Seeking the Somatic

All we could see were the Mesquite trees illuminated by our headlights in front of us, but I knew we were surrounded by them. The night air was thick with their musky, sweet, smokey aroma.

We decided to head out on a camping trip, changing our agenda last minute and heading down south to Catalina State Park, outside of Tuscon. We arrived long after dark and in the absence of vision, my oratory sense was heightened. The Mesquite scent, stars overhead, and sound of crickets made our arrival into the campground a visceral, somatic experience.

Somatic is a word I've been thinking a lot about lately. The Merriam-Webster definition of it doesn't quite align with what comes to my mind though. To me, it evokes the notion of multi-sensory experiences. An experience or object that stimulates most, if not all of your senses.

As a growing portion of our lives are lived in the digital realm, intentionally seeking out somatic experiences I think is becoming a mechanism for survival, or at least our sanity. Touching the ground, feeling the sun, or the rain, or the wind on your skin, smelling an unknown flower and being surprised by what you find. These are all antidotes to our technologically driven modern lives.

I find myself leaning more and more into nature journaling, making it almost a daily activity. Even 30 minutes of time spent drawing something I noticed in the real world forces me to use more of my senses and extracts me from the matrix. Nature journaling is my red pill, and I'm not giving it up.