Somacultural Liberation

Book excerpt: Two-Spirit Indigiqueer psychotherapist and cultural theorist Dr. Roger Kuhn illuminates the ways our bodies offer portals to our own liberation. Experience somacultural liberation: A revolutionary ideology to explore how our bodies offer portals to personal and collective freedom. What role does dominant culture play in how we experience the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and deeper existential mysteries of our bodies? Dr. Roger Kuhn, a Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigequeer activist, artist, sex therapist, and somacultural theorist, believes that Two-Spirit people hold a unique perspective—and that viewing our bodies through a somacultural lens can help us better understand how dominant culture informs and, all too often, misinforms our relationship to it. Somacultural liberation is an embodied practice that helps people connect with the intersections of their identity. Kuhn’s revolutionary mode of inquiry illuminates the full impact of our cultural reality in shaping both our individual and shared sense of self. The history and experiences of Native American peoples and those who identify as Two-Spirit offer the reader a path to access the full brilliance of their body. Including growth work activities, cultural assessment exercises, mindfulness practices, and nervous system regulation techniques, Somacultural Liberation provides readers with the tools and skills needed to transcend any challenges they may face in their lives. Straddling colonial imposition and tribal significance, Two-Spirit identity offers a powerful decolonizing framework to achieve freedom and navigate the toxic systems of domination that impose upon the precious truth of who we are.