Ignite 2024: Marina Gross-Hoy

Let me tell you a story. I'm in a history museum in Paris, the sun is starting to set, and I'm being guided around by a disembodied voice. This voice knows exactly where I am in this space. And he's whispering stories in my ear about what it felt like when he lived in these rooms.

At this point, I am not wearing a headset with 3D sound. I am in another reality. If I turn my head towards a fireplace, I hear crackling flames. Even the flickering of the electric candlelight is real. The voice is showing me how to see the traces of history that are still here in this place. Of lavish meals, of balls, of hot baths, and of revolutionary beheadings that took place in the square right outside those windows.

Now it's, it's a strange night to be here, because right now, outside those windows, Real crowds are gathering. I can hear the low bass notes of their chanting permeating the room. I go to look outside through a spy hole that was carved out in World War II. I see police with machine guns. Time is getting slippery.

A guard is now starting to close the wooden shutters over the glass of the windows. That's not good. I go to look out in the square. There's a bonfire. I need to get away. My body is screaming at me to get out of here, but I'm, I'm lost in time. I'm too immersed.

I know this feeling. Sometimes when my body feels this way, there's another voice that speaks to me. Stay right here. Where do you feel this in your body? How old do you feel right now? Can you feel me here with you?

My therapist, shows me how to see the traces of history that are still here in my body. She's teaching me how to stay grounded so I can listen to the stories of some very old fires. Emotions are honest. They are embodied in our bodies. Our body's mother tongue, says Dr. Hilary McBride. They give us vital information about our environments, our relationships, our desires.

And they want to lead us where we need to go. Dr. Diana Fosha has called feelings the experiential arc between a problem and a solution. So it is by riding the full wave of an emotion sensation that we can access our body's wisdom. This is not something that most of us are taught how to do. It can get uncomfortable, scary even.

And that is why it is so important to have safe containers where we can go to learn little by little How to feel our feelings. A museum visit is already a container for experience. People go there in their bodies, and they're surrounded by other bodies, by heritage, and by us, the storytellers. Can you imagine if museums were places where people felt safe to go and get to know their emotional bodies?

To visit an exhibition with their grief. Hold hands with their fear, to explore the textures of their rage. And by meeting these different parts with care and curiosity, learn to inhabit new ways of being in the world. This work is urgent. We are not lost in time. It is now, and our world is burning. And we, the storytellers, have a responsibility to help our communities learn how to find their grounding in the face of these fires, And welcome their stories, because it is by riding these waves together, not alone, with curiosity and compassion, that a human body, and the larger body of humans, can feel our way towards healing, and build our capacity to participate.