Begin with the body.
In ECOS, to embody is to be fully present as a sensory being within the oikos. Instead of observing nature as an external object, we notice how our bodies are already entangled with it. The wind on our skin or the rhythm of a heartbeat are not just feelings; they are valid ways of knowing. Embodying recognizes that knowledge emerges from sensing before it reaches thinking. These impressions are the starting point for the larger web of relations we explore in Connect.
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**Maurice Merleau-Ponty - Phenomenology of Perception ****Shows how perception is always embodied and lived, grounding knowledge in the body’s engagement with the world.
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Shaun Gallagher - How the Body Shapes the Mind Demonstrates that cognition is inseparable from bodily experience, central to the idea of the body as sensor.
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David Abram - The Spell of the Sensuous Argues for re-rooting language in the sensory earth, positioning Embody as an ecological practice.
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**Arne Næss - Ecology of Wisdom** Places the human body within a larger ecological whole, moving beyond anthropocentric frames.
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Donna Haraway - Staying with the Trouble Calls for situated, embodied practices that resist abstraction and cultivate response-ability.
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Eduardo Kohn - How Forests Think Explores how signs and meanings emerge beyond the human, showing how bodies sense and respond to more-than-human worlds.
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**Maria Puig de la Bellacasa - Matters of Care** Emphasizes embodied care and attentiveness as essential ways of knowing and relating.
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