Queering your feet, sexual and geographical re-orientation: where and with whom are we walking?
I want to invite you to a small embodied practice. ( I proposed this meditation during the workshop that followed the “Fabulation for Future” Symposium. 13-23 September 2021. Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.)
I am calling it „queering your feet, sexual and geographical re-orientation: where and with whom are we walking?“.
I invite you to concentrate on your feet, as a physical space that needs cuddles and love. Do you perceive it as a space within or outside your body? I invite you to take off your shoes and please take off your socks, too. Chose one or two surfaces with a specific texture, it can be a carpet at home, wooden floor, a grass surface, a beach or any surface where you can freely walk barefoot, and have a walk there. …
Concentrate on all the areas of your feet that need attention, why did you chose that specific surface to walk on? Is it a surface that reminds you of a time in your life? Of a smell? Of a person/group of persons? Of a feeling that you felt? Is there a past story attached to it? Or is it just the closest surface you had at your disposal? Where does this surface lead to? Do you see the horizon? Do you see buildings? Do you see trees and flowers? Do you perceive the walls of your room? Please try to transfer all these feeling into your feet. And continue walking. Is the surface cold? Is it wet? Do small fragments of that surface stick on your feet, go into the spaces between your toes? Can you feel it?
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Once you think you are ready with the walk, take a comfortable seat and stay barefoot. If you can, touch one of your foot, caress it and make a slight massage. You can also use both hands to take your ankle and gently shake your foot. Touch the areas that feel in need of more love. You can make a pressure with your thumb. Which are the areas that need more attention? Would you like someone else caressing your foot? Be grateful to your feet, they can bring you where you need to be, collecting your past and bringing you towards a future, “orienting” your steps. Do your feet tell you a story? What kind of? …
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I now leave you with a short meditation inspired by Sarah Ahmed’s „Queer Phenomenology“: „To be orientated is also to be turned toward certain objects, those that help us to find our way. These are the objects we recognize, so that when we face them we know which way we are facing. They might be landmarks or other familiar signs that give us our anchoring points. They gather on the ground, and they create a ground upon which we can gather. And yet, objects gather quite differently, creating different grounds. What difference does it make „what“ we are oriented toward?“ (Ahmed, 2006, p.1)
References
Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer Phenomenology. Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press.