2020- 10- 27
Seasonal changes, life changes.
What do I care about.
What do I release.
We talk, and then we dance. One by one, sharing. Mostly nothing blatant. Everything expressive, simple, murky yet clear.
I feel your hands cupping, opening wide, then letting go. Gazing out over the abyss. Fear. Death. Infinite possibility.
We release, release, release.
It’s easier to notice what we care about and hold tight, than what we release.
Changing seasons, political chaos, wildfires, pandemic.
Hanging upside down, cocooned in an aerial yoga hammock, “I wonder how often do they wash these silks” then, “I hope I don’t get sick.”
Japanese maples en route to work. I rejoice as they start turning red, then watch, week after week, as more red leaves pile up on the sidewalk. I imagine their crunch as I drive by, remembering crunching as many as I could walking to school as a kid, then creating huge Connecticut red crunchy leaf piles with other folks’ kids as a wilderness awareness mentor, as an adult. Every so often, I stop to pick a tick off myself, off a child.
Self versus non self. Immune system, most complex system of our bodies. Boundaries, weaving and navigating internal and external webs of protection. When to speak up. How to verbalize something colorful, complex, uncomfortable. How to hold integrity with lightness and joy.
天地人. Sky, Human, Earth. Such power in the center of the circle. Such humbleness. Each choice minute yet integral.
Yoga by the Ocean yesterday. Red flag wind warning. Choppy waves. Large, yet formless. Unsurfable. I balance, falling, then standing. I bow, and bow, and bow, and bow.
2020- 10- 28
We are moving. January, New Zealand. A flurry of activity from now until then.
I have moved. From the deserts and coasts of California to the forests and hills of Connecticut, I have moved. Across the seas to lands known and unknown, slowly across the Earth and quickly through the Sky, I have moved.
I know movement. From the small sacred stillness of heart beating under tight dry skin to the big rawdy movement of thumbing across the country coast to coast, I know movement. Dancing with strangers in studios large and small, sunlight streaming in through windows, rain battering our bodies dancing in the mud at Standing Rock, darkness igniting wild dances in Los Angeles, I know movement.
We are moving. Across the sea once more. Now, with a license to practice in one country, and nothing for another country, beyond experience. So many precious experiences. We are moving.
Hands open, heart shuddering yet tenacious, I step forward.
2020- 11- 01
I’ve been experiencing election nightmares. My patients share similar elections nightmares. We bunch our bodies into knots around this great unknown, with a sense of mixed impending doom, and hope.
Meanwhile, full moon. Flying bats. Changing seasons. Ocean lapping against shore, wearing it down, moving closer inland. Fires continue devouring ancient forests. Our rivers dry, then refill. I find new old maps. We trace the trails with our fingers, then go walk them, mile after mile of sunburning foot-blistering bliss.
Much that is unknown, yet much that is known. Embrace simplicity. Do the work, then step back. Step forward as needed, but do not live in a constant state of tightened painful over-responsiveness, histamines jumping at things both significant and not, cells autophaging on overdrive.
May the pinkening dawn and dusk remind you of your own internal pinks and pastels. That which oxidizes in the air, but remains soft and nourished within the tenacious yet tenuous outer wrapping of skin. Emotions intangible yet oh-so-felt, be gentle. Nourish. Rest. Find that which is delicious, and enjoy it. One foot after another, stop every once in a while, poising and balancing in the great in-between. Wavering, quivering in the wind, dance.
