I already have some pictures, imagine that!
This is a photo from flying over Russia.
heres an academic reflection I wrote just a little while ago for our first assignment:
Oh my, what a flurry these last few days have been. From bellingham to the san juans to seatle to korea and now to Thailand? I'm not sure it exactly set in until I was recieving a thai massage this afternoon. A thai massage IN Thaland, no way!
I am now reminded to focus on my project again. My main focus over the last few days has been on myself and my immediate experience. processing, monitoring my ebergy levels and integrating all the new experiences coming at me. On the plane ride and while landing that was especially important. This focused attention on my own experience, however, is likely a good thing when it comes to a project in somatic psychology. I describe my project as mainly being centered around somatic psychology. How people experience themselves and their own bodies in these cultures we visit through the lens of my own body and my own experience. I am interested in their sense of agency over their own body and how this is impacted by religion, etc. Culture shapes what movement is available. In addition, I want to focus on medicine health and healing. I want to get a sense of peoples personal health cosmologies and how this is impaced and plays into a larger cultural body. I am also looking at rites of passage. Perhaps around the stages of life, and how theses are recognized and honored by a community. How these are understood is especially important to me. This idea that a culture must recognize something for it to exist as a reality has been especially present for me. One of my biggest struggles so far is in this area. The people in this group are pretty different from me. I usually forget what a unique subculture I'm in until it is challenged. It has been a challenge to still hold my own space amongst a group of people with different interests and intelligence focused in different topics. My immediate enviornment, the people in it and the possibilities available impact me and what ispossible for me a great deal. I believe this is also true for culture to a great degree. I wonder how I can approach this problem and how I can stretch the possibilities for myself and what project ideas are available. I'm already pleased at the ideas I've come up with.
The orientation was interesting. I feel I already have a lot of background on Buddhism and Hibduism from being exposed culturally, vipassana, and taking a religion and society in India class last quarter. The orientation game me some more background information and gave a sense of how they manifest in the cultures we'll be visiting and what to look for. I can already tell I'll be interested in how Mahayana and Thereveda buddhism compare and contrast in practice in Thailand and Dharamasala.
Last night was mainly about dealing with extreme exhaustion and extremes. My body is very bsensitive to transitions, so I've had to nurture that a great deal. I woke this morning with a good deal of enthusiasm ready to start my day and fairly well rested. In the brief interactions I had with people throughout the city, I noticed the contact is crude, loud and very fast. I was yelled at several times to move faster or do something. It wasn't done in such a way that felt personal, just a general sense of keeping order and maintaining a very fast pace. It is difficult to know very much right now about anyone or how they experience themselves. I am viewing them through my own cultural lens, and I havent felt been able to open up very much yet. I'm waiting for some sort of spark to get me going, some idea to take off on, but as for now, these people feel very different from me. Why is that, I wonder? I imagine once I'm able to relax more and really open my somatic channels, I'll be able to feel them. Feel them on the channels I'm not necesarilly most accustomed to tuning into, and I'll be able to get a better sense of them through my own body. If I open up enough I'll be able to feel their agency, their beliefs, their experience in their bodies.
The most intimate contact I've made so far is getting a thai massage. Normally, in my culture, healers are expefcted to communicate, to share an open dialogue while healing is occuring about what is ok, pressure, etc. With a thai healer, my experience was that this dialogue didn't exist. This likely had a lot to do with language barriers, but also likely because with a traditional practitioner of another culture, it is expected to hand over all the authority of the experience to them. I felt ok handing it over to her and allowing her to use whatever kind of pressure she wanted with me, and trusted that she knew what she was doing.
I encountered many bodymaps today. Ayervedic bodymaps on the walls of a temple, reflexology body maps. These are great because they give me a sense of how the body understands and contextualizes the body. I wonder the extent to which these beliefs will be reflected in the individuals.
At this point, it seems my project is taking off nicely. I think my efforts will best be focused on keeping meticulous embodied journals. I think it will also be helpful for me to every day write a short synthesis of the day and the themes experienced. I discovered this morning when I tried to use my video camera it didn;t work, so if this continues to be the case my project may end up different than I expected it, but it wasn't exactly as if I had a specific form in mind for it.
It is pretty exciting to be here! I wish I had the energy to blog more, but I must get off the internet! Enjoy the pictures, they are of our hotel, the royal palice, another temple and around a little bit.
I am now reminded to focus on my project again. My main focus over the last few days has been on myself and my immediate experience. processing, monitoring my ebergy levels and integrating all the new experiences coming at me. On the plane ride and while landing that was especially important. This focused attention on my own experience, however, is likely a good thing when it comes to a project in somatic psychology. I describe my project as mainly being centered around somatic psychology. How people experience themselves and their own bodies in these cultures we visit through the lens of my own body and my own experience. I am interested in their sense of agency over their own body and how this is impacted by religion, etc. Culture shapes what movement is available. In addition, I want to focus on medicine health and healing. I want to get a sense of peoples personal health cosmologies and how this is impaced and plays into a larger cultural body. I am also looking at rites of passage. Perhaps around the stages of life, and how theses are recognized and honored by a community. How these are understood is especially important to me. This idea that a culture must recognize something for it to exist as a reality has been especially present for me. One of my biggest struggles so far is in this area. The people in this group are pretty different from me. I usually forget what a unique subculture I'm in until it is challenged. It has been a challenge to still hold my own space amongst a group of people with different interests and intelligence focused in different topics. My immediate enviornment, the people in it and the possibilities available impact me and what ispossible for me a great deal. I believe this is also true for culture to a great degree. I wonder how I can approach this problem and how I can stretch the possibilities for myself and what project ideas are available. I'm already pleased at the ideas I've come up with.
The orientation was interesting. I feel I already have a lot of background on Buddhism and Hibduism from being exposed culturally, vipassana, and taking a religion and society in India class last quarter. The orientation game me some more background information and gave a sense of how they manifest in the cultures we'll be visiting and what to look for. I can already tell I'll be interested in how Mahayana and Thereveda buddhism compare and contrast in practice in Thailand and Dharamasala.
Last night was mainly about dealing with extreme exhaustion and extremes. My body is very bsensitive to transitions, so I've had to nurture that a great deal. I woke this morning with a good deal of enthusiasm ready to start my day and fairly well rested. In the brief interactions I had with people throughout the city, I noticed the contact is crude, loud and very fast. I was yelled at several times to move faster or do something. It wasn't done in such a way that felt personal, just a general sense of keeping order and maintaining a very fast pace. It is difficult to know very much right now about anyone or how they experience themselves. I am viewing them through my own cultural lens, and I havent felt been able to open up very much yet. I'm waiting for some sort of spark to get me going, some idea to take off on, but as for now, these people feel very different from me. Why is that, I wonder? I imagine once I'm able to relax more and really open my somatic channels, I'll be able to feel them. Feel them on the channels I'm not necesarilly most accustomed to tuning into, and I'll be able to get a better sense of them through my own body. If I open up enough I'll be able to feel their agency, their beliefs, their experience in their bodies.
The most intimate contact I've made so far is getting a thai massage. Normally, in my culture, healers are expefcted to communicate, to share an open dialogue while healing is occuring about what is ok, pressure, etc. With a thai healer, my experience was that this dialogue didn't exist. This likely had a lot to do with language barriers, but also likely because with a traditional practitioner of another culture, it is expected to hand over all the authority of the experience to them. I felt ok handing it over to her and allowing her to use whatever kind of pressure she wanted with me, and trusted that she knew what she was doing.
I encountered many bodymaps today. Ayervedic bodymaps on the walls of a temple, reflexology body maps. These are great because they give me a sense of how the body understands and contextualizes the body. I wonder the extent to which these beliefs will be reflected in the individuals.
At this point, it seems my project is taking off nicely. I think my efforts will best be focused on keeping meticulous embodied journals. I think it will also be helpful for me to every day write a short synthesis of the day and the themes experienced. I discovered this morning when I tried to use my video camera it didn;t work, so if this continues to be the case my project may end up different than I expected it, but it wasn't exactly as if I had a specific form in mind for it.
It is pretty exciting to be here! I wish I had the energy to blog more, but I must get off the internet! Enjoy the pictures, they are of our hotel, the royal palice, another temple and around a little bit.
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