Landing in Delight
I woke up early. My little son, who is really not that little anymore, threw his body against mine. His leg draped over my leg, his arm across my torso, holding on softly and firmly. After some time, he turned around, moving away. Letting go.
I felt the gift of his weight, our mingling warmth. The feeling of home. I remembered that human beings are capable of loving each other despite the conflicts, the fights, and the disagreements that fill our days. And I realized something else: the moment of letting go is already contained within the holding on.
Living in a country that wages war and dehumanizes those it believes to be different, I often ask myself what I can do. I remember listening to Carol Swann once, when she said that helping people live more fully in their bodies is a form of political activism. At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. Now I do.
Engaging in somatic practices—however diluted that phrase may feel—expands our bandwidth to be with what is. Through the body, we come to know our stories. We begin to notice how we grip, brace, and hold ourselves, and the beliefs and expectations that sustain those patterns. We may feel the fluttering of our nervous system and the quiet pulses and currents that move beneath it. From this kind of listening, a portal can open into unbound movement. Depth and flow begin to reveal themselves—not as something we force, but something we enter through participation.
A body like an orchestra: systems attuning, rhythms interweaving, intelligence arising through relationship. And perhaps we will sense that being a body is not separate from spirit, but one seamless, living expression of it. The antidote to dehumanization is care and to recognize that none of us is made of better stuff than another. Our embodied understanding of how we are wired into particular ways of being—how our inner landscape continuously forms relationships, evolves, and informs us—shapes the way we engage with the wider world. As we deepen this awareness, we begin to notice that interconnectedness is not merely a term used in esoteric circles, but a very old Indigenous understanding of who we truly are.
—It’s like lying next to my almost nine-year-old and sensing how a body can feel like home.
On that note, I am excited to offer a residential retreat: an invitation to slow down, be with yourself, with the land, the water, and the dance. For four full days we will gather at the beautiful Hanna Barn on Vashon Island. Through Contact Improvisation, solo movement, and psoas work, we will explore the co-creation of fluidity and form, grounded in care. Landing in Delight.
I also want to invite you to come to our March 28 and 29 events in Bellingham! I invited Anne Cooper for A Day of the Underscore and Rajendra and I will start a series of Deepening workshops.
If you happen to be in Seattle this weekend, or in Vancouver next month for Convergence, come find me—I’ll be teaching at both.
Thanks for reading. Send me a note, I always like to hear from you!
Carmen
Spring offerings +"Landing in Delight" details:
March
Carmen Serber
Dance and Somatics continuously oscillating between practice, theory, improvisation and play. The body as a field of inquiry and research, embodiment and fierce physicality.
March 28
Carmen Serber
March 29
Carmen Serber
Sundays 1 to 5:30 pm
March 29, April 26, May 31, June 28
This series is for everyone who wants to deepen their practice of Contact Improvisation, especially movers who want to expand their physical skillset AND their practice of relational presence. With partner and ensemble exercises as the research base, we will practice flying and supporting, dynamic understandings of anatomy, finding integral strength in ourselves and others, and invite expansive improvisation with embodied attention. Let's experience the body as a vessel of experimental inquiry, somatic communication, and wild physicality.
May
May 8-10
Carmen Serber
Another seasonal JAM: Already filling up. Sign up soon.
The Spring into Spring JAM in Bellingham is a Contact Improvisation weekend hosted by Carmen and Rajendra Serber, featuring a special workshop with Delia Brett. We are lucky to have Soleil Chappelle, Peggy Protz, Michal Lahav and Eric Mulhern as additional facilitators. Music by Serge Gubelman and surprise guests.
October
Oct 9 - 12
Carmen Serber
This residential retreat is a deep immersion into easeful, timeless movement—into falling effortlessly through space, rising with clarity, and landing with buoyancy. It offers a space to cultivate coherence and refined spatial awareness by exploring subtle relationships within the body and how they resonate outward into movement and beingness.