“I sing the body electric.”

~ Walt Whitman

The Body Poetic name is inspired by both that line and poem above, an ecstatic exultation of the sacredness of our forms, and the phrase “body politic,” which has been used for millennia to describe a group of people as a biological organism.

My hope is that even seeing the name and logo can inspire people to remember the holiness of our precious bodies and our relationship to each other, our more than-human-kin, and the whole web of life. One living beautiful body, interconnected and ever-changing.

Poetry is a way of expressing the ineffable, an attempt to convey the wonder and heartbreak of existence with our imperfect shared tool of words. As written by Toni Cade Bambara,

“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”

This is a revolution of love, a striving towards solutions to systems that dehumanize, exploit, separate, and ultimately destroy us. There is a way through, and it involves entering deeply into our bodies, through our souls into the soil, through the mycelium into creative union with each other.

In all that we do, The Body Poetic strives to create environments where healing and transformation are possible. Through poetry and visual art that invoke a liberated future, and education, mentoring, hands-on healing, and ritual that help create the path onward, TBP is committed to being a catalyst for positive change and a place of refuge for those on the leading edge of personal and cultural transformation. We are guided by love-as-action, the wisdom of mycelium, the principles of emergent strategy*, the somatic and ancestral intelligence of animism, the conviction that liberation from internalized and systemic oppression is possible and our shared duty, and the understanding that we are all, by virtue of being alive, creators tasked with the responsibility of co-creating the world with our art-works.

About the founder:

While the dream is for TBP to grow into a multi-personed organism, for now I, Niema Lightseed Wilson LMT 24018 (she/her), am the gardener.

I belong to poetry and to all art. I belong to the tall trees and still-wild rivers, to the dandelion, lavender, and salmon. I belong to the wisdom of the healing body. I belong to a liberated, creative, and interconnected future. I am a Black, fat, cis-woman originally from the lands of the Neshnabé people in what is now called Chicago, Illinois. Since 2013 I have been a grateful guest in the lands of the Tsinook, Multnomah, and Kalapuya people in so-called Portland, OR.

My life and my offerings are a blend of ancient traditions and modern explorations, medicine distilled from an irrepressible inquiry into the marrow of life. I enjoyed yoga with my dad when I was a child, occasionally practicing together with old videos borrowed from the library. I have studied and practiced off-and-on ever since, with more dedication after I became a Hatha Yoga Teacher in 2004 thanks to the Temple of Kriya Yoga in Chicago. I studied with teachers in many styles of yoga, including Hatha, Forrest, Iyengar, Astanga, Yin, and Restorative, and for several years with acclaimed Shadow Yoga and Ayurveda teacher, Scott Blossom. Though the classes I teach these days are more mindful movement integration than traditional yoga, decades of studying yoga deeply informs all of my body-based teachings.

I have always adored the beauty and power of words, reading whole books some nights as a child. The draw to learn and tell stories was strong, and theatre was my first great passion. I pursued it by attending Roosevelt University (BFA Theatre Performance 2002) and dedicated a few years to acting before realizing that while I love the art, much like the commercialized yoga world the entertainment industry is not my home. I also first learned Usui Reiki in 2008 and became a Reiki teacher in 2016, and I am grateful to now both incorporate this potent energywork practice into bodywork sessions and initiate others into Reiki practitionership.

In 2017 I attended East West College of the Healing Arts, to funnel my love for the body into a new career that would use my accumulated skill while enabling me to increase my understanding and learn more techniques to facilitate healing. As a Licensed Massage Therapist I love allowing these hands to awaken and inspire positive transformation in the muscles of the people who invite me to touch them. Thus far I have studied Structural Bodywork, Deep Tissue Massage, Craniosacral Therapy, Neuromuscular Therapy (Trigger Point Release), Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (Muscle Energy Techniques), and Somatic Unwinding.  I incorporate all that I have learned about anatomy and kinesiology, holding space, the fascial network and energetic architecture of the physical and subtle bodies, energywork, and witnessing and allowing the transformation of trauma responses into my sessions.

I am also a lifelong student of liberation. I navigate the myriad subtle oppressions of racism, sizeism, and patriarchy in many ways, both internalized and in the systems in which I find myself. These experiences have given me a lot of compassion, and a significant toolbox to help others navigate the shadow realms of body image, addiction, self-sabotage/self-empowerment, communication, and healing through creativity. I am in an ever-deepening process of learning how to transform internalized white supremacist heteropatriarchal oppression, dismantle capitalism, and serve our collective evolution towards an equitable, regenerative, and truly healthy world.

I maintain a deep connection to spirit in my daily life, striving to live each moment as a grateful prayer. I practice Qigong, Reiki energy healing, meditation, improvisational singing and painting, Goddess and Nature rituals, and ecstatic and social partner dance to sustain my joy and peace, and I am learning how to play the piano. I work for social change by teaching about the power of words and interrupting white supremacy in our minds and our communities. I explore my perennial love of food by studying nutrition, preparing living foods feasts, and playing in gardens. I drink a lot of tea. I work with the teacher plant cacao as a way of helping all of us remember who we truly are. 

I have published two collections of poems: Cosmonautica: Graphic Love Songs to God, about the quest for the Beloved as a spiritual path, and Cosmonautica: Broken-Open Heart Songs, about the journey of transformation through the darkness to find wholeness. I have co-created an online poetry writing class. I have worked as a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter, crafting articles and e-books about yoga, nutrition, mindfulness, and wellness, and helped other poets and writers birth their books into the world through a writing and editing process. I have danced at Sunrise in the desert and prayed by the side of magical lakes, I have tended fire all night in prayers for peace and I have felt the tender ache of heartbreak that keeps one awake, I have chanted the names of God in the studios of the city and sung to the majestic trees in the temple of the forest.

We are blessed to live in such an amazing time. I pray that we grow into a global family, that we transmute the ravages of colonization and late-stage capitalism into a truly balanced society, that we open to a unified state of collective consciousness, and that we learn to play inside these bodies and with each other with grace and harmony.

* Principles of emergent strategy:

“Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.)

Change is constant. (Be like water.)

There is always enough time for the right work.

There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.

Never a failure, always a lesson.

Trust the People. (If you trust the people, they become trustworthy.)

Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass—build the resilience by building the relationships.

Less prep, more presence.

What you pay attention to grows.”