08/24/2026
Honored Body—Somatic Self-Ownership
Tom Woodman was the director of Road’s End Farm, where I spent every summer from ages 10 to 16. After lunch, on any long hot July day, we’d be crammed on the wooden benches of the dining room reeking of horse, earth, leather, and the odd cucumber melon or cherry blossom deoderant, spooning the last of whatever pudding was for dessert into our slack jaws. Tom would come in like a thick old pine, sweating through an ancient work shirt himself, smiling warmly and offering a kind word about all the hard work we were putting in. But often, his tone turned solemn as he was compelled to address a routine bullying that was happening in the dorms. He’d begin in broad terms, but an hour later, he was laying in to us that people just aren’t treating each other right anymore, and we gotta learn how to get along or we’ll burn the whole thing down. When he really got going, he’d curse the trend of entitlement with our favorite Tom-ism: You gotta wake up and die right!
Self-ownership is in the choice of integrity.
Practice, Forgive, Learn, Try again
I no longer give my authority or autonomy to anything outside of myself.
Regardless of outcome or consequence, I accept my decisions and feel empowered to continue moving forward. Even when I fail. Even when something else fails me. Our reality has very real consequences, and still, the choice of what seems small or mundane can shape how we receive it, our experience of it, and ultimately what we do with it.
Self-ownership isn’t something you get, it’s something you do. Like choosing. Like waking up.
