Sensing Forward

I could smell the Carolina lilies before I could see them. Just the day before, hiking along the Bartram trail upslope from Martin creek, I had been taken by surprise and wonder to find a single lone beauty standing left of the path, where never before I had seen one. I bent to meet her and soaked her fragrance into my whole body. I could feel the core of my being drinking in that sweet melody. I felt the honey slide down from nose to tail, infusing secret places I had forgotten were there. Now, along the winding switchbacks between Otto, NC and Standing Indian campground, the rocky dirt road is bejeweled with the look alike Turk’s Cap lilies and the bright almost quinacra violet-red seed structures of umbrella plants in moist places under black boulders. I pause many times along the way to get closer looks and whiffs of a variety of wildflowers. 

 

The deeply fragrant Carolina or Michaud's Lily (Lilium michauxii) (looks very similar to the Turk's Cap) 

and the Umbrella Leaf(Diphylleia Cymosa) with seed berries

Uncharted Territory

I had started writing something a week or two ago, and so I am beginning with it, even though it starts on a different branch...

For several years now, in my practice, I have been honored by women bringing their mothers and/or their daughters to me. I would have a long time client whose daughter visits every so often and she would become a repeat client. Or a woman would bring her mother in to treat her in such a sweet gesture. And come to think of it, several families have come in three generations, and I love working with the young people - teenagers are so much fun, and seem to be at once surprised and amused by having their limbs moved about by another and coming to a new awareness in their own bodies.

I have always felt the added sacredness of someone entrusting the care of a loved one to me, first and foremost. And there is the gift of witness to what transfers from one generation to the next. I am always amazed at what gets passed down - physically, emotionally, spiritually, energetically. Even when the third generation is adopted (and from a starkly different ethnicity), I see the same physical manifestations in the body. We are made from the inside out and then the outside in. What we think, what we do, how we do what we do and how we feel about all of these show up in the body. It is inevitable.

Often it is not until we age past midlife that we truly realize how much we embody our ancestors. We see resemblances early on, and appreciate them, then sometimes we attach ourselves to the story of an elder - on occasional an unfavorable story about health issues - and then finally we gain a deeper felt sense and understanding later in life when we begin to manifest similar or identical conditions to our parents or grandparents. To me, this emphasizes the value of coming into a unique body-felt-sense awareness in our own bodies.

We have the opportunity to acknowledge and let go of our storied associations with our ancestry as they pertain to our physical and even emotional or psycho-spiritual lives. A beautiful way of doing this is to come present in the physical ground of our own being - our own bodies. To let this be the ground from which our unique expression emerges with greater clarity. In each moment, I have the opportunity to feel where I am, what I am, who I am. It’s so easy to get into the stream of busy-ness, work, family, chores, etc., and yet we can get carried away in that stream before we know it and become defined solely by our activities. This is where some kind of practice comes in handy.

Such a practice can be to address any aspect of our being - from inner, physical self to emotional, psycho-spiritual. To me, a practice can be utterly simple. It is something we do with regularity (let’s just say several days a week or on a schedule of one’s choosing). When I say utterly simple, I mean it. If there is one thing I have learned about personal growth and transformation, it’s the power of keeping a promise to one’s self. It matters not how challenging the action is, and it matters fully that we follow through on doing it.

SO, it can be as simple as walking around my house three times on waking. I firmly believe and know that the power of keeping promises to one’s self is tenfold the to honoring of commitments to others (which seems so much easier to most of us, but only becomes as powerful when paired with accountability to self). Each morning when I rise, I cook breakfast for myself - real breakfast. Yes, I rise hungry in general, but it is also a ritual I do for myself that involves all of my senses, and a certain amount of care to nourish myself.

I take the opportunity to move my body as I prepare breakfast. I’ve always been shy to dance, but for whatever reason, in the mornings, my body takes the opportunity to move about the kitchen in something that looks like a dance. We cannot underestimate the value of movement to our general health. If nothing else, our internal organs deeply depend on such movement. Vibration, swinging, bouncing, turning - all these mobilize our viscera in ways they need to function properly. Especially as we age, things tend to stick together if we don’t move enough, and it is vitally important that our organs can slide and glide as we move. So I bring my conscious awareness and attention into this movement and really feel the places where I can stretch a little farther in a bend at the gut and think about opening space for things inside to move. Conscious awareness and attention - these are what transforms a normal activity into a practice. As such, if I decide to notice my breath at certain intervals throughout a day, this would also become a practice. Simple. Easy. Effective. And quite transformative.

One of my favorite practices is dream work, in which I am tracking and learning to understand the language of my soul. This language is coded into my world since before I arrived, and there are clues in every direction in which I look. Yet I must pay attention, follow along and experiment with the elements and signs and symbols to learn this language and how to navigate by it. Over the years of writing dreams and working with them - in small groups, one on one and by myself - I have come to learn more and more how all life becomes more navigable. Waking life and dreaming life have a way of merging or becoming less differentiated - more integrated and complementary, actually.

Here we are in a time when we are all being asked in some way to isolate ourselves. We are doing this to protect ourselves and each other, at the chance of mitigating the influx of a global pandemic. So many challenging emotions and reactions are coming to the surface and will continue to increase in frequency and intensity. It’s scary for each and every one of us, except maybe for those who feel ready to leave the planet. I’m not saying that in a flip way. I know of one person who publicly wrote about how his poverty has made him feel ready to be taken by the bug, although he is not suicidal. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had a moment of fear of having already been infected at this moment. We are coming into allergy season and still in flu season and how do we know at the onset of any of these what is really happening. And really, it hasn’t even begun yet where we are locally.



I want to talk about some ways to calm this fear and desperation. I know many people are busy with work and family and so many obligations and not accustomed to down time or being stuck at home. These people don’t even stay home when they do fall ill, but choose to power through because they don’t feel they have another option. But right now we are being asked to pull in, retreat and isolate, not because this will stop the whole thing from happening, but because it is what will make the best outcome for the highest number of people, minimizing the death toll and ensuring that affected populations will be more likely to have access to appropriate care. And we should heed this precaution.

I was writing a couple of weeks ago about what makes a practice. And I was saying how making it very simple and approachable is a good way to begin. I cited a silly example of walking around one’s house three times upon waking and before attending to anything else. I was making the point that it is arbitrary what the practice is and essential that we follow through with it reliably. In the days following, I decided to begin walking that talk. I know the effectiveness of this in theory and in other practices, but on a lark, I just decided to take up this practice. And then today, as I was chatting with a friend on the phone over breakfast, and she was hearing the birds in my yard, it hit me. I had just started a practice that is perfect for this time we are in, when many of us may be by choice or command stuck at home or very close to home for longer periods than normal.

Don’t laugh. Or yes, by all means, LAUGH! You, too, can take up this practice. Look, we can feel stuck at home or we can begin to explore the world we’ve been passing right by. I live down in a hollow and so walking around my house three times gives me the opportunity to go up and down a hill and some stairs in a variety of combinations. I can hear the birds and the creek, I can see all the stuff that needs doing around the yard and remember projects I left unfinished. I can be caught by the beauty of the sunrise light that will soon be obscured by fresh new leaves but is now as bright as it gets in this north facing hollow. I can also feel my body getting a little extra movement, breath, and grounding. And as I circle my home I give thanks for such a wonderful place that supports me.

There are other ways we can explore being right where we are. How we connect to the land, the house itself, the others who inhabit them - people or animals, what elements surrounds us and affect us. We can also learn to inhabit ourselves in new ways. Are you dreaming? What are your thoughts and emotions like in this moment? How is your body feeling? Are you breathing fully or holding your breath in suspense or fear? Are you eating well, nourishing yourself to stay strong? Not eating enough or overeating for comfort? Are there any habits you want to change or begin during this time? I’m sure we’re all a little more keen to wash our hands more frequently now (although as a body worker it’s about normal for me). I don’t know about you, but I need to moisturize more than normal this time of year with all the extra handwashing, and this can be a ritual itself. I also plan to take time to write some letters, especially as the people I love are more than ever in my heart and mind. I'm thinking a letter a day might be a nice cadence and that means each day I can spend time thinking about one person in particular and how they are important in my life.

Keep returning to what is close and what is simple. A cup of tea. Bare feet on the moist earth. Fresh air in my lungs. Sunshine on my skin. My heart connecting to a nearby tree. Recognizing the resources I already have all around me, and how I know them and how to utilize them. The books I’ve been meaning to start reading but haven’t had time for. Longer phone conversations with far away friends. My dreams and how they inform me about what’s been churning under the radar and also caution me about what is coming. How my dreams and my days are always interweaving. The creatures in nature around me and how they meet each moment ready and respond to the environment only in real time. What it means to fully digest what is happening before I have to respond in any way. Which leads me to internal guidance systems.

We all have an internal guidance system. Many of us disregard it unless all bells and whistles blare at once under extreme crisis. It can sometimes be referred to as the “still, small voice within” or the “little voice” or “a gut feeling.” And we can learn to be fluent with it. We can learn to hear it more clearly. All we have to do is begin engaging it. There are some simple ways to learn to hear it and you can begin today with some simple practices and it will become more clearly a tool for navigating daily life I use it for things as simple as which item to buy at the grocery store, which route to take on a journey, whether or not to attend something I’m not sure about, etc. If you can find your way to a yes or no question, you can use this simple guidance system to discern your inner yes or no. I can talk you through this process.

I will be trusting my internal guidance system while I take all the precautions I know how to take to protect myself and those I come into contact with throughout this challenging time. I am here to help you in any way that I can, whether lending an ear, providing dream consultations, helping you to create some daily practices for yourself, providing some cranial work or body work that is safe and effective to help bring you home in your body. There is plenty of work that I can do with the client fully clothed, and I’m considering meeting with clients in an outdoor location so that we can minimize vectors of transmission of any pathogens. Please feel free to comment with notes about what you are doing during this time to keep healthy and strong in body mind and spirit. Wishing you all continuing robust health and peace wherever you can find it.

Giving thanks...

It feels like forever and a day since I have posted anything here. This morning, as I was looking for a document on my Mac (and not finding it), I stumbled across some words I wrote back in 2014 around Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if I ever did anything with them, but they felt poignant to me, especially as I come up on a big birthday in a couple of weeks. They are words it will be good to revisit often and add to from time to time. These words, like a letter I wrote to myself five years ago:

I think about nature, always, and the beauty and grace and infinite wisdom I find in her. I think of the miracle that is my body, which - even oft abused - ever heals and supports my consciousness along the way. I think of the suffering in my life that has honed my eye for beauty in such a way that only a heart broken wide open so many times can let in the love and light in such spectacular ways.

Too, I think of the disenfranchised among us - those who are adrift in a world too busy to notice, and those who have shut themselves off from others in their desperate self-punishment for not measuring up to expectations they have assumed.

I think of those who cannot recognize the beauty and blessings in their lives - whose eyes are so shrouded by need, fear and grief, say nothing of those trapped in war zones.

I think of parents grieving their children and lonely old ladies. Of children so spoiled with riches they know nothing of value.

Each year into my life, I feel less and less want for things, for possessions, for stuff. Each year into my life, I feel more grateful for beauty, for grace, for fresh air and clean water (harder and harder to find, as the world is polluted more and more with pesticides and pollution).

Each year into my life I find more depth and meaning in the fewer friendships that really stick around for the duration.

Each day into my life I am grateful to the bottom of my being for the earth kissing my feet, the sky inviting me to stand tall, the waters offering to cleanse my spirit, the sun warming my heart. I am ever grateful for the beauty that graces all of it so long as my vision is clear. I am grateful for the grace of time, containing all possibilities at once, leaving nothing out. I am thankful for the moon and stars, who tell us about our ancestors and guide us home, for trees who have always listened to me and offered steady embrace. I am thankful for the winged ones who effortlessly shift my perspective to the clouds and back down, the furry critters who call me home even though they see all of me. I am grateful for the deep, authentic connections I call gravity between myself and all that is.

This last Thanksgiving, 2019, I was blessed to spend a full day on my favorite wild and scenic river, in slow time of nature. Arriving at the river, Grandmother Beech gifted us with a shower of gold.



In thinking on love this morning, I realize that the only authentic love is the one that is all pervasive. I cannot truly love without realizing that I, too, contain these disparate factions within me and until I can embrace them fully, my love is incomplete.

What is LOVE? It is not a relationship, though in our culture we tend to equate the two. It is not need or obligation. It is not a showering of affection or a calling one home. It is a feeling no, the reality of sharing ONE consciousness. When I am awake to this ONE consciousness and all that is, there can be nothing but love. And then it is what we call unconditional love. But then what we forget is that there can not be unconditional love that is exclusive for only one being. If we can indeed experience authentic, conscious love, then we are in effect IN UNCONDITIONAL LOVE WITH THE ONE CONSCIOUSNESS WE COMPRISE. It is a FIELD we all exist in and love is the sensation of the field, when felt with our body/mind. It is resonance with the ONENESS. Then there was a whole world of learning about love from my feathered friend this last summer. I have still not been able to sit down and write about that gift. I hope I will be able to get some things down while I can still access them.