Seeking Wholeness in a New Life: Boundaries and Fine Lines
LERNA BABİKYAN
I am starting life anew in a small village in England, and I am just beginning to understand my relocation here, together with the intimate life my husband and I have established. I sometimes watch the days of pouring rain with gratitude, and at other times, I take walks under the rain; contact with the water element clears my mind. I observe the waterways that accumulate and flow in unexpected places, and the robin that suddenly touches a puddle to take a sip. I watch the movement of the clouds reflected in the water from the ground. During these observations, noticing the effect of the sound of flowing water and the flow of my own inner 'waters' in my body relaxes me; the tensions in my muscles give way to softer tissues. Then the sun comes out. I observe the feelings the changing light creates in the landscape and within me, the shifts in my way of perceiving life, and the variable relationships different beings have with light, just as they do with water. At times, I let my body go into the movement of the trees, branches, and bushes, swaying and being tossed freely in nature. Feeling that I exist as a reciprocal part of nature, through my body and senses, strengthens my sense of confidence and wholeness. Furthermore, sharing an equal life with other species in this space, free of concepts of ownership and power, increases my resilience in the face of difficult moments.
The primary reason that brought me to a small village among the hills, rather than a well-known metropolis like London, was the school where I was pursuing my Master's degree, which was institutionalized around an ecological perspective. It was here that I encountered the ecosomatic movement practices I experienced above and the related literature. The purpose of ecosomatic studies is to rekindle an awareness-based connection between the human body and nature.Unlike the mainstream studies mostly conducted in nature up to now, in ecosomatic practice, neither our body nor nature is used as a tool for developing creativity or achieving a state of well-being; instead, the priority is to feel what it is like to have an equal, shared life experience and to remember that we are intrinsically and essentially connected to one another again. Of course, the development of our creativity and the feeling of well-being are also possible through the new perspectives we gain during this process.
Ecosomatic practices, which are also experiential learning practices, are being widely used globally by experts in various fields—in addition to dance—such as psychology, education, art therapy, healing architectural design, and climate activism. This is because they develop skills like sensory awareness and empathy, and can help re-establish the lost connection with the 'Other.'
Influenced by the training I received, I also began applying an ecology-based approach to the Creative Dance Instructor Training Workshop I have been running in Istanbul since 2015, starting in 2024. During one of the hybrid program's online sessions, I was sharing the movements and physical characteristics of the tardigrade (water bear) with my students. Shortly after, one of my students started crying; she expressed deep regret for the prejudice and distance she had initially developed towards this creature whose appearance she disliked. This confrontation made her acutely feel the pain of how often we exclude each other—both individually and socially—through similar prejudiced experiences in the rush of daily life. This student, a woman who is both very graceful and strong, had probably internalized the insensitive and judgmental attitudes of others besides herself that day. The class concluded with the poem she wrote for the tardigrade; all our eyes were wet, but this time, from compassion.
Compassion is not just an emotion; it is a state of action that transforms our lives in a positive sense. However, compassion-based ecosomatic practices are by no means a new discovery for humanity. We know from their surviving forms of production, artworks, lifestyles, and rituals that in sedentary societies living in different historical periods—especially before their lands and cultures were invaded and destroyed by colonizers—their holistic relationship with their bodies and their environment was very vibrant, built upon awareness and mutual sensitivity.
These communities' use of the body together with dance, movement, rhythm, and songs in their ceremonies for healing, production, harvest, mourning, transition, and celebration contributed to the holistic health of their relationship with their own bodies. At the same time, it reminded the community of the vital importance of the relationship between human and non-human beings by revitalizing the connections between all bodies.
As people migrated or were forced to migrate over time, and were distanced from the lands that sustained them in every sense, some rituals disappeared while others changed form, and the individual's way of relating to themselves and their environment shifted. The reflections of these changes and losses also manifested in social life. The colonial-capitalist order, which destroys what exists and imposes its own system, along with the patriarchal state of being, makes space for the existence of itself and only the people and practices it approves of, in the economy, in culture—in short, in every area of life. Sometimes this pressure even crosses national borders, allowing the invasion of other countries with its own culture, based on existing power relations and economic or military strength. The rights offered to the excluded, often presented as a 'favor' under the guise of inclusivity, can still only reach a small minority.
To conclude my writing, I also want to briefly mention my first experience of 'otherness' in my second and new homeland. I arrived in a new country, bringing with me a career spanning nearly thirty years, primarily centered on dance facilitation. This autumn, as I begin to feel settled, I am starting everything anew in a village where no one knows me. Because children's dance classes and parent-child classes—which I stopped giving in Turkey about ten years ago, feeling the need to change my way of relating to them—are the best work I know, I am taking my first steps into this unknown territory with them. Even though my work has just started, it is being followed with interest.
A few days ago, I went to a book promotion event related to dance. Afterwards, I met a British woman who owns one of the region's leading dance schools, and we chatted briefly due to our prior acquaintance. Suddenly, she started talking about the classes I had recently begun giving, and immediately added, 'Why don't you put your workshop brochures in the venues where we teach? We have so many students that we sometimes have to turn some away because we don't have space. We could direct them to your classes,' she said, somewhere between a laughter and a roar. This statement, with various inflections at different points, hung in the dark of the night. Was it a sensitive and compassionate invitation, or was it a reminder that underscored her regional commercial dominance, implying I could only enter this sphere as much as she permitted? When I shared this monologue with an experienced and trusted colleague who drove me home that night, she noted that people can adopt different personas for their work. It was as if I encountered the UK's version of this situation, which I was familiar with in Turkey, but now cloaked in grace and intelligence. Evidently, not everyone who facilitates body-based sessions has the same sensitivity.
When I woke up the next day, I decided to make my voice louder. This decision was more a prayer to myself than an aim for competition or proof: it was my belief that I would continue my journey without fear, without being ashamed of my existence, and with my strongest, most embodied self, my experiences, and my creativity. I hope this prayer reaches every individual who is in need, who has been pushed outside the system, whose existence and creations have been ignored, and who has been othered.
