Bodies of Resistance
Revolutionary Somatics for Collective Liberation
This post is collectively written by Wendy Martinez-Marroquin, Crystal Mason, Vanessa Rodriguez Minero, and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex. The use of “we / us” references the four of us. The use of “We-All / Us-All” refers to The Collective Body, and its usage is informed by Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta. We use one of our names when sharing a more specific story or idea that requires attribution.
Even amidst ever escalating fear, punishment, tyranny, and oppression a truth remains: Us-All hold the key to collective freedom and liberation. And what we witness in spaces we culturally tend is that for those on the frontlines—emergency responders, organizers, cultural workers, artists, and sex workers—this embodied knowing isn't just personal practice; it's the foundation of revolution.
Wisdom Lives Within Us-All
Imagine a world where We-All are not disconnected, but deeply attuned to the cellular wisdom within. Where each boundary We-All set, each connection forged, springs from the authentic ground of embodied presence. This is not utopian thinking—it's the revolution already happening in spaces where movement workers dare to feel.
When we honor our body's signals and create necessary boundaries in our personal relationships, we are not just practicing self-care. We are embodying the revolutionary principle that transformation begins with listening to the wisdom our bodies already possess. In each moment we honor these signals, we create microcosms of the world we're fighting to build—one where autonomy and interconnection dance in harmony.
For us, this looks like taking the time needed and necessary for us to arrive at collective understanding / meaning making. We do not rush to produce. We pause and dream when needed / desired. We give space-time to witness each of our own selves and one another. We move at the speed of collectivity, so that what we co-create contains the DNA of Us-All’s liberation from systems designed to harm, punish, dominate, and oppress.
Break the Trance of Disconnection
Dominating systems survive by fostering disconnection—from ourselves, from each other, from the earth sustaining Us-All. These systems fragment Us-All into smaller and smaller compartments reinforcing distrust of the very bodies carrying Cosmic Knowing. They erect borders between Us-All sowing paranoia and fear of one another to suppress Collective Wisdom. It is a cycle meant to overwhelm sense / senses, forcing Us-All into a deep trance that seems impossible to break.
We embed somatic practice into all aspects of our meeting and workshop agenda preparation and facilitation. In the spaces we tend (virtually and in person), we witness breakthrough moments when people reconnect with embodied truth. One example comes from a workshop Crystal facilitated on microaggressions for SEIU. After facilitating a somatic exercise, Crystal observed participants recognizing past harms. Their bodies clearly remembered what their minds had been forced to forget. Tears flowed, hearts opened, and the artificial walls between intellectual understanding and lived experience dissolved. It moved the entire group, and Crystal too.
This is one of the powers of somatics: Remembrance in the body. In becoming aware or more in tune with our own physicality, we (re)connect not just with our corporeality, we (re)connect to our spirit, our memories, our generational (blood and chosen) roots. We become aware of Us-All, which aids us in breaking the trance of disconnection.
Respite Is Power
What becomes possible when We-All locate power not in individual / individuated systems, but in Collective Embodied Wisdom? Every time We-All ground through breath and movement, We-All resist the system forcing Us-All to shrink. Each time We-All acknowledge contradictions within each body, We-All build capacity to navigate the contradictions in movements and communities. When We-All honor boundaries and recognize where energy leaks, We-All create sustainable practices that will outlast the systems We-All are abolishing.
This is not abstract theory. At AllThrive Education, Wendy Martinez-Marroquin and Vanessa Rodriguez Minero facilitated weekly Collective Care Sessions for COVID first responders from 2022 to 2024 for The Center at Sierra Health Foundation. Due to regular, long-term commitment by the funder, the grantees knew there was consistent space to (re)connect with their bodies. This offering became a lifeline to the workers running into the (proverbial) fire because it facilitated a pause. In this space of breath, participants (re)discovered their power, both within themselves and within the collective (virtual) body of the Zoom room.
Collective Care Sessions remind us that respite is power. And We-All need to remember this now more than ever.
Tending to Culture Reveals The Collective Body
As We-All stand at a pivotal moment of systemic collapse, The Collective Body offers not just resistance but renaissance. We-All hold the blueprint for the world being (re)created / (re)made / (re)born—one where autonomous actions become collective liberation. Thus, tending space-time (aka culture) in ways that are rooted in the interdependence of Us-All aid Us-All in attuning each body / every be-ing towards The Collective Body.
At the Culture Tending Commons, we're witnessing this vision unfold. Our work with our clients and communities center (some of) those most impacted by systemic oppression (e.g. emergency responders, Black artists and creatives, sex workers, and queer and trans communities). It is crucial that we examine our own observations, biases, labor, and energies, so we do not perpetuate cycles of harm, exploitation, or exhaustion.
Our praxis of culture tending disrupts these patterns. We pause, dream, and be. Over and again. Thus, curiosity replaces expectations, responsiveness supersedes dominant modes / models, and interdependence outshines isolated efforts.
And The Collective Body becomes revealed to Us-All.
Feel Courageously: An Invitation into Revolutionary Presence
Make no mistake—this path requires Us-All to deeply and courageously feel. In a Man-made world designed to numb, BE-ing is a revolutionary act. Being, though, stirs deep feelings, often ones that surface discomfort, discontent, depression, and dissociation. To be able to sit fully with all these emotions and to resist instant resolution or gratification and to face the contradictions within and amongst Us-All demands Us-All to be brave.
For those on the frontlines of transformation, courage isn't optional. It's the foundation of sustainable resistance. It's how We-All remain whole in fragmenting times, (re)connect amidst forces of separation, and harness The Collective Body.
Our bodies are not just vessels carrying us through struggle—they are wisdom keepers, resistance fighters, dream weavers of the world to come. They hold memories of ancestral resilience and visions of futures yet to be born.
We-All are invited into Revolutionary Presence.
Let me / us / Us-All move through the world fully present—pausing, dreaming, being.
Let me / us / Us-All create practices honoring individual needs / wants / desires and The Collective Body.
Let me / us / Us-All tend to cultures in ways where vulnerability becomes strength, where rest becomes resistance, where feeling becomes freedom.
In a world designed to make us small:
We choose expansion. We choose sensation. We choose connection. We choose liberation as present practice (not some future goal.)
We-All are not just dreaming of a new world—We-All are becoming it, breath by breath, movement by movement, heart by collective heart.
The Culture Tending Commons welcomes all who seek to integrate embodied practices into their movement work. Join us in growing something beautiful together—a culture of resistance rooted in the revolutionary wisdom of our bodies.