UC San Diego

In a search of re-thinking hierarchies I have continuously stumbled with the body mind divide as a core. This system prioritizes the mind as the only true and valid relationship with the world and the body as vain and animal, this system is patriarchal by nature and looks to discredit and silence the non dominant narrative of women, people of color, queer and marginalzied bodies.

As a grad student in UCSD I’ve focused my research on ways to challenge this divide. This has obligated me to be critical about my relationship with body and mind and ask myself: how do I relate with this binary? Am I a body without organs, organs without a body? Is my body just a vassal for what would be my soul? Is my body just what others need it to be? I’ve decided to challenge this, I'm a body that's fully embodied! This thesis is a transcendental, faith fueled conversation with three women: my caregiver Guadalupe, my grandmother Bela and the spanish 16th century nun Santa Teresa de Avila. As I learn from these women and converse with them I find my body linked with theirs. Dismembered, lost, used. More a symbol than a home. I wish to commune with Teresa, with Guadalupe and with Bela, let them be fully embodied in my body, letting us be body, letting us be care, letting us take space. Together we reappropriate the parts of them that were dismembered, we stitch them together though time and contemplation.