Body literacy vs embodiment

Also I have a podiatrist now, and I feel 116 about it.

Historically, I hate January.

It’s hot, I always feel a strange pressure, and somehow, just because a day clicks over, “last year” horrifyingly becomes two years ago. What the. Every time, since I was kid. Hate it. I even wrote a song about my displeasure with January once.

This January, my husband had an ankle reconstruction. So naturally, I devoted myself to the role of supportive partner, making chicken stock and collagen smoothies (two separate offerings, not mixed) and braced for the circling pull to reinvent my life and sign up to a tertiary institution that would grant me validation and security once and for all.

I felt the twinges. But like a sneeze that won’t quite come, even when you’re squinting at the sun, it never came.

Possibly I did find a passing purpose in cosplaying at being a trad wife but I think the real difference was that I had a rolling gig. Work that felt alive with a repeat client that I didn’t need to summon by extracting a rib.

Last year, Penrhos College invited me to perform My Greatest Period Ever and then said yes when I suggested something more: a six-week embodied menstrual education program for all Year 5 and 6 students.

I called it Meet Your Power.

I cried when they said yes! I’ve wanted to do exactly this work since I read Optimised Woman in 2008.

And then we did it! I am forever grateful to Grace Curtis, the Wellbeing Coordinator who didn’t need convincing of the value in offering a menstrual education program based on embodiment, it was something different.

We made female anatomy models out of still-beautiful flowers rescued from a florist. We sang, we danced, we burned grievances on Post-it notes in my cast iron cooking pot.

Of the floral anatomy models one girl said: “I never thought about that part of my body as beautiful, now I can see it’s as beautiful as a flower is.”

Penrhos have asked me back in 2026. We’re even presenting the work together at a girls’ schools conference in Melbourne. I am THRILLED.

I’m often asked to do unusual things and I love saying yes but the difference with this program was that I designed it exactly as I felt young girls would most enjoy and benefit from sharing in it, and the inspiration all came from Unfurl.

A few months before Penrhos, I was in Bali with a group of mothers and daughters, nine to thirteen year olds. Watching them roam gardens catching butterflies in umbrellas and leaving trails of flower mandalas that took my breath away every time I drifted past in a kaftan, pinching myself at how sweet and beautiful life could make itself.

Six days. With a whole day devoted to a different phase of the cycle. We got granular, different music, rituals, food, outfits. Songs, dancing, breathwork with Noriza. Not just learning, but living it.

To watch a group of girls come into their own, their own, criticising Elon Musk’s comments on autism, comparing notes on how to pee standing up and having deep connected moments with not just their mothers but everyone elses mothers was so very rich.

I’ve come to realise that there is something very different about body literacy vs embodiment.

Body literacy is knowing. What things are called. What they do. What is normal and when to get help etc. Some of us get this if we’re lucky.

Embodiment is integration. How we live with that knowledge. How we make decisions from it and set boundaries. How we choose to speak to ourselves. How we shift culture and most importantly how we show girls the way to keep changing it themselves!

That’s the world I want to build and explore.

And this year, for the first time in a long time, and maybe ever, I can feel something steady in my chest. A kind of grounded flow, like the water knows where it’s going.

This way. Over here. Just like last time! So I’m gathering again. Treasures. Ideas. Songs. Rituals.

For Penrhos. (And maybe another school if you’re interested!)
And, for the next group of girls and their mothers at Unfurl. We’re heading back to Bali this July for our third Unfurl retreat and there are still places available.

I would love to see this iteration continue, but also who knows what next year will bring and whether I disappear into perimenopause in a van in pursuit of lavender farms.

All of this to say:

If you’ve been circling it, waiting for a sign, this is it. Check out the site, get in touch with any questions and prepare for a sweet life changing week that you and your daughter will never forget! There are scholarships, payment plans, 6 places left and only one life on this planet that we know of, come with us!

In other news, Richard is out of his moonboot and has finally sent the knee scooter back which I accidentally kicked in the middle of the night while en route to the bathroom and busted my foot necessitating a visit to the podiatrist. She told me I’m hypermobile and said, “Have your toes always looked like that?”

Here’s to being alive, embodied, slowing down due to ankle and foot complaints that reveal themselves to be learning opportunities and, margaritas. Maybe we’ll have one in Bali together!

Lots of love,

Lucy