We are not made of flesh and bone; we are made of love and loss.

The body is not meat; it is an autobiography. The pieces of the body are pieces of the soul – those that have touched us and those who have hurt us, places we have been and people we have cared for. The body is our values and history incarnate. It is a sacred poem and a warm bloody world of possibility.

To know the body is to know ourselves and each other. To be intimate with the body is to have your tongue on the pulse of life itself.

When we cut ourselves off from the body with stillness, technology or addiction, we cut ourselves off not just from pain, but from joy. Without the umbilical sensing body we are strangers to ourselves and others, and violence becomes an inevitability.

My friends, I beg you, do not give up your birthright so easily. Do not go so quickly into the numb night; move, move, against the dying of your light.

Dedicated to the people of Russia and Ukraine, and somewhat in the style of Alexandra Vilvovskaya (EFC Russia director and lead trainer, who will also be joining us as co-lead trainer for EFC UK 2018). Apologies to Dylan Thomas for the poetry theft. 

(Originally published on www.integrationtraining.co.uk)