Episode Overview

Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Host: Maggie Smith
Episode Title: 1372: My Body Knows Its Limits by Page Hill Starzinger
Date: October 13, 2025

In this episode, host Maggie Smith reflects on the wisdom and limitations of the human body and mind, exploring the ways in which sensory experience, embodiment, and aging inform our experience of poetry and life. The centerpiece is the poem "My Body Knows Its Limits" by Page Hill Starzinger, which invites listeners to contemplate the boundaries of physical existence, consciousness, and mortality. Maggie thoughtfully discusses the importance of embodiment, contrasting it with the disembodied intelligence of technology and AI, and encourages gratitude for our temporary human aliveness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Embodiment and Its Meaning

• Connection to Physical Experience

  • Maggie opens with personal reflection: "I think a lot about the human body and what it makes possible, the experiences I'm able to have because of my physical form." (01:36)
  • She distinguishes between identifying with the mind versus the body, admitting: "I've always felt like the real me isn't my body, but my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, my perceptions, my memories." (01:56)

• Sensory Joy and Presence

  • The episode explores specific sensory joys made possible by embodiment: "I feel joyful walking on a warm day because I can feel the sunlight on my skin and see the trees and the sky and hear the birds and the cicadas." (02:16)
  • Maggie asserts that these experiences are enabled by both our body and brain, emphasizing the interdependence of senses and thoughts.

Body Intelligence vs. Brain Intelligence

• Intuitive Knowing
  • "The body has its own intelligence. Some things we know because we intuit them, as we say we feel them in our gut." (02:38)
  • She expands on how the body responds quickly—feeling danger or trust at a physical level before the brain can rationalize it: "Our bodies sometimes know things first, and it is our brains that need to catch up." (03:05)

The Limits of Disembodied Intelligence (Technology & AI)

• Contrasting AI and Human Wisdom
  • Maggie voices a concern about AI: "One of the things I'm most wary about when it comes to technology, and to AI specifically, is this lack of embodiment. What is a brain without a body, without sensory experience, without pleasure and pain...?" (03:13)
  • She points out that full wisdom comes from the interplay of mind and body: "The kind of wisdom we can access as full human beings with brains and bodies is the kind of wisdom I'm interested in. Anything less is just partial. It feels flimsy." (03:32)

Gratitude for Our Mortal Bodies

• Ephemerality and Aging
  • Maggie transitions to the poem by highlighting the importance of being "grateful for my body and my mind, because both are temporary. Aging teaches us this again and again." (03:44)

The Poem: "My Body Knows Its Limits" by Page Hill Starzinger (03:52)

Maggie reads the poem in full, which blends images of technology, nature, the limits of the body, and scientific facts about death and cell activity:

• The poem toggles between digital and natural landscapes—"My vista is not a line of pine trees aging in front of me. It is the infinity of the Internet."
• It presents vivid sound images—"A blue jays cry shatters the landscape like an opera singer. Then silence, or what has come to mean silence."
• The poem ponders the persistence of consciousness and corporeal decay, referencing scientific studies on brain activity after death and microbial presence.
• It closes with wry self-awareness: "I say to myself, I know what to do. As if there’s anything to do. I mean, who leaves the house without taking their body?"

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Maggie Smith on Sensory Experience:
  "I feel joyful walking on a warm day because I can feel the sunlight on my skin and see the trees and the sky and hear the birds and the cicadas." (02:16)

• On the Wisdom of the Body:
  "Our bodies sometimes know things first, and it is our brains that need to catch up." (03:05)

• On Embodied Wisdom vs. Technology:
  "What is a brain without a body, without sensory experience, without pleasure and pain, both psychic and physical, without sense memory or grief or romance or deep longing?" (03:13)
  "The kind of wisdom we can access as full human beings with brains and bodies is the kind of wisdom I'm interested in. Anything less is just partial. It feels flimsy." (03:32)

• From Page Hill Starzinger's Poem:
  "My vista is not a line of pine trees aging in front of me. It is the infinity of the Internet." (03:54)
  "I mean, who leaves the house without taking their body?" (04:55)

Important Timestamps

• Opening Reflection on Body vs. Mind: 01:36–03:13
• Concerns About AI and Disembodiment: 03:13–03:44
• Transition and Introduction to the Poem: 03:44–03:52
• Reading of "My Body Knows Its Limits": 03:52–04:55

Tone & Closing Thoughts

Maggie Smith’s tone is thoughtful, intimate, gently humorous, and filled with wonder and gratitude. She invites listeners to consider the fullness— and limits— of being human, underscored by the sensory and emotional wisdom our bodies provide. The poem and Maggie’s commentary together offer a meditation on mortality, embodiment, and the power of poetry to ground us in the present.