Mudpots are acidic features with a limited water supply. Microorganisms convert hydrogen sulfide gas coming up from deep within the earth to sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay minerals.

When rumors of this magical place were heard by 19th century Americans eager to settle the west they were taken as delusions and fictional tales until several formal expeditions were organized to explore the area. With significant lobbying from the Northern Pacific Railroad, president Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act in 1872 establishing Yellowstone as the country’s first national park. With westward expansion driven by the pursuit for profit, the park’s creation created a booming tourist industry that relied exclusively on trains for transportation.

Before Euro-Americans settled Turtle Island, there were millions of Indigenous people who lived with the land and had for many thousands of years. The modern park boundary of Yellowstone has ancestral connections with dozens of Native American tribes who used this area for hunting, gathering, trade and ceremony. In the oral traditions of the Crow, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Flathead, Bannock, Nez Perce and others, they knew Yellowstone country as “land of the geysers,” “land of the burning ground,” “the place of hot water,” “land of vapors” or “many smoke.”1

From 1776 to 1887, the U.S. government took over 1.5 billion acres of Native American land during their ideological drive for Manifest Destiny. In the early years of Yellowstone, the U.S. Army took control of the park which included forcibly excluding and displacing Indigenous tribes from their traditional hunting and sacred grounds. The government’s systemic Indigenous dispossession included the near-extinction of the American bison/buffalo as a solution to “settle the Indian question”.

“In the end, the frontier army’s well-calculated policy of destroying the buffalo in order to conquer the Plains Indians proved more effective than any other weapon in its arsenal. . . With the mainstay of their diet gone the Indians had no choice but to accept a servile fate on a reservation where they could subsist on government handouts. From the Indian perspective the buffalo’s disappearance was a shattering blow. Crow Chief Plenty Coups described its impact. . . When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened. There was little singing anywhere.”2

By the late 1880’s the bison, the largest land mammal in North America that once roamed freely across the continent in numbers that reached into the tens of millions, dwindled to about two dozen in the Yellowstone area. Simultaneously, the genocide of Native Americans by the U.S government was underway in the west, with more than 200 years invested in the ethnic cleansing since the arrival of the first colonial settlers. By 1900 their population was reduced by 90% to number less than 250,000 people. The fate of the people and the bison were the same- the people, the bison and the land are an intertwined system of life.

Buffalo herd in the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park

Today in the U.S. there are 575 federally recognized Indigenous nations and approximately 30,000 wild, free-ranging bison. In Yellowstone National Park specifically, there are about 5,300 bison who are direct descendants of the only population to live continuously in the U.S. since prehistoric times. The 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park in 2022 acted as a catalyst amplifying calls for tribal engagement and tribal representation. David Treuer, an Ojibwe author and historian, argues that the American West “began with war but concluded with parks” and declares “it’s time they were returned to America’s original people.” Although the park has shifted to include tribal perspectives on the landscape, the park’s history of genocide and land theft is still hiding in the shadows. Dina Gilio-Whitaker, descendant of the Colville Confederated Tribes and author says, “This is unsettling work, talking about decolonizing and unsettling the settler state. It means making people uncomfortable, inevitably, but we have to have these uncomfortable conversations.”3

While I was visiting the park this past weekend I thought about Yellowstone’s first people, their connection to the land and how body is land.

Yellowstone includes an incredibly diverse landscape with geothermal areas, jagged peaks, lush forests, alpine tundras, mountain meadows, winding rivers and sagebrush-steppe grasslands. The area has over 1,400 native plant species, 300 species of birds and 16 fish species. The park is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states including not only bison but also bighorn sheep, elk, moose, mountain goats, pronghorn, deer, black bears, grizzly bears, coyotes and wolves. Their concentrated population offered the gift of seeing every one of these animals, except wolves, in 3 days!

The sense of time transformed in the presence of land being land. While at Artist’s Point, the most southern part of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, I overheard someone say to their traveling companion, “If only I could bottle this up and take it home!” I get that. The experience of being immersed with nature is like a bath for the spirit and a song for the soul.

Artist’s Point, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

I also considered how we don’t need to “take it home” because this felt-sense experience is home, it’s happening within. The knee jerk reaction to “take it home” is testament to the behavioral engine of human consumption as a way to remedy discomfort. If I have X, I will feel better. When I achieve X, I will be happy. Yet, looking around it’s easy to see that owning all the things, having all the treats, getting all the accolades and removing all the wrinkles doesn’t change the desire for more. Satisfaction cannot be found in the world of red dust.

The direct experience of being with the waterfall and river, the canyon and rocks is like an invitation to return to what has always been, already is- home. The land itself calls forth the presence of being that sits behind personality, identity, self. And there appears something more fundamental. Something basic is realized that is inherent in you and yet does not belong to you. And although Artist’s Point can resonate its place within, there is no outside requirement for coming home to being.

We spent hours sitting with the bison herds. Binoculars to face, breath moving with the ground. Observing their grazing, sleeping, dust bathing, playing and moving. New born calves nursing and finding their legs. My awareness distributed through the landscape to see and listen and learn. In the process, my own internal compass shifted orientation. The part of me that is back, back, behind a name, beyond a form, came forward. The bison reflected to me, there is no me, just basic reality moving though body and land.

Imagine if humans spent more time exploring their inner landscape and developed a map to locate being home. There would no longer be the desperate need to consume everything around us forever because we would be filled with satisfaction.

Want to dive deeper into this landscape of embodied cognition?
Join and me next Friday May 15th

How to Play With Fire

The paper starts by quoting Stephen Porges, the developer of PVT, from his 2025 paper, Polyvagal Thoery: Current status, clinical applications, and future directions. They write, “Polyvagal Theory [PVT] proposes an evolutionarily informed neurophysiological framework for understanding how the autonomic nervous system supports social engagement, emotional resilience, and adaptive physiological responses.”

The 39 experts state the theory is flawed and dispute “the assertion that PVT accurately portrays the evolutionary neurophysiological changes proposed and the contention that the evolution of social behavior in vertebrates reflects these proposed changes. We base our arguments upon experimental studies of the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system in vertebrates carried out for the past six decades, and on well-established phylogenetic inferences of social evolution in vertebrates.”

I was introduced to PVT in 2019 and since then have been casually following the arguments that Grossman has put forward. After I learned the fundamentals of the theory, I began applying the lens to my own embodied practices. Next, I found benefit with using PVT in my work as a somatic movement teacher and coach. While reading the recent commentary, I got a new perspective on why the theory has been so popular with wellness professionals.

The bare bones basics is that instead of a binary sympathetic/parasympathetic autonomic rhythm, PVT describes 3 branches of the autonomic nervous system: ventral vagal, sympathetic and dorsal vagal. Further, each branch is mapped with a specific energy state: relaxed, mobilized, immobilized. In other words, ventral vagal promotes a relaxed state, sympathetic promotes a mobilized state and dorsal vagal promotes an immobilized state (again this is very simplistic, there are blended states).

PVT is appealing because it provides the practitioner a lens for how to observe mood and behavior in their participant/s and to effectively choose a somatic activity that generates inner stability, support and relative safety.

Grossman et. al. “present current existing evidence and consensus regarding the physiology and evolution of vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system” to show that PVT has “inaccurate physiological assumptions”. They state the “erroneous belief system regarding relationships between psychological states and neurophysiology” in PVT is harmful to the wellness and medical space. Certainly over the past several years, it is clear to see the coupling of PVT to trauma healing happening in full force from yoga teachers to wellness coaches to licensed therapists. Concepts like trauma-informed, nervous system regulation and somatic healing have become like stickers on every 8-week program guaranteed to heal your XYZ.

Of course psychological processes such as state change, unconscious threat detection and co-regulation have physiological underpinnings. . . yet, 39 experts say that “PVT does not accurately depict them.” So what to do now? If your methods are working, loosen the grip on exactly how behavior emerges and keep tracking effects. My guess is we will likely miss nature’s design if we grasp hold of any single scientific theory created with modern perceptual constraints.

Also known as pandiculation, a body yawn will help your physiology recalibrate toward a more relaxed and ready state for learning. If discomfort or confusion rises in your system, keep yawning as you need to discharge the e-motion (energy in motion).

Decolonial praxis is context specific and focused on dismantling unequal power structures that have subjugated land, bodies and knowledge over time through unique historical, social, and geographical circumstances. Decolonization and the wider decolonial processes are in direct response to colonial projects as a way to reverse and remedy the ongoing forces of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, racism and capitalism.

The only decoloniality I can speak to is from my own social and physical locations and family matrix. How decolonizing ‘operates’ in each region on the planet and through each person’s body depends on the history of that particular ecosystem. Each of us carry different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, social locations and life experiences. I acknowledge we have unique decolonial paths.

Decolonization

Specific to Turtle Island, decolonization is in direct response to settler colonialism as a way to reverse and remedy oppressive systems. Yann Allard-Tremblay & Elaine Coburn explain,

“In settler colonial states like Aotearoa (ow-theya-roa hard t) New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States, settlers have not left . . . settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. The systemic oppression and domination of the colonized by the colonizer is not historical—firmly in the past—but ongoing and supported by radically unequal political, social, economic, and legal institutions”.1

Decolonization is about land reparations. Land can refer broadly to any property being returned to Native people including buildings, physical infrastructure, sacred objects, culturally significant locations, ancestral remains, and the legal rights to land with water, minerals, plants, fishing, hunting, wildlife habitats, or other natural resources.

The Land Back movement is a key aspect of decolonization. The Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative explains,

“Land Back requires that settlers work to repair the harm colonialism has done and continues to inflict on Indigenous people by returning control over ancestral territories back to its stewards, allowing them to begin restoring their connection to ancestral lands in meaningful ways. By transferring power and wealth back to Indigenous people, land restitution -- which includes the water, natural resources, and infrastructure on the land -- supports Indigenous sovereignty.”2

The path of decolonization is synonymous with a symbiotic relationship with Mother Earth. Actions of decolonization ensure that land, water, air, plants, minerals and fungi will be cared for and that the rights for ecosystems to exist, flourish, and regenerate will be protected. The Indigenous Principles Of Just Transition states,

“We have our place and our responsibilities within Creation’s sacred order. The interdependence of humans and nature is primary. We recognize that there is no separation between how we treat nature and how we treat ourselves; the demand for the recognition of Indigenous rights and the Rights of Mother Earth are the one and the same”3.

Decoloniality

In their article Decolonization is not a Metaphor Tuck and Yang reiterate, “Decolonization specifically requires the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. Decolonization is accountable to Indigenous sovereignty and futurity”4.

Decoloniality is the broader project of dismantling colonial systems.

Decoloniality represents the methods and processes for transforming our social conditions and institutional systems that have been shaped through intergenerational behaviors of violence, domination and exploitation imposed by colonialism. The Decolonizing Humanities Project writes,

“The methods and practices [of decoloniality] consider differences in ideas, social practices, histories, identities and beliefs as part of a myriad of means of ‘production of knowledge.’ But also, we understand that producing knowledge and living it are not separate. We seek to learn and make visible the connections between knowledge, social practices and social action.”5

Ben Spatz, researcher and theorist of embodied practice, clarifies that decoloniality names a thorough and complex transformation of knowledge and its institutions. They discuss the braided relationship between decolonization and decoloniality in their paper Notes for Decolonizing Embodiment,

“The decolonization of bodies, which relies on stable identity categories to define the distribution of power, and the decoloniality of embodiment, which fundamentally deconstructs those categories, go together. Neither can be accomplished without the other.”6

Somatics & Worldview

Somatics is a field of research that explores the phenomenological body or lived body. ‘Soma’ describes body as a conscious, relational entity. ‘Body’ in this way refers to our own bodily structure and consciousness as well as the structure/consciousness of all living bodies in an ecosystem (cell, blood, kidney - mother, family, tribe - seed, earth, sun). Somatics blends mindful attention, intentional effort and novel choice while relating with sensing, moving and thinking. Somatic activities are experiential, creative and inquiry-based.

Somatics was established about 50 years ago in the western United States and claims influence through the physical culture systems of 19th century Europe. Shaped by a white racialized worldview enforced by the colonial settlers of Turtle Island, the somatics field has a glaring blindspot. Worldview is a system of beliefs, values and assumptions an individual or society (body/soma) uses to interpret the world and their place in it.

A basic premise of a white racialized worldview is a belief organized around a colonial value system that some things are ‘inherently good’ while others are ‘inherently bad’. Under this guise, the colonial project intentionally laid the bricks for a society built on a conviction that specific people are more valuable than others. And that’s because the good people, who are valuable and worthy, are special. They are the “chosen ones”.

A result of this blindspot, one that is insidious and largely unexamined, is a binary value system that codes bodies by skin color, sex, gender, economic class, ability, age and ethnicity. Bodies, human beings, are then measured with a ‘colonial body hierarchy’ scale that advantages some while disadvantaging others. Imagine how this either/or binary plays out and affects our preferences and behaviors: good/bad, right/wrong, better/worse, more/less, all/nothing, pleasure/pain, saved/doomed, heaven/hell, win/lose, black/white, love/hate, life/death.

Worldview is not easy to detect- it’s ‘what you don’t know you don’t know’. It’s like fish swimming in the water who don’t know life on land. Somatics asks us to pause and experience . . . then research how we are experiencing- to see ‘the water’. The water’s reflections can show us the systems hiding in plain sight. Honest somatic practice shows us how our (me, you, us) body, speech and mind are patterned and conditioned by dominant cultural narratives.

Our sense of self and our ‘production of knowledge’ is shaped by the values of the society in which we swim. A white racialized worldview politicizes and objectifies “the body”. The marginalization of bodies is the engine of the colonial project. We’ve been branded a role based on our social locations- regardless of our consent to the rules of the system. Central to the somatic experience is the embodiment of a binary view that includes othering based on body identity. I don’t see how somatics can exclude a decolonial praxis when the very essence of our subjective, first-person perception of ‘being a body’ has been deliberately programmed though a white racialized worldview.

Somatic methods are bottom-up processes (body-to-brain) and are effective for disrupting reflexive habit and implicit bias and providing access to novel choice. Yet, as pointed to, holding patterns formed through the cultural body are easy to miss and even easier to avoid. The colonial mindset constrains perception to a binary view, which is to say- it sets your viewfinder. If something appears that doesn’t make sense, the neuro-colonized mind will label-it-box-it to deflect and then search the catalog for a dominant narrative to defend.

Neuro-decolonization

Artist and teacher has a non-dual animist approach to neuro-decolonization. They developed a model called Story-State-Action that is the most comprehensive system I have found for decolonizing the view imposed by the colonial project. In their substack Really Healing Trauma dare starts with:

“Western imperial indoctrination aka colonization aka abuse dynamics teaches the child mind a framework of (often coerced) behavior based on valuations that are mismatched to reality and biology.

When this happens in the family and in the culture at large, by the time a child is an adult they have incorrectly named and incorrectly perceived the processes of life and death to such a degree that they then perpetuate their own problems (internalized oppressions & learned helplessness) and police each other in ways that also uphold the oppressive and disease-causing relationships . . .

When a person’s choice making and meaning making processes (how value is perceived and assigned) have been corroded at such an early stage (from birth or in utero) and in such sustained ways (via the dominant popular culture), this corrosion and the processes the corrosion obscures are largely invisible to the mind.

This “double invisibilization” is a hallmark of neuro-colonization. I position neuro-colonization to be a colonization of the senses (how we sense, our perceptual optionality) leading to an overall behavioral maladaption that affects every relationship we have and every choice we make.

The further in time this process continues without purposeful disruption, the more entrenched certain behaviors become in the nervous systems of people and their offspring.”

I recommend reading the entire post, subscribing to their work and learning how to relate with the Story-State-Action Model to update critical thinking skills, apply discernment to somatic processes and learn methods for how to maintain stability as the ‘dam’ breaks. Although a decolonial path includes meeting discomfort and confusion, a few basic skills will aid in maintaining the right pace and intensity. Dare and I both agree that the work itself needs to be a playful celebration of life.

A basic tenet of decolonial somatics is that the behaviors we prefer and despise in others should also be examined within ourselves. Uprooting holding patterns at the intrapersonal level is a ripple effect for social change. To be clear, decolonial actions need to happen at every size scale- and that includes identifying, examining and dismantling the colonized meaning making system of our bodymind. In the same substack dare explains,

If we seek to heal then we must also decolonize our perception and the way we describe our perceptions since how we describe something determines how we perceive it and how we relate with it.

In short, we must question our answers.

This is one of the main ways to decolonize our behaviors and thus our bodies and souls. How we think determines what we think, how we feel, and what we are available to feel.

Relaxing is the way

Somatic practices relate with feedback loops between sensing-feeling-thinking-moving. They give us a way to work with unconscious material and to discover habits that hinder our well-being and distort our perception of basic reality. To engage with this process, the ability to relax is required. Relaxation provides the stability and receptivity from which change occurs. (Recall how I encouraged you to body yawn at the beginning of this article? Keep that one in your tonic medicine play kit- it’s one of the easiest ways toward relaxing.)

In the movement system I teach called Somatic Groundwork, learning/unlearning (somatic patterning) begins with yielding. Yielding is an embodied pattern of resting and receiving that returns us to a natural state of being. Tracking sensation is a primary somatic technique that teaches us about ‘listening with direct experience’. In yielding, we direct our attention to sensing with ground, outer eyes, inner eyes and breath. Yielding allows us to soften our edges, indulge in the pull of gravity and move with the least amount of effort.

Yielding practices like sinking weight, rolling point of contact, rhythmic rocking and soft body rolling help us return to a felt-sense of ease and balanced tone through ground touch. Touch is a profound mechanosensory message that relays connection, support, care and safety. Movement and ground touch excites sensory nerve endings embedded in the tissue and tunes the nervous system toward a ‘parasympathetic’ or ‘dorsal rest’ state. Feeling felt is registered by the nervous system through the body environment- or tissue architecture. Touch and movement also informs our kinesthetic sense- how we experience ‘our body’ place, as well as body movement in 'our place'.

Our place- interactions between the land, our body and social systems- is not a fixed location or state. We can access the programming to shift implicit bias, reflexive behavior and binary beliefs. Through decolonial somatic practice new paths for right relating appear as the viewfinder expands.

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