the existential crises going? And I'd be like, Can you see me? Like, how do you know like what's going on? So I think that it was just like this concept, like it was like very much the the imaginal cells in the caterpillar having to just like become absolute goo. I don't really I don't know what's gonna come next. You know, like I can, I do have this sense that like, something's coming the book's been out for almost two months exactly. There's this real sweetness and getting to see something so so dear to me out in the world. I love it. Getting to talk to people about about it to like getting to have this conversation with you. But also when I do readings and book signings, like getting to talk to a room full of strangers about this book is really amazing. But um, I'm not sure I'm not I'm honestly not sure but I'm I'm really, I feel more ready to be kind of carried along than I did before I went through the crucible honestly of writing this book where I felt like I had to somehow muscle my way through things the my muscles are definitely not the lead in this right now. I don't have any I I'm excited to find out and come back to you and be like, Hey, Renee, I figured out what I'm doing next. But right now, it just feels like okay, let's let's see. Right? Well, let's see what these this little trio to have a friend's the body Oracle, the somatic tarot, returning home to our bodies, I feel like I'm also like listening to them being like, What do you all want?

Renee Sills: Yeah, I resonate with that. I'm a year younger than you and also have been going through this transit. I'm also Neptune and Sag person. And what you were describing was kind of bringing to mind how I feel that a lot of the the work that many of us that are engaged with embodiment and somatic work are recognizing in our own practices and also bringing forward is the work of yielding and softening and listening and deep listening. And I don't know how it's been for you. But I know that for me, there's this constant moving out and then coming back in with here's the theory, here's the concept, here's, here's what I know. And then, oh, oh, there it is. That's the practice. That's the need. And so when I'm when I'm listening to I'm, I'm hearing the wisdom of attunement and intuition, and maybe not muscling through it to get to the next thing. And I'm wondering if that feels like something that's new or newish in your orientation, your practice.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, it definitely feels different. There is definitely I mean, yeah, this feeling of sort of, I feel a bit more settled in my work and what I have to offer. And who I am. That doesn't at all mean that I'm like, you know, I just I think you saw my Instagram post from today where I was like, let me just be clear that I am sometimes a mess. Like, just I don't want to. And this is also a gift from Patty that she would say like, you have to make yourself the biggest bozo in the room because if you're coming in to share things like this, it's really easy pedestals just arise, right? And it's like, it's really easy to want to climb up on one and it's really easy to just sort of be like, sure, sure, put me up on one. And it's just that's, you know, I don't want to be in that position. But yeah, there is something actually I have these two us like you're a BMC person. You probably have these little guys, right? If people can't see it. It's just like, I don't even know what they're called. Like, like, they're these 

Renee Sills: Little science toys.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I remember using like getting introduced them in BMC classes where it's this like it to show the spaciousness of the expansion and how it's, it's not just up or down or out. It's like this whole spherical expanding. And then the condensing inward is like this whole kind of coalescing in. And so in some of the semantics classes I've been teaching lately, I've been pulling this out and just letting that and also my own practice letting that be this visual guide that it really is like that like this condensing inward is not a shrinking or collapsing in it's it's this really beautiful kind of folding in and condensing inward. So that the like all the good places are kind of like smushed up and get closer against each other. And then this like beautiful expansion gets to come in. But you can't have one without the other like this, this just on its own is not nearly as engaging and mesmerizing as the dance.

Renee Sills: Right.

Abigail Rose Clark: So right. I remember that.

Renee Sills: Yeah, that's bringing me back to where we began with the feet and contact and the cell walls. 

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, yeah, like sponging quality of being alive and being in in a fluid dance with the environment around us.

Renee Sills: Right. And not being able to inhale forever that there is, you know, as long as we're here in bodies that the need to contract and release and go inwards is always going to be at least half the dance.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, yeah. Which is not what mainstream society, like encourages us to do expansion, expansion, bigger, bigger, bigger. And this idea that the, you know, condensing inward is like somehow giving up or falling behind or, you know, something's wrong when really it's like everything alive has that expanding condensing yielding pattern. Right.

Renee Sills: Right. Right. Yeah. Um, you know, that, that brings me really perfectly to another question I had. So you have various signatures in your chart. Sun in the eighth house is one of them you mentioned being a Taurus rising, you've Chiron conjunct your ascendant. Um, you'll sort of Saturn in the sixth house and Scorpio and these placements, uh, all in different ways. Um, but all of them pretty, uh, profoundly speak to a life journey that really needs to navigate pain and fear and loss. And that in that journey, there's also wealth and healing and teaching. And when I say wealth, I mean resource, I mean like, um, expansion. And I'm curious about your relationship with pain and with loss and with death and how they have been your teachers and how they continue to teach and guide you.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah. Um, so one of my first meditation teachers, uh, was actually in the, the Vipashyana with a Gwynkaji who, um, people might be familiar with them. It's a series of meditation retreat centers where actually you're using your, the teachings are coming through videos that Gwynkaji has shared. And I remember, so in these meditation retreats, you, um, there are 10 full days, silence, and a lot of meditation. Like you wake up at four and you don't go to bed until like nine or something. It's many, many hours. And around day four, I think it is, um, they ask you to now have for three, for three of the sits, for three hour long sits. I do think it's, it's been a long time since I've done one. So I might be, I might be misremembering, but it's either three or four hours of the day to do these sits where you make a firm commitment not to move for the full hour. And I remember, oh my gosh. I mean, I was, I was the first one I did, I think I was 18, 19. Um, but my knees were just, oh, it was like so much pain. And I was just like, my body can't do this. This is just excruciating. But I remember one of the talks, he was talking about the need to, um, to name the sensation by the sensation, so tingling or heat or, um, pulsating or, or tickling or whatever it was to name it a sensation. Cause as soon as you name it pain, now you've put it in the box of pain. And now all your other experiences of pain are going to come in and influence your experience of that sensation. And I remember that night doing that same sit, being very afraid going into it. Cause I was like, oh God, it's going to hurt. Like, you know, as soon as I started to feel even a little, a little sensation, I was like, it's going to hurt. And it's just going to hurt for so long. Um, but trying that practice of naming the sensation and feeling what was what I was calling pain, feeling it dissolve, like feeling the space come into it. And suddenly I was experiencing all these different sensations, but none of them were pain. And so that was when I was 19. So it's been, you know, more than half my life that I've been carrying that with me. Again, imperfectly, like I just, I want to like always, you know, preface things with that, but experiencing, uh, trying to experience pain in that way rather than like this, this in this impenetrable wall. Um, you know, and, and there has, I have been, you know, I've, I've experienced loss, um, you know, both in family and friends, um, you know, some significant pain in my body, lots of injuries, uh, loss of mobility, which thankfully I've then regained, but, you know, spent months lying on the floor, wondering if I ever would be able to walk again. And it has been a through line to consider whenever I can, right. Imperfectly, as I said, but to consider that if I were to allow the sensation to sort of separate into its parts, then, then at least it won't feel like a wall that I can't break through. And also there gives me something that's more interesting, something of more sort of curiosity than this wall of pain. Um, you know, it's, I find it easier with to do that with physical sensations than with like, you know, the pain of grief, for example. But I, I have been exploring that with grief about, I think it was like six months or more. It was in September. Um, my dog of 18 years died and I was, I was ready for it. She gave me like lots of warnings and I wasn't ready for it at all, at all. Right. Like just, you know, and it was like this really weird mixture cause it was like, okay, well, she lived 18 years. She died peacefully in my arms. There is nothing tragic about this. Like she had an amazing life. We had an amazing life together. She had, I joked that the only mode of transportation she was never on was a helicopter and a submarine because everywhere, we went everywhere together and we went everywhere. Um, and I just missed her so, I still miss her so much, but especially those first few weeks it was just this grief that I couldn't find my way out of. It was just so extreme. And that was where it became really, it was such a clear reminder to me that going back to the earth was just essential because I would be in such an extreme amount of grief around not having her. And she was like awesome. She was like my shortcut. I learned, I started learning somatics when we were together because we started life together when I was 24. I'm in my forties now. So there was a part of me that was just like, can I even teach this stuff? I like, I've always just been able to go to her and like put my head against her head and like, she brings me where I need to be. Right. And I didn't have that anymore. And I was like, I don't even know if I can do this. Like how am I supposed to do this? But I could feel even when I could just like, I was barely like my breath would hardly even go in and out because I was just in so much pain. It just like not having her. Um, but I could feel the ground underneath me and let myself drop into it and start to, you know, start to just feel some of the qualities of the grief. Of course, also she, she passed in September and then October came and it was just like October 7th happened. And it was just like, okay, now it's not even just that my dog has passed. It's just that like, I am just in a wave of deep grief all the time. Right. But finding the ground and being able to find those kind of sensations and to peel apart the sensation so it wasn't just labeled as pain or even just sadness or grief and just be like, okay, let me find some, let me be curious here. What, what kind of, what kinds of sensations can I peel apart here and what can I find has been essential. So yeah, that's where I can find, like, that's where the, like it's breaking open instead of breaking apart, right? Like, or breaking down, like breaking, breaking open. So that the pieces can have more light to them rather than feeling like I'm just broken and, and you know, now just shattered. That makes sense.

Renee Sills: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for all that. I feel in my own practice with astrology for sure, but definitely with somatic work and body work there are constant, I mean just constant correlations that emerge between the body and somatic intelligence and awareness and the collective and what's happening in the world. And you just spoke to a little bit of your, of your process in terms of processing. And let's see, how do I want to ask this? I feel like those of us that are invested in this work, and I'm sure there's a lot of folks in the audience that feel this way as well, have a sense that so man of the problems in the world when it comes to leadership and kind of how systems are working or not working could be helped so deeply by somatic intelligence. Not that it would fix absolutely everything, right? That if, oh my gosh, if world leaders, you know, did a body warmup and some breathing or something before they sat down to hash it out, we would probably have a really different circumstances. Yeah. And, and, and yet we live in a world where there's constant compounding trauma. And as we're seeing currently generational and intergenerational trauma that continues to snowball and when there's that level of trauma, how can we be embodied? And so when I was listening to you, I was wondering if, if you have anything that you could offer for me, for the audience, for, for this time, you know, when things feel really big and really bad and when it's hard to be in your body, how do you come back? How do you find that opening? How do you tune in with these small pieces of awareness?

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah. It's such a good question, right? Cause it's like, it's all, it's all good to theorize around this. I was just having a conversation with a friend cause I'm dealing with like a personal thing where gosh, my ego just wanted to cancel this person so hard and just be like, no, that's not like you're out of my life forever. And like, you're not even allowed like tangentially, you know? And my friend was just, you know, he was like, well, as the author of returning home to our bodies, that's true. But that's what you want to say.

Renee Sills: The author of returning home to our bodies canceled their friend.

Abigail Rose Clark: That's it. You're done. Gone. And I, you know, in therapy, in conversations, in my own like, you know, practice was just like, okay, yes, I'm hurt. Yes, there is definitely a desire just to be like, that's it over. And if I can't use my work right now in this scenario about this, you know, big, but also comparatively, relatively not so big thing. How am I gonna, how can I say that this work works? You know? So and that doesn't mean, you know, like semipermeable boundaries means that sometimes that there's like, you know, okay, but that's it. We're not going to engage anymore, but I don't, I can do it from a place of love. I don't have to do it because I hate you. I can do it because I'm just like, I mean, it's Prentice Hemphill that says that boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and myself simultaneously. Right? And sometimes that distance needs to be really big. But what does it mean to do it from a place of love rather than from a place of hate and control and a need to dominate the other? Right? So one of the places that I go to when things feel too, like too much, and I find myself really wanting to like stick it to them or like, you know, or cancel or just like run away. My friend calls it bailbait. Like just, you know, like when I just want to like run and hide and never talk about it again. I go to the relationship that the heart has with specifically with the breathing diaphragm. So and it's, I go into it in some detail in my book. But I'll just go into a little bit here that so the heart is, it's wrapped in the pericardium, which is this, it's one of the one of the serous membranes of the body, meaning that it's, it makes what's called a serous fluid. If you think of like skincare, a serum and serous or have a similar root. So it has that kind of viscous quality. It's made out of mostly white blood cells. So it's translucent. I like to think of it like it's the color of starlight or moonlight, because I'm more poet than scientist, so I get to do that. I get to do that sort of thing. And it lubricates and it, it also protects because it's white blood cells, so it's guarding against infection. But the pericardium is like the silvery sheath that wraps the heart and it's contiguous with the central tendon of the breathing diaphragm. And that means that it's like a river is contiguous with the ocean, we could say. So it's not the same. But it has a similar origin and a similar structure. So the pericardium, it goes into the central tendon of the breathing diaphragm and the breathing diaphragm is this huge dome of muscle that moves with the breath. And on the exhale, it, it goes up, it don't upward. And on the inhale, it folds down and widens out. And that can feel a little counterintuitive, but it's because on the inhale, the lungs have to get bigger. And so the breathing diaphragm is pulling down to like help pull the air in. And it's also making more space for your lungs to fill. And then on the exhale, it don't upward. So on the exhale of the breath, especially when you let the breath really all the way out, which can take some practice and it's, I find that it's hard to do when I'm angry or incredibly grief stricken. There's like, I'm like gripping against that emptiness at the bottom of the breath. But if I let the breath all the way out, the breathing diaphragm rises up to meet the heart. And because the pericardium is contiguous with that central tendon, that silvery protective sheath gets to just release just a little bit, like just a little bit. But it's enough that my heart can rest just a little bit on that doming mound, like this earthy mound of muscle, big, thick, wide muscle that moves. People call it the bellows of the breath, but I don't like that. It's more like a jellyfish. Like it just like it undulates in the body. And so when I'm feeling really fraught or really grief stricken, sometimes it's helpful just to give myself that mental imagery because it's something to think about that isn't what's so on top for me. But then also it's something to feel for that when I let the breath all the way out, like really let it out so people can do it. Like I'm doing it a bit, but I'm talking, so it's not quite as deep. But if you're sitting at home, you can try it to let the breath all the way out and feel for that moment when you can just feel how the heart drops a little bit and it's stitched in to your body. Like it's stitched in deep into the center of your chest. Pericardium also helps to anchor it there. But there's just this little drop and in that moment when the heart drops, I find that there is, it's like this crack where what's really there to be felt can be felt. So I might be feeling angry, but what I'm really feeling is like truly hurt or sad. It's really different to feel those two things. Or there's also just, you know, I might just be feeling the enormity of heartbreak, especially heartbreak at something so big, like what we're collectively navigating, where it's like as individuals, it feels like there's nothing we can do. So we've felt like that for months now, but there's just this, this space where when the heart can drop, I don't have to harden against what I'm feeling so much anymore because there's something to hold me as I feel it, if that makes sense. So that's a primary practice.

Renee Sills: Thank you for that. I was doing that while you were saying it. I mean, I almost feel like my next question, like you already answered it, but I'll ask it anyway, cause I'm sure you'll say something else and that'll be great. I think on the other side of the question I just asked, which is a question around coming back as you titled your book, coming home to the body, coming back into the bodily intelligence in times of trauma or heightened activation. I feel like the other side of that question or another side of that question for me has to do with being in the world and living in the world in ways that are going to be as good as we can get them given the context, given the conditions of how we each find ourselves in our lives. I feel very strongly that embodiment is a political choice and that it is very political to engage with practices that bring us into healing tone. You have some big transits coming up in your chart.

Abigail Rose Clark: I don't know if you know, but

Renee Sills: You're popping off.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, that's true.

Renee Sills: So you have the outer planet Pluto coming onto your mid heaven right now. It's the most visible place in the chart, really the top of the sky in the chart wheel and you have natal Mars there. Mars is a planet of action. Mars is an Aquarius and Abigail's chart. So is the mid heaven and Pluto is a transformational agent. And so to have this transit coming up in a lot of ways, it could speak to this is the time that you and your career and your public image are really coming into power and it can also speak to your bringing transforming medicine into the world and transforming components into the alchemy of the environmental and relational space. And you also have Uranus and Jupiter coming onto your ascendant, the rising sign degree. They're going to make a conjunction actually on April 20th. That's kind of a big deal. Those conjunctions don't happen all the time. They happen only once every decade and a half or so. And it's going to be right on your ascendant degree where you have natal chyron. So I would certainly read both of those aspects as, you know, hold onto your hats, buckle your seatbelt. Like your life is about to really speed up and go into some places that I'm sure you've been preparing for. I'm sure you feel it coming. And I am also sure you'll probably be taken by surprise a little bit. Hopefully in really good ways. Yeah.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, hopefully.

Renee Sills: But then I would also, I mean, kind of knowing a little bit about your practice now and reading your book, and it's very clear that, you know, we share this sentiment that embodiment is political work and that to really do the work of embodiment, we need to politicize our practices. What's something that you might suggest to us just as a closing question that we can bring out and into the world as seeds of transformation, rebellion, revolution that are embodiments, embodied practices? And again, it's just a seed, just one little touch of awakening. What do you find in your practice can help kind of spark a little bit of change, a little bit of awakening, make a little bit of an invitation that, yeah, might shift the culture of even the room that you're in.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah, thank you. So I'll bring it back to the eco tone that we talked about at the beginning, which, you know, it's this place where two biomes meet. So wetlands and the woods or the mountains and the bay, it's a place that is neither one or the other. It's something different because it's where two differences are touching. And I have been bringing that, you know, I have been having access to rooms with people that think differently than me as a result of this book coming out. I'm having more conversations in wider circles and the political landscape of this country is fraught. So those conversations can quickly become fraught. What I've been noticing is that it is really powerful to stay in that space of exploring the eco tone, both in leftist places where you would think that we would all agree, but we don't. And that is to the detriment of leftist organizing, honestly. But also when I'm speaking with people who we have a lot less in common than we do have in common, right? But finding a way to explore the eco tone and find what can exist between us that could not exist anywhere else, right? Because we're different, there's something that can exist between us and some sort of understanding that might be able to be brought along. It's when I talk about how I'm finding myself feeling softer, that's the softness. It's not that I'm willing to just go along and be like, oh, yeah, sure. You know, what's that James Baldwin quote that sure, we can agree to disagree, but if your disagreement limits my ability to exist, then we can't disagree about that. So it's not that, but it's in looking to find where we might have an inroad into each other's humanity, to use the word, and making sure that I'm stocking in myself the places where I feel a need to dominate or control another's perspective. So I've been trying to find that it's easier in some scenarios than in others, but I have been finding it really helpful in both personal and professional relationships. And so I think that that can be, I hope I'm being clear enough is like what a seed can be, but I think that that can be a seed and it's specifically not trying to like be moderate or let things slide. I think I actually weigh less slide than I used to because I stay in the conversations longer. Whereas I used to kind of, I would pop off and just be like, I'm not even gonna have a conversation with you because of what you just said. And now I'm willing and actually curious. I want to stay in the conversation longer and be like, let's figure this out. Let's get into this. And I'm not sure what kind of result it might have, but I know that it's feeling like it has more potential than these kind of hard and impermeable boundaries saying, no, I don't want to talk to you about this anymore. But it's an imperfect science, but I'm hoping that that is a helpful seed to offer.

Renee Sills: Yeah. Thank you. Abigail it's been such a pleasure to meet you and talk to you um I'm so grateful to have encountered your work and uh really excited to keep reading your book and um to stay tuned with where you go with your projects and um thanks to CIIS for hosting this conversation and making this happen.

Abigail Rose Clark: Yeah thank you yeah it's been such a pleasure to get to know your Renee yeah thank you CIIS for the invitation and also for putting the two of us together and thank you to everyone for joining in this has been such a great conversation.

Renee Sills: Thank you all wishing everybody a good night and good weekend.

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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