Field Study Proposal

In this project, entitled P(r) is for Presence the student intends to explore the connection between the body and the
mind and to put various theories on movement and meditation into practice in an effort to reconnect both to her
physical self and the world around her. At the end of the project, the student will have amassed a collection of
poetry and photographs, as well as a Holdrege-style research paper detailing her efforts and experiences during this
project.

Read the complete field study proposal (pdf)

Gallery of captured moments

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

• P(r) – Week 8 Log March 2, 2013 Monday 2-25-13:  1/4 hr e-cises, 1/4 hr vocal exercise, 1/2 hr belly dance, 3 1/2 hr reading Grandmother’s Secrets, 1/2 hr Wordpress, 2 hr seminar.  Total:  7 hours Tuesday 2-26-13:  1/2 ...
• P(r) – Week 7 Log February 25, 2013 Sunday 2-17-13:  2 hr Vagina Monologues, 2 hr reading Bachelard, Affect Theory Reader, 2 hr writing.  Total:  6 hours Monday 2-18-13:  2 hr writing, 1/4 hr e-cises, 1/2 hr belly dance, ...
• P(r) – Week 6 Log February 18, 2013 Monday, 2-11-13 1/2 hr fighting with Wordpress, 1 hr writing, 2 hr Sherman Alexie reading at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, 3 hr reading Perloff, Dehaene, Cixous.  Total:  6.5 hours Tuesday, ...
• P(r) – Week 5 Log January 23, 2013 2.1.13–Friday 1/2 hr meditation 3 hrs Tai Chi Seminar 1 hr reading 2.2.13–Saturday 4 hrs Tai Chi Seminar 2 hrs reading 1 hr bellydance 2.4.13–Monday 6 hr reading 3 hr writing 2.5.13–Tuesday 1/2 hr Morning Pages 1/2 hr E-cises & meditation 3/4 hr bellydance 4 ...

Bachelardian Reverie

• Week 8 – Bachelardian Reverie #4 March 2, 2013 **sorry for the lateness, I lost my book and just acquired a new one “What an invitation to dream what one sees and to dream what one is…Who is existing?  What ...
• P(r) – Bachelardian Reverie #3 February 21, 2013 “Attached to its odor memories, a childhood smells good.”  (Bachelard, 140) Pipe tobacco.  Scratchy brown sofas in every room, green wallpaper always made me think of Napolean.  The front room with ...
• P(r) – Bachelardian Reverie #2 February 14, 2013 “The man who loves a woman “projects” upon that woman all the values which he venerates in his own anima.  And in the same way, the woman “projects” upon the ...
• P(r) – Bachelardian Reverie 1 January 30, 2013 “…when will-o’-the-wisps–beings of very indeterminate sex–are to seduce men or women, they become precisely, according to the person to be led astray, flambettes (f.) or flamboires (m.).”  (Bachelard, 38) Everything is ...

Poetry

• P(r) – Final Poem These movements that seem to move themselves with a grace that hides the strength that brings ease of movement as we manipulate ourselves into achieving what should be impossible. The lines of the ...
• P(r) – Week 8 Poetry – On Finding My Waist On Finding My Waist An unexpected rearrangement of atoms has rendered an in where there was an out as mysterious curves emerge joyfully from captivity.
• P(r) – Poem #3 – Week 7 silence turning and turning in the widening gyre, seeking a silence I find lacking, my center will not hold a black hole and so I must fill it with things windchimes and nail polish ...
• P(r) – Poem #2 – Week 6 Because of formatting issues, this poem has been embedded as a Google document.
• P(r) – Poem 1 – The Chinese Restaurant Ignored By Time Passing Present but not really here a 1960s Chinese restaurant like David Lynch deliciously drunk on tastes like dangerous candy words flowing off my back like water the warm buzz of people safe in private conversations the scent of childhood in lemon-lime ...

Poetry Observed

Term Paper Abstract

In our current culture of excess, materialism and gratification few people live in the moment, and even fewer live in their bodies. They live in the past and dream of the future. The closest they come to the present is thinking about what they want right now but even that is a dream of the future, never an acceptance of what is. Bodies are a nuisance, objects to be tamed and altered, decorated and abhorred, rarely appreciated for the extraordinary machines that they are or thanked for the physical and emotional abuse they endure daily. If our bodies could talk, what would they say? But our bodies do talk, all the time. They are constantly telling us about ourselves internally, and give us moment-to-moment updates on the spaces we inhabit, each moment shaped by the preceding moment and shaping the next. Our bodies put 24-hour news feeds to shame. What a wealth of real-time information is available to us if we would only listen. That is my aim: to learn to access the information my body holds, to become a presence in my body and in the present moment, not watching them both from the outside.

Read full term paper