Soma Sanctum exists for the reclamation of practices and wisdom inherent to the wellness of humans as one with the earth.
We value presence, connection, honesty, justice, creativity, inspiration and embodied action. Our intention is to hone and share our gifts through the lens of healing, pleasure and empowerment for the benefit of the self and the collective.
Three relationships have been identified where centralized (colonial/capitalist) power structures have worked to divide and conquer: Our relationship to our own body, our relationships to each other and our relationship to the land. Soma Sanctum seeks to acknowledge that these structures remain pervasive, the harmful effects multi-layered and multi-generational and that healing and evolving will require collaborative, creative and community scale solutions that are as joyful in celebration as in their rebellions. Soma Sanctum wishes to reclaim, reconnect to and uplift the intrinsic wisdom found in each of us individually, in our community and in our land and consciously support the decreased dependence on systems which no longer serve us. In their places we seek to co-create more resilient alternatives that are diverse, inclusive, accessible and regenerative.
The following sections describe Soma Sanctum’s commitments to the three relationship dynamics described above in relation to acknowledgements of how these systems have adversely affected us.
Embodiment (connection to our own body)
Soma Sanctum acknowledges:
A standard of beauty has been imposed globally that is not representative of the diversity of beauty found in the world’s people.
Our bodies, especially the bodies of women, the poor and other minority/marginalized communities, have been used as test subjects for scientific experiment including the poisoning of our food, invasive medical procedures and systematic dependence on pharmaceuticals.
Shame, guilt, fear and violence have been used against our bodies driving many to dissociation, self-harm and self-hatred.
We have become or been made distant from local foods and plants as medicines and the knowledge of how they work with our bodies synergistically for overall wellness.
Many cultural/societal conditionings serve to repress the power, expression and pleasure in being that is our birthright.
Trauma and it’s effects on the body can be multi-generational and can be interpersonal, environmental, political, social and spiritual.
Too many of us are sick, tired, lonely, scared, hopeless, isolated and lost. We do not wish to pass these conditionings on to the future ancestors as isolated from their corresponding states of wellness.
Soma Sanctum’s commitment is to promote and facilitate practices which:
Locate sources of beauty, pleasure, power and inspiration directly from our own bodies as opposed to external sources.
Establish an intimate and somatic understanding of consent, boundaries and the ability to self-advocate for both.
Increase the capacity of interoception (physical and emotional inner awareness) to better self-soothe, self-advocate and improve the function of physical, emotional and spiritual systems of the body.
Honor the inherent and unique wisdom of every body and serve to co-create safe-spaces where this wisdom is brought forth, heard and known in an effort to self-heal and self-realize.
Reclaim our bodies as rightfully ours to explore, enjoy and share in ways that serve our health, wellness, curiosity and interconnectivity.
Reclaim pleasure, joy and celebration with our bodies as powerful allies in support of our short term and higher intentions.
Immerse the body in nature to dissolve the fantasy of separateness and reestablish the ancient and felt knowledge of oneness.
Community (connection to each other)
Soma Sanctum acknowledges:
Much of the knowledge and many of the traditions from our unique ancestries has been lost due to genocide and/or forced assimilation. This has social and environmental implications to the local ecology. Many of us have roots in collectivist cultures but have willingly or forcibly through the generations adapted to individualist thinking that values competition over cooperation creating isolation, exceptionalism, entitlements and a sense of “otherness”.
Many of our modern spiritual practices have been co-opted from indigenous lineages who kept them alive sometimes at their own peril. Some of these practices have been renamed, commodified and made exclusive which has implications on the practices themselves as well as the bloodlines and has created trauma, distrust, resentment and disease among us.
Human sexuality exists and is expressed on a spectrum that is not always represented in the dominant cultural narrative of the binary.
Distress and illness (mental/physical/spiritual) as well as their modern treatments are viewed and administered through a western lens of pathology which often cares for symptoms but is limited in its ability or willingness to care for the underlying and root causes of these symptoms as understood through a traditional lens.
Tangible resources like land, money and alternatives to mainstream education are not equally available due to the continued legacy of cultural oppression through the unbalanced defense of capitalism.
Elders and children play integral roles and hold invaluable knowledge on our journey through past, present and future ancestral healing.
Our unique community here in Southern Portugal is diverse and comprised, in part, of people who have left their home countries for political, social, environmental and philosophical reasons. This, along with a local culture shaped by a recent peaceful rebellion against fascism provides for a shared opportunity for community scale self-actualization.
Soma Sanctum’s commitment is to promote and facilitate practices which:
Respectfully honor, name and embody the power of tribal technologies as valid in their own right but which are also supported and by the latest scientific findings in mind/body medicine, trauma experiencing/processing and social engagement systems.
Model integration and collaboration with the established culture through learning the native language and seeking creative partnerships with locals.
Bring together and honor the intergenerational wisdom in elders, children and everyone in between while co-creating a new mysticism that is practical, magical and informed by the constellation of our collective lineages and diversity of our sexual expressions.
Philosophically and financially support local ecosystems of artists, healers, makers, storytellers, land-stewards and keepers of wisdom and the projects directly related to our collective healing and thriving.
Implement a more egalitarian model of financial sustainability that acknowledges, celebrates and respects the diversity of abundance, circumstance and opportunity which exists amongst us.
Orient toward joy, pleasure, creativity and celebration as political, social, environmental and spiritual agents of healing and change.
Prioritize strength, healing and actualization in group experiencing in respect to the reality of interconnectivity. When we allow for the mirroring of embodiment amongst us, we create a field of inspiration and hope that serves the collective.
Spiritual Ecology (connection to the land)
Soma Sanctum acknowledges:
Humans are not separate from nature. The decline in eco-literacy and the rise of of so-called Nature Deficit Disorder in all of it’s manifestations is in direct relation to this perceived “separateness”.
The relationship with nature solely as a commodity to be divided, conquered and exploited is not conducive to our collective and synergistic wellness.
Rematriation and supported, affordable access to land and housing for native peoples should be made priority alongside “free market” practices. The separation of natives from their lands erases knowledge and traditions crucial to our ecological healing and evolution.
Genocide and forced assimilation of native peoples and the legacy of colonization have ecological impact directly related to our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.
The criminalization of herbalism including some of our most powerful plant based medicines as well as spiritual practices that are land/body based has contributed to our systematic intoxication.
The proliferation of subsidized farming and animal husbandry practices which do not honor life and destroy and poison ecosystems has direct and harmful physical, social and spiritual implications.
Systematic changes are necessary for large scale change but we also have individual opportunities to make more informed, inspired and empowering choices in regards to our consumption of food, medicine, media and products.
Soma Sanctum’s commitment is to promote and facilitate practices which:
Are experienced in communion with nature for integrated health, healing and growth.
Generate resources to be invested in land/creature/human restoration projects that provide access to clean food, water, shelter and medicine as well as the healing and protection of wild spaces for all.
Inspire and support our natural desires to make embodied choices that positively affect our spiritual and ecological ecosystems.
Ease the burdens of fatigue and fear to encourage the diversity of political tactics which seek to reestablish greater physical, social, environmental and spiritual harmony.
Offer direct access to the body’s shared wisdom with nature encouraging self/shared-confidence, self/shared-esteem and removing the imposed reliance on “expertise” where perhaps unnecessary.
Encourage enjoyment, leisure and adventure in nature as joyful means of inspiring oneness.
Encourage the creation and longevity of other personal and collective projects rooted in spiritual and ecological regeneration.
These acknowledgments and commitments are guiding stars and are not viewed or felt as static truths.
Soma Sanctum wishes to offer this manifesto as a vulnerable practice in noticing and naming what is alive in the body in regard to the creation of a life’s work and release it to the whole for mirrored learning, sensitivity and inquiry.
We remain humble and gracious in our power both insignificant and infinite .