Exploring deeper connections.
When the body hurts, it’s easy to vilify. To other it and label it broken, diseased or possessed. But the sickness isn’t wicked… it’s wise. Speaking a language that draws attention to our shadows… awareness to the long forgotten places of our being. And with this comes a remembrance and re-membering. Of who we always were, of who we are, and who we may become out of the wholeness of our soul.
With each new year, time seems to keep moving faster and faster. As if timelines are compressing, our cycles around the sun tightening. But what if our perception was just widening? As more of life spirals its way through us, our minds and bodies unwinding, developing the capacity to access more of the totality of our being. The past becoming increasingly malleable, the future more fluid. And in this state, contrary to popular belief, the possibilities actually expanding exponentially, the gates to our eternal soul and timeless potential rapidly opening?
What if all those times that felt like being pulled apart, was really a process of being pulled into place?
The forces of life tugging in many directions at once, ironing out the kinks and tightening the strings. The gravity of the situation can hurt and be heavy, as if there’s no place to go.
But as tension builds, we’re forced to find our footing. And through it all, as we regain our balance, what comes forth is who we really are. Our structure, our inner strength, our brilliance. Our star.
What if memories aren’t just stored in the brain, but in every fiber of our being?
The experiences of our lives imprinted in the warps and wobbles of our tissues… every emotion stored or released, reflected in the ways our body-mind moves.
From the stories that flash before our eyes, to the spiraling threads of fascia woven beneath our skin, contracting and expanding, winding up and unraveling, a matrix of moments encoded over time into the invisible and physical makeup of our existence.
In a small town, the universe feels so big. In a big city, the universe feels so small. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why some desire so strongly to live in the city. To be in the know… to have everything right at the touch of their fingertips. To feel like, this is IT!
I love that feeling. And I love big cities. But I also love the sense of wonder that comes with looking up at a sky full of stars with just a couple of street lamps in the way of the vast, speckled darkness. The feeling of being tucked away in a little nook of the world, far removed from the activity.
Silence and stillness permeate the air. Isolation nags at the back of the being as the realization that not only is the town far out, but this planet is relatively speaking, just a speck of dust in the ether.
Confining on one hand. Liberating on another.
"I wandered in the pursuit of my own self; I was the traveller, and I am the destination." - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The journey is encoded in the fabric of our being. The going away, and returning again. The unravelling and the ravelling back up. The seeking and the finding. We’re explorers and homesteaders, vagabonds and citizens, rebels and peacekeepers. The split is baked into our code, and to accept that reality is to embrace the polarity that holds this life together, that brings it vitality, and that unifies humanity.
The body keeps the score, so they say. Traumas from years past are stored in our tissues, and manifest in pain and tightness, stagnation and deformities.
But at the same time, it’s our perception of the traumas that dictates whether they stay in the body or leave. Whether the tissues stay wound up, or unravel and dissipate.
Therapy and somatic work help unwind the stories within us. But is it more accurate then to say, that the body is more of a scoreboard, and the human being, the individual, the soul within the body, the true scorekeeper?
Beauty, flow, radiance, wellbeing… they all lay in the eye of the beholder. And as we deepen our ability to see into the depths of who we really are, beyond all the layers we’ve tacked on and knotted up over the years, the surface level stories begin to dissolve and the stories of the soul rise up to the occasion to take their place.
We tend to think about emotions and label them with a word. But how accurate can this really be? Is it possible that by doing this, we are losing touch with the nuances of the energy as it flows through us? Limiting our perception of what the emotion is really trying to tell us?
What if the feeling of sadness was impregnated with meaning and satisfaction? Or our excitement peppered with a bit of anxiety and fear? Emotions are dynamic, fluid, shape shifting. And when we tune into the sensations of our bodies, and notice how the emotions feel in our tissues and take shape in our system - the tightness or lightness, the heat, heaviness or shakiness - we can ride the raw wave of emotion deeper and deeper into its core.
Following its current beyond the language mind and into the language of meaning and soul, where the larger stories reveal themselves, and a greater sense of self, that deeper understanding of what’s really going on within our psyche and soma begins to show itself.
It’s incredible how the mind influences the body. How a positive thought can literally elongate the spine, and a negative one shlumps us over in our seats.
At the same time, this works back up the chain as well… opening up the chest brings reaffirming thoughts of confidence, while shlumping over will probably bring thoughts of doubt and inadequacy.
The mind affects the body and the body affects the mind because they are one in the same. Two strands of consciousness, intertwined with a third element of emotion. Pull on one, and the other two move. Learn to strum them all, and the whole trifecta begins to groove.
Our hearts have a rhythm… a beat. And while there is a healthy baseline for the human tempo, we all carry slight variations.
Our thoughts and feelings play the heart like an instrument, setting the tempo and the frequency it emits. On one hand we know that the heart keeps us going. But on the other it’s easily forgotten that the beat of our heart also shapes the path our journey takes.
The energy we emit, the quality of our relationships, the love we’re able to give, and the masterpieces we’re able to create all stem from that central place within and the sounds that come from it.
Our lives are songs waiting to be written, and as artists we are called to wield our instruments with passion and purpose, so that we may play a tune that upholds the great uni-verse, the eternal song, that we are all part of.
The worms are waiting… to decompose what’s old into soil for what’s new.
Burrowing holes under the soles of our feet, improving the structure of the ground beneath. Making fresh channels for water and oxygen to flow, creating an optimum environment for fresh life to take root.
If the worms are so valuable in the body of the earth, why do we fear them so much wiggling around in those of our own? Whether physical or metaphorical, we go on cleanses to purge them out of our minds and bodies. But have we ever stopped to wonder what they’re doing there in the first place? What they may be breaking down? What energy they may be releasing? What space they may be clearing within?
Now, the process of decomposition isn’t always pretty, and an infested inner landscape can go foul. But a world without worms would be stiff and stale. Rather than fear the underworld creatures as threats to our sanity, perhaps a healthy number of squiggles is just what we need on our journey to greater harmony.
“The history gets rewritten by allowing for the mystery to come forward into the present, and us dancing.” - Joanne Avison
In many ways we’re defined by the past. The beliefs we’ve held and actions we’ve taken over time have shaped our minds and bodies. Mental patterns and physical movements repeating over time, wiring our brains and weaving our tissues into what we are today.
While there is beauty in this, there’s also burden. Holding onto the ways were were can easily block the channels to the ways we can be.
It’s only when we make space for the mystery, of what may be possible but can’t quite yet be seen, that we can untether from the definitions of the past or narrowed visions of the future, and open up to the fullest spectrum of our innermost being.
Time seems to fly by, but where is it going?
On one hand it feels like we leave the moments in our wake, as if the years, days and minutes of our lives are back there, lined up behind us.
Yet time and time again, similar situations re-present themselves. Fashions come back in style, the seasons return, the sun rises again, and we wake another day to face new challenges in different forms. In this sense, it’s as if time is moving in one big circle.
So is time linear or circular? Perhaps it is both, like a big 3D spiral or vortex. On one hand we seem to be moving forward towards our final destination, yet on another, it’s as if we’re swirling around that point over and over again, becoming more and more intimate with it as the spiral tightens…
…time spinning faster and faster, until finally, time itself collapses in on itself, and we are left with no other choice, but to slip into the resulting hole and rest in the timelessness of our souls.
We’re all connected. We’re all one. Yet there’s still the harsh reality that there are still things, people and circumstances that we don’t like.
They make us feel uncomfortable, sick, or just don’t fit our taste. Yet when we deny them or judge them, we are inherently denying some deep, albeit seemingly distant part of ourselves.
Learning to love the things we don’t like is a practice in tuning into the deeper frequencies of life, of remembering how interwoven we are, and choosing to love the beauty of that, despite how the surface level things play out.
Both can exist at once, to not like yet to love, and holding those two possibilities at once, I believe is an act of respect for the multidimensionality of ourselves, and this life.
The purpose of art is not to perfect it, but to allow it to perfect us. I heard this somewhere, possibly from Tai Chi teacher Adam Mizner.
It’s interesting then to wonder… if one is working to become a master at an art.. what does this mean? Perhaps it is less about learning how to perfect the art, and more about how to become perfected by it.
Learning to open, more and more, to the lessons that the work of art reveals. And in this way, in allowing one’s self to be refined and polished by the work at hand, the work at hand in turn becomes increasingly refined.
To become too fixated on the outcome, on the perfected masterpiece, is to become attached. It is to close off to the possibilities that may exist outside the scope of one’s narrow vision of what is perfect or possible.
It is to shut out the mystery. In a sense, it is to worship the image that one is working towards, rather than the wisdom that results from the work.
Something to keep in mind when envisioning the future, setting goals, and working towards them. The vision of an ideal, or perfection, is necessary, but only valuable to the extent that one is willing to let go of it, and open up to the perspective that perfection is already here, and now.
The social fabric is more than metaphor. It is an interconnected web of energies - that have a direct impact on the people and communities amongst which we live.
The ideas and emotions we hold in our minds and bodies reverberate out through our presence, our posture, our language and our behaviors. They intermingle with and impact the state of others, inspiring our depressing, serving or extracting.
Meanwhile the state of others in return impacts those things that course through us. The community is a communication of subtle vibrations, which affect the wiring on every level of our being. And as part of this network, this fabric of beings, and the reciprocity of that flow of energies, we begin to see that what we put in directly impacts what comes out.
We’re more than just a passive node in the net, we are a living, breathing ode to what it means to be intrinsically connected, and perpetually contributing to something greater than ourselves.
In a world that’s trying to tell us who to be, or how to be who we want to be, how do we know what to do?
So many techniques and tools, tips and tricks. Do I establish a ritual or routine, change my diet, do this work out, take this pill, or chant these things? Should I live here or there, take this course, or read this book?
There’s an infinite number of ways to live our lives. An infinite number of possibilities for what to do each and every moment, all converging at the intersection of this particular point in time and place in space.
We live at a perpetual crossroads, where we constantly are making choices which shape the trajectory of our reality, whether we know it or not. But when it comes to deciding how to live a better life, what if we didn’t have to pick any of the options above? What if they were just distractions from a soul that’s already whole, and doesn’t need to do anything in particular, other than be itself?
We can learn a lot from the plants in this sense. They don’t try to be anything other than they are. They have an incredible confidence in their natural expression, simply blossoming in the present moment without questioning whether they are doing it right.
They know their essence, and I trust that we human beings do too.
Tension and compression… somewhere in-between the answer lay.
If life were a thread, one too taught would be boring and straight, perhaps too stressed or just monotone, with no ups and downs or variety of emotions or experience. On the other hand, one with too much slack would be a big jumbled mess. No direction, no meaning, just random chaos throughout the body and mind.
So rather than be too tight or too scrunched, a beautiful life might look mildly loose and wavy. Fluxing between states of activity and rest, creativity and contemplation, aspiration and meditation.
It’s a journey after all, and how meaningful would the story be if there was no winding thread to follow?
When one truly let’s go, it feels like falling. The body stops gripping, the muscles relax, the fascia unwinds and the mind drops into the body. A deflation takes place, a sort of emptying out of all that we were holding onto. So that a new energy, a new spirit, can rise, and help us truly take flight.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” - Pablo Picasso. Life is a stream of journeys, a series of goings and comings through which our minds are refined and bodies purified. Each new experience revealing something deeper about the nature of our being, and the potential of our souls. It’s a universal theme, this notion that we all have something special laying within us - a passion, a skill, a dream, or simply something to serve. Waiting to be discovered, and destined to be shared with the world. The adventure is perpetually calling. The question is… are we listening?