Learning the Language of My Body
When I started experiencing stories that offered a capacious exploration of what it means to live in a body, a shift began in my relationship to my own body. These stories slowly opened doors that gave me permission to sit with my body, to explore what it might mean to honor its language.
As I listened to conversations about the body’s grace and the innately human experience of loss and needfulness (Krista Tippett in conversation with Matthew Sanford and Krista Tippett in conversation with Sara Hendren), or read books that articulate the joys and challenges of living within a culture of disability (True Biz by Sara Nović), or experienced stories that connected me with characters complex and vibrant and disabled (Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor), a truth emerged within my body. The truth that my life, my insights and the things I offer to the world exist because of my body, not in spite of it. I have spent so much of my life trying so hard to make up for the body I bring to the table. Experiencing story that explores and values the complexity of a body has created an indelible expansion within my own story.
When we are deprived of stories centered around disability and the natural ceasing of our bodies, we are also deprived of the narrative language that could allow us to understand our changing and varied bodies. When we allow our stories to contain the complexity of what it means to live in a body, we build the capacity to honour the insights and sensations that emerge.
(p.s. A big thanks to Matthew Sanford, I probably wouldn’t have the language I needed to write this without the teachings he shares).
- Sophie Gagnon
Band of Brothers
William Shakespeare is the poet that I find helps connect to my body, mind and spirituality. I identify with the Band of Brothers from Henry V having served in the military and fire services and the injuries I have sustained perhaps physically mentally and spiritually.
- Sean Weir, Mindful Responder
“This day is called the feast of Crispian”
By William Shakespeare
(from Henry V, spoken by King Henry)
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Sophie, you’re inspiring words!— the way you take the stories that you have heard and read and metabolize them into your experience is so moving… And Sean, thank you for your vulnerable offering(This was a poem that my children had to learn in school, but it didn’t resonate until today so thank you)
Such beautiful reflections! Thank you, Sophie and Sean, and now I know where “band of brothers” comes from.