The Word

Embodiment, for a place

Embodiment is a word we already have. It names what a practice does to a body - an idea or a discipline made flesh through repetition. You choose it. You work at it. In time it becomes yours.

There was no word for the other direction: what a place does to a person who stays. Not something practised, but something received - quietly, without asking, by living somewhere long enough.

So the word was built on the one that already fit. Embodiment is em- + body + -ment. Change the body for the place:

em·body·ment  →  em·Bali·ment

Embaliment. The embodiment of a place rather than a practice - what Bali does to those who let it.

The difference is in who acts. Embodiment is chosen and earned. Embaliment is received. One you do; the other is done to you.

Beneath both lies an older root - balm: to preserve, to keep unchanged. From Balm →

Some places find you. Then they keep you. Not embodied - embalied.


emBaliment /ɛm·ˈba·li·ment/ · n.
formed on the model of embodiment: what a place does to a person, over time

← Niskala emBaliment