Our organs keep us alive and in good health—but how well do you actually know them in your own body? Can you sense them? Did you know the pancreas feels like a wet bag filled with overcooked oatmeal, or that the heart is more of a vortex than a pump?

Join Bex Naj, Elena Lake, and Dr. Myles O'Donnell for a day of organ stories and embodied exploration. Elena will introduce the art of tactile sensing and help you connect with your own innate sensing capacities. Myles will share locations, functions, and textural cues for various abdominal organs, along with stories from their clinical practice. Bex will guide you into the “mind” of each organ through gentle movement, partnered touch, dialogue, and group explorations of organ dynamics.

Possible organs we’ll explore include the lungs, heart, esophagus, stomach, blood, pancreas, liver, small intestine, large intestine, and kidneys. We’ll work with tactile and experiential cues on our own torsos, with partners, and with props—cradling water balloons to explore hydrostatic pressure, or reenacting embryological patterns through group movement.

Our organs can store mechanical tensions that radiate to other parts of the body—such as the shoulders or neck. Myles will demonstrate organ release techniques on volunteers, while Bex leads partnered touch and dialogue to help us sense our organs from the inside out. Together, we’ll discover how their origins, shapes, and relationships offer insights into our whole selves.