“Embodied” is getting to be one of “those” words — nevertheless, these books sound like works that could expand horizons for people both established and new to this field. I hope and trust that they honor their origins in the work of enlightened educators from the last century, though. “Embodied” learning used to be called “kinesthetic” learning back when I was a working teacher, and while I’m sure recently invented ways of measuring have augmented the hard data, it’s not new. Although perhaps it used to be considered more a methodology than an integral part of learning, as in the body learns and knows things that cannot be articulated.
And — the immediacy illustrated by the sandal story and your perceptive commentary harked me back to my long-time teacher Krishnamurti, who described this state of awareness repeatedly, one could even say endlessly, in his talks and writings. No gap between perception and action means no intervening thought, which according to K is the source of all our confusion.
Really enjoyed this! The threshold crossing you describe from ‘wise person’ to ‘wise action’ feels critical and echoes the move from ‘systems thinking’ to ‘systems being’. And the reminder that wisdom is necessarily embodied and relational…and that the task of ‘becoming wiser’ is at its core a learning process....feels timely.
I like how you hold the sandal story – parable perhaps? – as a ‘true myth’. A story that conveys an essential truth without necessarily using literal facts. It feels like the precise inversion of a conspiracy theory – a story that deploys selectively true anecdotes to convey an essential falsehood. The latter offers some kind of seductive felt-sense of enclosure as the world clicks into some kind of order…. uncertainty is definitively banished and we become the knower rather than the learner. But with the Gandhi story…and the post in general… I’m left asking myself more questions…what would I have done? What does it mean to cultivate such a disposition? To move from – and inhabit our web of relationships from - a place of heartful and deeply intelligent spontaneity? To inhabit uncertainty with a little more curiosity...
"Embodied learning" is even more relevant to the vast amount of knowledge embodied in our environment, both human made and natural. The knowledge embedded in institutions is usually more influential than the ideas its people espouse. When we change patterns of behavior and institutions, we create a form of deep learning. For more on this see: ‘Social models as dynamic theories’. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1443388 (https://bit.ly/DSTFront) and a “Manifesto" for how this can be applied to higher education: https://bit.ly/SocSciManifesto
You know what I'm going to draw a parallel with, don't you?
The thing I keep coming back to — it's in everything I've written — is that rationalisation follows the action. That's why I love your antidebate (I was trying to persuade Kairos to ask you to do one about money!)
But there is a bigger prize hiding in a recogniton of the body. Money sits right at the root of intellectual life — philosophy, mathematics, theology all grew up tangled in it. It's arguably the substance through which the mind first learned to leave the body behind. So rediscovering money's urform — its visceral, burnable(!) presence — isn't just one more embodiment example. It's embodiment striking at the spot the disembodiment began. For the mind-trapped among us, what might that open up?
It may be a bitter pill for us who are formed in the grip of Capitalism but, in my view, it is precisely the medicine the social body needs.
“Embodied” is getting to be one of “those” words — nevertheless, these books sound like works that could expand horizons for people both established and new to this field. I hope and trust that they honor their origins in the work of enlightened educators from the last century, though. “Embodied” learning used to be called “kinesthetic” learning back when I was a working teacher, and while I’m sure recently invented ways of measuring have augmented the hard data, it’s not new. Although perhaps it used to be considered more a methodology than an integral part of learning, as in the body learns and knows things that cannot be articulated.
And — the immediacy illustrated by the sandal story and your perceptive commentary harked me back to my long-time teacher Krishnamurti, who described this state of awareness repeatedly, one could even say endlessly, in his talks and writings. No gap between perception and action means no intervening thought, which according to K is the source of all our confusion.
Really enjoyed this! The threshold crossing you describe from ‘wise person’ to ‘wise action’ feels critical and echoes the move from ‘systems thinking’ to ‘systems being’. And the reminder that wisdom is necessarily embodied and relational…and that the task of ‘becoming wiser’ is at its core a learning process....feels timely.
I like how you hold the sandal story – parable perhaps? – as a ‘true myth’. A story that conveys an essential truth without necessarily using literal facts. It feels like the precise inversion of a conspiracy theory – a story that deploys selectively true anecdotes to convey an essential falsehood. The latter offers some kind of seductive felt-sense of enclosure as the world clicks into some kind of order…. uncertainty is definitively banished and we become the knower rather than the learner. But with the Gandhi story…and the post in general… I’m left asking myself more questions…what would I have done? What does it mean to cultivate such a disposition? To move from – and inhabit our web of relationships from - a place of heartful and deeply intelligent spontaneity? To inhabit uncertainty with a little more curiosity...
Thank you.
"Embodied learning" is even more relevant to the vast amount of knowledge embodied in our environment, both human made and natural. The knowledge embedded in institutions is usually more influential than the ideas its people espouse. When we change patterns of behavior and institutions, we create a form of deep learning. For more on this see: ‘Social models as dynamic theories’. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1443388 (https://bit.ly/DSTFront) and a “Manifesto" for how this can be applied to higher education: https://bit.ly/SocSciManifesto
You know what I'm going to draw a parallel with, don't you?
The thing I keep coming back to — it's in everything I've written — is that rationalisation follows the action. That's why I love your antidebate (I was trying to persuade Kairos to ask you to do one about money!)
But there is a bigger prize hiding in a recogniton of the body. Money sits right at the root of intellectual life — philosophy, mathematics, theology all grew up tangled in it. It's arguably the substance through which the mind first learned to leave the body behind. So rediscovering money's urform — its visceral, burnable(!) presence — isn't just one more embodiment example. It's embodiment striking at the spot the disembodiment began. For the mind-trapped among us, what might that open up?
It may be a bitter pill for us who are formed in the grip of Capitalism but, in my view, it is precisely the medicine the social body needs.
Synchronicity always a good sign.
Absurd Intelligence just published on the same theme;
https://www.absurdintelligence.com/are-theatre-dance-and-communal-experience-the-keys-to-unlock-our-future-world/?ref=absurd-intelligence-newsletter