Embodiment is about authenticity. Authenticity is about embodiment. Silence. Deep listening. Observation. Feeling. A true attunement of body and mind. 

My body is an antenna, taking in everything aro...

_{Content Warning: this generously sentimental post contains themes of self-help, woo, optimism, morning routines and radical self-empowerment.}

Twenty-five years ago, some unexplainable force had me wa...

In the first several months of the pandemic, while struggling to acclimatize to the uncertainties that lay ahead, I began walking. It was the most effective way to fill my day. I didn’t listen to musi...

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answe...

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

—Leonardo da Vinci

On our final day in the lab, as we wrap up all the tiny details that we still have enough patience to pick away at, tim...

There are spaces in the body that are generally never seen or touched, unless by X-ray or scans. Essentially, by opening up the head, I am taking a giant step into something unfamiliar, unusual, and p...

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

—Nelson Mandela

Having spent most of my life single, one of the things I dis...

Following my second unfixed lab, I decide on a preference for the embalmed donor. The vibrancy of a recently donated body is so interesting and constantly changing, it feels like a race against time t...

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. 

—Albert Einstein 

Fixed is a term we use to describe embalmed tissue. The quality of the structures are unchanging once the...

Less than a year into my yoga practice, I experienced an emotionally traumatic injury. I was receiving a strong adjustment in a pose I probably should not have even attempted. The ashtanga yoga system...

 Here in this body are the sacred rivers. 

Here are the sun and moon. As well as all the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body. 

—Saraha 

I’m discov...

Once we pass through the deep fascia, we put our scalpels down and use our hands to separate the bond between muscles. In a living body, the interfaces are comprised of a thin, transparent, slippery f...

“We are going to expose these forms. Fair warning: they are going to expose us. We are going to see each other. Let yourself see and be seen.” 

These are Gil’s opening words as over fifty students ga...

I created the word “somanaut” to describe those who explore the inner space of the body, and discover there the rich terrain of themselves. 

—Gil Hedley, PhD 

I once allowed seven years to pass b...

Touring the bowels of a donor can be one of the most informative journeys, where we often pause to discuss strange discoveries. “Sir’s” colon reveals an unexpected deviation from the norm. As we trace...

Each morning we reconvene to download dreams and all that we took in from the previous day. The morning circle becomes the richest arena for conversation, ideas, and confessions. We make fast friends,...

Journal Entry: 

Drishti: 

Open the aperture and light floods in. Blurring edges. Softening perspective. Disorienting in the most perfect way. Expanding the connection between heart, vision, and the ...

The smell of formaldehyde or formalin (the chemical compound used to preserve the bodies) “is quite unique. It has its own name: odor of formaldehyde. It is inexpressible in words. You just have to sm...

Dedication to the Donors 

The stories of the donors have been collected through my own personal experience with dissection, spanning as far back as 2004. While not all of my time in the lab has be...

We kept up the appearances of a normal family by going out to dinner together from time to time, but we never really conversed. We certainly weren’t sharing feelings. The rule on Sundays was that unle...

 “I’m afraid of the Dark. You, who walk so cheerfully, whistling your way, stand still for five minutes. Stand still in the Dark in a field or down a track. It’s then you know you’re there ...

Every year I am asked by clients, colleagues and friends if I am going to “cut up dead bodies again.” The phrase is meant to be playful and poke fun at my obsession with the human body, but I b...