She woke me from my sleep.
It was still dark outside so there was time.
Pulled me, by her moans, out of bed.
Whispering into my hips and groin that she needed to talk with me, that she needs me to listen.
So I went softly, sleepily out onto my mat and I sat. I waited for her to show up again, she always comes to get me then plays her games to see if I’ll wait for her.
So I sat.
I’ve honestly never been in this much physical pain before from an emotional trauma.
First, she showed up in my groin. Intense, throbbing, thick, pulsing. So I began my movement there. Slow, supported, jaw unclenched.... breathing.
My breath is my voice in this relationship; it's the bridge and the opening, the offering, to a dialogue yearned for by another part of myself. As I moved into and out of the pressure in my groin, I began to see, in my mind’s eye, the beginning of a map.
Circuitry.
My body, the flow of its language. Not often traveled. Especially right now. I’ve just gone through a dear friend's unexpected death and I nanny a teething 8 month old. My parasympathetic nervous system is dumping chemicals and they trickle down into the sinks within my body.
Today, I rise to soak in them.This is where we meet. My darling.My girl. The one who sits on a swing inside my rib cage. She’s ready to talk to me. I pause in my movement.
Supported and prepared.
Steadying my breath so she knows I’m prepared to listen and paying attention. As my breath stills, my chest begins to burn. It’s that same feeling I’ve been feeling. Grief. I’ve said it’s like I’m being suffocated.
Like there’s a weight on my chest that I can’t escape.
Today, after 30 days of grieving... I’m blessed with the story of this feeling. As she swings, she begins to sing and I observe in awe. My darling innocent one. Pure emotion. Contained in reaction and response. Tell me your ways. The intensity of her song grows and I feel my heart well up with emotion.
I bow, keeping my jaw unclenched as she continues. I’ve learned by now that this opening is the resurrection process. The awakening of an internal attention.
My circuitry.
From the swing in my rib cage, she climbs up into my back and spreads out. The muscles in between my ribs in my back body are aching, swollen, and saturated. Saturated with feelings and chemicals that flushed my body and found a home in the sturdiest part of my form.
My posture.
They marched up through the bones of my spine, into the muscles of my neck... spread out into my jaw and settled in the back of my head. Seated and folded forward I begin again to breathe supported by blocks, arms raised, collar bones broadened...
My mouth open for this pressure needs more room...
Her dance feels like an uprising, like a swelling, like a drumming beat. I pause here and wait as my breath expands into these contractions like waves rushing onto the seashore then being pulled back out into the sea.
Then it comes.
The rumbling and ricocheting, tumbling in from a dimension only my body’s wisdom knows exists. A weep. The kind of weeping only the strength of your strongest muscles can endure. To meet this sensation I just keep breathing. In and out. Slowing down.
Moving a bit as needed. Finding the edge of my body’s endurance and breathing into it. As I bear witness to this power it depressurizes. But it takes time. I’m so relieved that she comes to wake me up to tell me how she is.
As the weeping subsided she takes me by the hand of my awareness into the shoulder girdle, the underarm, breast… Here she whispers and stomps, pointing exasperated.... tired she finally sits.
I know this part. This is the gift. This is our special place. Somewhere we get to by working together.
I’ve moved through this body with her guidance, her name is Wisdom. Now we’ve arrived together at the place we both need. The watering hole.
As she stomps and points I know what to do... I begin to turn and open the faucets. Moving my arms back and forth... now reclined over a wheel, my head supported with a block. I move my arms back and forth, turn my hands as if they’re turning door knobs, flutter my arms as if I’m a bird, turning my head left and right all while breathing steadily. Sometimes, I need to bulge my eyes, stick out my tongue, exhale with a hiss to midwife this process along.
I continue and she waits.
She waits, she’s tired.
Now it’s my turn to show her what it’s like to be a body. I continue my practice, and finally the faucets open, the levees break, the clogs, the stuck, the stored energy begins moving. This is the most intimate part of “my practice”.
This is the sex of yoga.
As my faucets open, my breath collaborates to initiate an ushering. Right along this way please.... good day to you Great One, oh life. As this prana is directed into the engine of my heart, the circuitry initiates.
Wisdom and I now sit back into one another and experience the wonder of an awakened heart.
We follow the circuitry powered by the breath as it flows through the heart and begins to drop into the roots of its beating. Its depth is not of this world. As this prana pours, I sit and witness a symphony of dimensions, a complexity I cannot compute...
My heart beats, my eyes blink, I breathe, a bird chirps, a door slams, my friend texts me. With each beat the connection to the other worlds take hold. And I re-member myself, my selves, life, this life.
Here and now... but also then and there. The singing, the sacred, the wisdom of this path. I’m so glad she woke me up this morning. To be with the feeling of this story.
