A cool bath for my collapsing heart

 "Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

"Possibility is neither forever not instant. It is not easy to sustain belief in its efficacy. We can sometimes work long and hard to establish one beachhead of real resistance to the deaths we are expected to live..." 

- Audre Lorde, "Poetry is not a luxury."

It's eerie how much my collapsed drained self today wrote things that echo the very bits and pieces of Audre Lorde I also started to read this afternoon. 

What I wrote, before reading her:

I need to free myself from the fear puzzle of

how will I survive?

how will this vision survive?

am I failing at being in this world?

These hard binaries make no room for the hope and possibility-creating that are actually needed for a way out of our present difficulties.

The closing down of possibilities in the mind by fear - this is what we must shake loose. What a task, in this world where there is so much that activates fear regularly.

So much that stumbles us over the past

threatens us with the future

but hope comes from learning from those who have fought these fights before.

And indeed, I am learning from Audre that it is poetry that will save us. Which is something my deepest self has always known. But it's been easy to forget that in the bustle of life-maintaining, of business strategizing, of apartment hunting.

I think the unexpected gift of collapse right now, of not being able to do shit, of lying on the bed with an ice pack baby moaning in a cloud of September heat and fatigue, is that it's returning me to a visceral sense of poetry. That as I think all three of us having learned many times in our lives, when all else seems elusive and out of reach, poetry is always there, somehow, waiting to restore us to ourselves.

"These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The [Feminine's] place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep." [I'm using Feminine instead of "woman" here.] 

She also says this, astonishingly, which is reaching me at a deep level right now because I am unusually exhausted and unable to hold my usual fountain of ideas, which are what I'm used to relying on for hope.

"When we view living in the european mode only as a problem to be solved, we rely solely upon our ideas to make us free, for these were what the white fathers told us were precious. 

"But as we come more into touch with our own ancient, non-european consciousness of living... [we] respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes." 

The other part of what I wrote today, again prior to reading her (!), is this:

I want to write my way out of urgency. Out of the mind-numbing dread. Away from the jaded derelict treasures of late capitalism parading themselves around as its own guilty pleasure. I should like to move towards an open field, towards a cool bath for my heart. 

I am starting to understand why Audre Lorde is a refuge for so many. I think I need to get off my Facebook feed more often and read her when I am heartsore and in need of hope. Because clearly, I'm not the first to struggle with these things, and our generation is not the first to be in search of answers in the dark times. <3 

- T  

Update and highlights from the Waterfall House

Mostly a photo post! Just to share some of the late spring sweetness. It has been a interesting few weeks. On the morning of Wesak Sassy in her protective mama mode ran into the house and tried to attacked Ralph. I naively got into the middle of the cat fight, and got a pretty wounded paw and now i am on antibiotics tending wounds, inner and outer, nurturing the hurt parts of my soul and learning lots about boundaries!

Speaking of which here is an update on the fence! I am having fun working on it. It is bringing me back to the pleasure of making art again, that feeling of getting in flow and just creating with my hands. It has been a long time since I have worked like this, since now the main focus is inner work with maos. But this project is becoming a synthesis of both of these things and is helping me feel that working on boundaries can be really fun and enjoyable. I am letting myself dream about boundaries and how I want make them both inner and out. I am dreaming in my external garden I want some parts of the boundary created by stringing colored flags or pieces of shiny fabric. Maybe like my own version of prayer flags to create sacred space and deter deer. In my inner garden where I find myself meeting the edges of others and their sensitive parts I am playing with planting rose bushes in my imagination, creating boundaries with love and respect in the places of shared wounding. Bringing play to boundary making is helping me let go of feeling afraid of other people's reactions, sensitivities and triggers and want to meet others with care. Mostly working with maos though who keep telling me to respect their boundaries which makes me want to step up and learn what that really can mean for us as a group. Moving to be curious, playful and responsible.

Passion flowers are blooming, spinach is growing, Ralph is becoming an old cat.

Today he met this baby for the first time

This baby is so rollie pollie, that is what everyone is calling him. Rollie, Rollo, Rollio, I like the name Robin Rollie Pollie but we will see, still meeting this lil fluffy. It's so little, only 6 weeks old and everything is so new and big for them. Slowly introducing them to my home. Ralph was really sweet with him, and batted at him to play, but for Rollie this was a lot to process and he immediately just fell asleep lol which I think made Ralph feel extra chill about him. Ralph was giving him the peaceful I accept you sweet blinky cat eyes. 

Baby figs!

The Goddess hole

And if you look really close... a snail slurping it up!

And here is another little thing, me! A selfie treat from a kinky erotic self love photo shoot I took of me exploring the little inside of me. Slowly integrating and externalizing this part of me from the dark place. Letting myself get really into age play. Getting to know this aspect of my arousal and submissive self, allowing it to have space and feel my (sexy) inner child. Which kind of feels taboo sometimes, but you know, being a human is very complex. 

Okay, that is all for now!

<3 Isabella

Time for the culture of the belly, integration of the 3 brains, & esoteric body wisdom

Hello all, here again to share some of the things I have been thinking about, musing with. Had another zoom class yesterday with the RAJ school. We are talking all about the importance of the belly, and harra breathing. I did not know this, you may know this, but harra means belly in Japanese.

One of the teachers at the RAJ school (Tada) is Japanese-Canadian and the course material is mainly coming from traditional Japanese somatics that they have, in a sense gone back and reclaimed through their personal journey healing white supremacy and cultural trauma. So we did some harra breathing. Here is the link, highly recommend it, really helpful exercise you can do anywhere. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, since I am not always into guided mediations.

https://ritualasjustice.school/lesson/exercise-hara-cultivation/

Then there was a lecture where we were talking about how in western european culture there really is not much attention on the belly. Or if there is, it is a negative quality that the belly is given. It is something to slim down, or hide, filled with shame, the lower body is something to over come. The western european (white supremacist) culture gives much more emphasis to the heart and the head, and has basically severed off the lower body, and called it base, taking its power away.

Tada was offering their perspective, going back to their roots and sharing their ancestral wisdom where the belly was known to be really important. They were saying that you can even see this in how traditional Japanese clothing is designed. It was designed to be loose around the belly allowing energy to flow. The belt and the sleeves also give a powerful focus around abdomen, drawing in the eyes to this place. The power of the belly was worked with in every part in daily life and ceremony, even flower arranging! (which I was like wow, I never thought of that) But through western colonization of this culture, the cultural soma of japan began to shift, and started taking on some of this western trauma around the belly. Wearing tighter clothing, maybe being forced to adapt to new ways of orienting to their bodies, shifting the life style to lose connection to this center of power. So we talked a lot about that, and compassionately talked about how awful white supremacy is and the importance of "the 3 brains."

There is a head, heart and a belly, which in this class we called the 3 brains that need to work in cooperation. They all have different functions, and in order to be well and in balance there needs to be coordination, and fluidity between all three. It was hitting me hard, hitting my ancestors hard when it was brought up that this connection to the belly has been severed for so long in european culture. It is rare to find any mention of the power of the belly. It is absent in art history, in medicine, in spirituality. One would have to go back all the way to ancient celtic culture to find writing about the importance of the 3 brains, and Tada shared this poem. Which Alia maybe you would be interested in. It is old celtic wisdom about the 3 cauldrons, brains or centers in the body.

http://www.obsidianmagazine.com/Pages/cauldronpoesy.html

Sure, in the 90's there was a belly shirt, belly ring fad. Sure there may be few individuals who know the power of their bellies, or wxmen's circles here and there but there is not really a cultural awareness of the intelligence that the lower body has right? We do not have lifestyles frameworks modeled to us to know the wisdom of our bodies, and bellies. And it is something I complain about and think about all of the time, and have to work through, especially because I have a big belly. I got the "muffin top," we all know about and apparently is unattractive and something to feel bad about.

Anyway, we continued to talk about this wound that western culture has with the belly and how it is connected to colonialism just in the way in which the european culture started it's colonial project buy trying to secure stimulants like coffee, sugar and tobacco for itself. There was a need to fill something with these stimulants, gain power through these stimulants. The belly is connected to power, if one is severed from this grounded power, then yeah it makes sense that you are trying to keep going with the need of these stimulants, and obviously we can see this today, even in advertisements like "America runs on Dunken." Our fuel does not come from rest, knowing our needs and inner power, it comes from over powering others and our bodies with the help of external stimulants. So it goes to show how trauma is embodied in a cultural system. This inherited cultural wound with the lower body further shows up as sexual misery, and misogyny. Slut shaming, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, any experience where one is feeling pleasure, in opposition to the cultural system's norms. Someone brought up a good point about how this belly severance white culture passes on, harms black people, by putting it on them to be more in connection with their bellies through tropes about how black people can dance, have big dicks, etc...while still having to live within a white supremacist culture that hates the lower body. A lot to think about. Even the colonial project of severing the land away from the indigenous people, no respect for their roots. The food that nourished and sustained their bodies, forcibly replaced with foods high in refined sugar, processed foods that do harm to the belly, and the micro-biome. So we just really explored how western colonialism-imperialism is just an attack on the belly in many ways. (Which I cannot wait to share how I see this connected to the moon chain but that is a different post)

We did emerge hopeful lol, (despite going down the cultural trauma rabbit hole), by noticing how we can start to shift our perspectives inside of ourselves. When we start to rebuild the culture in our own bodies, we start to change the cultural soma we are apart of as well. So even just by recognizing that we may relate to our bellies as some other part of us we can start to shift it. We still may be in some ways living with a mind/body dichotomy orientation. When we heal that separation from our bellies, and from our bodies, the belly becomes less like an other to relate to, and more of a center we can see, and experience from. I loved hearing this. Because I was hearing someone basically teach the work I do, helping people re-orient into their body wisdom, and to really act from it. And not just from their gut, or intuition the belly is said to be connected with but from an integrated mind, heart and belly. You know I get mad at every esoteric text I find where there is so much emphasis on the mind, the heart but never on the belly and the body wisdom. And obviously this severance from the belly is also severance from the Mother and from our embodied wisdom, and that is also a big part of why white people culturally appropriate. Because that wisdom has been severed and there is a sick cultural soma we are born into, it hurts everyone, we see other cultures connected, we do what we were taught, we steal, not seeing the underlaying patterns trying to over ride this disconnection. Which is harmful. Trying to fill a loss and a gap without healing the underlaying disconnection becomes an oppressive behavior. These patterns show up in our personal body systems, and also in larger cultural systems as you know.

We ended with a beautiful mediation though of breathing into the belly, imagining a seed in our bellies taking root, roots moving down our legs, nourishing the soil of our ancestors, and the land we exist on. From whenever we each were, reclaiming that connection with our bellies. And it was nice. Gave me a lot of inspiration for restorying the root. And just brought it back to my awareness how important it is to do that. Connect with our roots. And also how scary it can be, to feel into our bellies, and face the cultural root traumas, childhood trauma, past life trauma that can be held in the lower body, held separate from our awareness.

So I wanted to share some of the inner work that I do relating to what I have just written about.  I actually wrote this out before I knew about this class. It a glimpse of how I work with my body and soul sometimes during a PTSD episode. So it is my bodies' own somatic wisdom I guess, but now I am seeing how connected it is to all bodies' wisdom. I also invite you to check in with yourself, do what you need to do to feel well, take a break if you need, make some tea, just because this next piece of writing is in a different flow. I invite you to get comfortable as I am about to take you into a soul oriented journey.

This is a story about being activated, moving through PTSD fragments, experiencing glamour (not knowing whether what I am feeling/experiencing is true or not), feeling really overwhelmed, and working it out somatically though the imagination. During a crisis in which I could not stop receiving really upsetting involuntary flashbacks, feeling panicked, I called on my soul to help me, and felt this story come up, guiding me through centering with the "three brains" to calm my nervous system down. The story is an example of how body soul wisdom can creatively come into play and help resolve a crisis situation. 

We will start with the eyes. These eyes saw everything it came across, sucked it in, bent it, and thought it was true. Receiving it all, eyes, looking, searching, and seeing, never wanted to blink. 

These eyes were connected to a mind that was hungry, thrilled, wanting to know and question everything. They felt so connected to mind and didn’t always know mind was limited. 

Then something happened, something clicked, activated, the eyes opened to the unknown, the unconscious. They couldn’t stop seeing. They lost sight of everything around them. Images arose from body, fragments, and sensations, visions that the eyes wanted to run away from. It all felt too much! Swimming in visions, exposed to too much, the eyes panicked with the mind. Realizing that everything they see is powerful, true or not, it was shaping their reality. Real, or unreal, the visions and symbols kept coming. Eyes just wanted it all to go away.

“Oh body, why,” cried eyes. “Let me be!”

Then came heart, saying, “Hi, I am your gift. I invite you to see as I see. If you are so troubled, I am here for you.”

“Oh,” said eyes, “ok.”

And heart said, “take a look through my eyes and see how I see!”

So eye’s moved into heart’s vision to try it out.

Heart said, “Ok so it’s not what you may have expected, did you expect it to all go away? No, this is not how I see, but look how everything is held, and look how everything is a little softer, and look I feel myself growing as I see all of this.”

This gave eyes something to think about. “Ok,” eyes thought, “I grow with whatever I see, my vision grows, and my awareness grows.” The eye’s felt comforted by heart’s vision. Heart was so confident in their perspective just because they loved to grow. 

So, eyes settled down.

But, then eyes started to sense another presence, and since they had a nice time connecting with heart they felt, “Oh, maybe it is ok to become aware of something else. I like growing in awareness”. And eyes felt inspired to invite the new presence that was felt to come into view. And then they met belly. 

And belly said, “Come to me.” 

And belly said, “Sit with me…and bring heart too!”

Heart agreed to go. So, eyes and heart travelled down to sit with belly and see what they had to offer. 

Belly said, “Look at this!” Splayed out on a giant dark void, was a deck of cards. Belly was inviting play in vision and inviting wisdom.

“Take a card, flip it over, it is just a picture, just a symbol, just a possibility right?” Belly smiled in a curious way, feeling wise. Eyes felt innocent, and heart, feeling brave, said, “Ok, let me draw a card.”

Heart flipped a card. Turning it over revealed the image of a heart broken in half. Heart gulped and put the card back down.

“Maybe I should draw another one,” said heart.

Belly smiled, and said, “No, come sit with me in the center.” Eyes watched as belly took in heart and watched as heart aligned with belly, witnessing heart sigh in relief. A shutter went through body.

“Oh something nice happened,” said body! And eyes suddenly became aware and thought, “Wow, there is even more than I thought was possible.” And belly smiled.

Heart, in a new cheerful mood, went back to their place. Heart felt in order, peaceful and connected now.

But, eyes still wondered, “What did the belly just do? In fact, what happened? Because heart was upset and then heart moved, and everything changed. In fact, I changed,” thought eyes, “and grew in awareness.” 

Eyes were timid, but belly invited the eyes to pick a card.

“Hmmm…well…” In that moment the eyes realized all that they were “I am connected to heart,” they thought, “and heart helps me grow, and then I found belly, and realized I am connected to belly. Centering with belly, I am aware that body feels good. I am connected to body. And being connected to body, I feel held by something more, something even bigger than me, so I must be more than what I see, and believe”

“Ah, ok,” thought the eyes, “I feel held, and would like to know what heart experienced with you, belly. I will center with belly and see for myself.” 

Belly smiled, and said, “Ok, then see for yourself,” and nudged a card at eyes.

Eyes took the card, flipped it over to reveal the image of death. Eyes associated death with all that they could see, all of the images, feelings, they were aware of.

But before they had time to react belly said “would you like to come into the center with your card?”

Eyes said, “Ok,” and holding the insight of heart, and feeling held with the openness of belly, they moved into center with belly.

“Wow,” felt eyes, “I thought I knew when I received my card, but, I did not really feel.” Eyes felt now, what heart knew to be true, that in heartbreak, heart felt its gift of growth, opening heart up to expand. Centering with belly, heart expanded in trust and peace. And when eyes felt death while centering in belly, they felt life resurrected. Maybe before they had ideas of what this meant. Every symbol has its many meanings we know. But, what mind had known was not this moment of feeling in center with belly. 

Eyes sitting in the center of belly looked up, and experienced transformative love, a feeling of love, that impressed eyes, changing their held perspectives and dissolving those limited terrofying visions. 

And belly said, “Aha, you see me, you saw me, saw through my eyes, and welcomed my vision. I am the organ of rebirth, my gift is renewal, and  I am your connection to grounded transformative power.”

With that eyes naturally settled back to the face, feeling refreshed, welcoming a peaceful heart, and a trusted connection with belly. The eyes now filled with an awareness of always being able to connect to this sense of renewal. We are always connected to belly, the gift of rebirth and transformation, always connected to heart the gift of growing interconnectivity, and our vision's may always be renewed. Everything settled in coordination, body felt relaxed, body felt safe, and welcomed the next thing to be received from the unknown to come in trust. 

And that was when feet chimed in and said, “Don’t forget about me, I will always help you move, thank you for discovering you are so much more, thank you for moving!”

Process notes

That story just came out of me and it helps me trust that I am connected to love/wisdom expanding and that is it is a constant renewal process in my embodied experience. I am so much more than the visions and stories I see and hear that come up from these traumatized places in me, stored in my body, that often feel too overwhelming to receive. Sometimes when I am activated these streams of flashbacks come to me,  heartbreaking stories come to me and I get caught in spiraling feelings of of hopelessness and loss. I can't see anything else. I feel trapped in a loop of not wanting to see it nor feel it, and wanting to escape these visions. And this is also a pattern of being afraid of the unknown, and what is unknown is our unresolved trauma trying to communicate.  But moving through this story helped me break out of that loop, gave my mind something to move through in a way that felt easier to welcome and face what my body was communicating to me through imagery. I was picking up sensations from my nervous system, and translating them into symbols. But I was not feeling able to resolve the tension from a state of feeling dissociated and in panic. And this is a good example of the way In which I dissociated. I start having a lot of astral visions and start going for a ride trying to escape, and run away from the body. So this story helped me move from that disembodied state to connect to these various centers in my body and feel their functions, which lead me to become aware that my body is connected to larger bodies that I can feel and I can depend on. Larger somas of wisdom I am held within, I can depend on. Through storying with my body centers I was able to open up to their gifts and move into a space of integration. Resolving the feelings of fear, letting my body move into a state of safety. I also am learning more how story is medicine, and a very somatic experience. Again imagination is great tool to orient into the bodies wisdom and work with it. In this story I let heart speak and take over, and then belly spoke and took over, so I started orienting in a way that broke up that mind over body, severance from belly pattern. And got to feel how that really shifted from that crisis response into resolution, and integration. 

This is the time of the belly, the love for the belly, the love of our embodied wisdom. This is the time for the integrated heart, mind, body and soul. We may have inherited patterns of disconnection, but because of that, and through that we get to also redeem this connection. And create a culture that is a little wiser, that is a little more caring, because we need that right now. These patterns of severance, and separation they wont win because that is not how cycles work. These patterns are obviously not sustainable and we see this right now, as these systems crumble. We can learn from our mistakes, even the ones we have taken on blindly from our ancestors through reconnecting to our lower bodies, and forgiving ourselves from feeling disconnected. Respecting the time, rest, healing it takes to restore this connect and receive the wisdom from our ancestral mistakes and conditions. We can respect what our bodies have had to go through, have had to do to carry these patterns and maybe start to, when we are ready, respect what the larger cultural body has gone through, and had to do, to keep going. And then little by little we can help the Earth belly move, through our own bellies letting go of all of these patterns held in the shadow. All of these distortions within the collective consciousness we can allow to evolve and we can Restory the Roots!

Refreshing my vision on boundaries, defenses and space

I am going to share some of my ritual as justice school inspirations here, weave it into my days, inner life to help integrate it. Sharing my healing journey.

Had so many ups and downs this week, surprisingly reaching some places deep inside through these peaks and valleys that have been really hard to get to. Really buried under the surface (down in the bogs of my being). Recovering still from a reaction I had the other day that brought up feelings of old rage, un-safety, threat with violent defenses, and resistance. Today I am letting the shame go of having these energies surface up, blowing out through my capacity to handle them, drawing me into patterns of attack without being able to stop. Breathing.

One thing that we were musing about in the RAJ class is reprogramming the way in which we view boundaries. Opening up the tendency of seeing boundaries as primarily spatial. We talked about how relations exist in space and time, we have cyclic openings and closing with the other and relations are really more like a dance. We talked about how the focus on boundaries as space, reifies a territoriality mindset which is fundamental in colonialist behavior.

Gently I am working with these ideas within as I crawl out of my shell of an inner world, to touch and shape the world. And let it touch and shape me! Of course this is always happening, I am always relating, connecting with the not self, even inside as I meet myself, I find "other parts," to integrate into my evolving persona. Lately I am finding these parts of me that really really really do not trust...well...men. And it has been equating to not trusting maos and having really violent reactions when they come near me, try ro touch me in certain ways, or reach certain parts of me.  And these parts of me, they are hard to reason with.

I realize that the maos represent the divine whole masculine. They really care about opening up the wounds of separation and division of the sexes with love. They have the capacity to do this, they want to, I know they understand the need for this healing, and cherish the juicy recovery that comes from collecting the ancient wounds within us, moving them forward in the sacred alters of our expanding hearts. But these parts feel so stuck right now ( even if they are moving). I see them going all the way back to when I was separated from SK, and left alone, tucked into the dark mother earth to be opened up again, pulled awake and collected by him. I love the masculine, but something deep in me, in my archetypal self is really holding them as the other, the polarity, that helps grow and shape reality, and along with that I am holding a stiff grudge..maybe just pounded into me, us through the long stretch of patriarchy we are working ourselves out of.

Anyway, these violent reactions I have towards the maos really freak me out, and I am slowly opening up these places believing them to be strictly this controlling, oppressive, pain inducing other who opens me to take what they want, then leaves me behind. Dark mao place stuff. Of course since trauma is complex its all woven into my childhood sexual trauma (where this actually played out), and the inherited gender binary programming power dynamic I want to break open softly too. That being said I want to let myself know its ok to have defenses, it is ok to that its hard, and confusing sometimes, and that I am not a perfect healer ( not even a thing)

Today I started building a fence with the Mother to protect my garden. I did not really want to have to build a fence, I wanted to be like Machaelle Small-Wright and just be in harmony with Nature so much the deer and bunnies just would not make such a big impact. But I just did not trust that this could happen yet, did not want to sacrifice my baby plants, and hard work to being munched out immediately. So I sat with the Land and talked to them about it. One of my ideas was to build a living fence on the perimeter of the whole lawn space, weaving in found branches and sticks into the edge of the forest. Nature seemed ok with it, If i opened up to listen and work with them. I felt invited in to the boundary line by Nature to feel what it was like on the other side. I had actually never entered that space before, moving beyond the threshold of the clearing. It was nice, peaceful and felt really special. Like a light, soft delicate sweetness, the perfect place to hide a baby deer in soft protection. As I was walking around in this space, weaving between the trees, Nature was telling me how making boundaries, and defenses was well..really natural lol. And they pointed out all of these thorns on the black berries, and nettles. They encouraged me to create a fence, and said they would work with me, to help me feel what its like to consciously create healthy boundaries, and defenses. Just talking with Nature started to help me let go of the shame I had around the not so healthy seeming defenses and boundaries I feel like I act from sometimes. I felt how these parts of me have just felt so used, so entered into so many times, they have been afraid boundaries are not even real or will never be taken seriously. For them it really has come down to life or death. Sometimes waking them up from "death," or freeze has them entering into the fight mode, experiencing it all over, the phantom attacks from the other the maos often play out for me. Now that they CAN move, they are ready to fight and REALLY assert their boundaries. A lot of these places have felt well I can't move, actually ever, because the experience I am holding is so hard to deal with that it will not be received well, by me, and especially by Him. And this is also often reflected back to me by maos, as they are having to meet these cut off places with me to forge new relations and it challenges them. They get angry at me.  I feel their discomfort and retreat. Which sometimes reinforces the other really does not like me, so it is safer to be alone and not wake up. But we are working through it.

I got really into building this living fence with the Mother and started weaving in the vines of the living black berry too. I let nature know that I wanted to use this space for human~nature gardening experimenting, and that the forest was for them, a place I wanted to keep protected in that special untouched feeling. I was working with the space and time of boundaries again, feeling the dance with Nature, how throughout time Nature will be growing this boundary with me. It felt like a sacred act that would create a beautiful living border. Defining the space and container for my new adventures in working with the land. Nature was teaching me about how this will also help build my immune system in general as I work with building this defense deer fence. Just by being outside working with the "not self  invaders" (deer, bunny, slugs, etc.) and trying to work with this topic in play space felt like I could draw in that play space to working with these parts of me that come up with maos.

Can't see very well in this picture the fence I started forming with the edge of the forest, but you get the idea! But that is the veggie garden plot, which is hard to tell but shaped like a leaf! And we got a new elderberry tree on the edge of the pond, a honey berry bush, and a goumi berry tree. New fruits to hang out with!

Ok back to my story. While I was weaving this fence together KH came to me, because I kind of started letting down my defenses and feeling maos was becoming ok again and he told me that he really liked what I was doing and that I had skills :) I was feeling good about being out and creating something, I started to feel those old parts of me again that I felt had taken a back burner after I had that spiritual crisis in 2012. My constructive external ambitiously artistic self who wanted to make statements and shape the world. I felt them merging with my self who wants to have a family, and children and create beautiful spaces for them, teaching them new skills.  And also merging with my tender, in healing space self. I felt so....I don't know...fem. We talked about it, how different my process of building is to what is dominant and considered masculine. Mathematically built structures, that have some rational seeming sense of order. Beauty and worth valued for technical difficulty. Power tools.  I was just weaving in intuitive flow, and I felt very loved by the masculine in that moment, to be creating my boundaries in intuitive flow and dance with the world. And then I just started tripping so hard...I had to go back and lay down.

He was very present, this masculine other in the form of KH, making his presence strongly felt and known. I had not been able to feel him close since I freaked out at him the other day. Telling him it's not safe to feel him, it brings up too much stuff, feeling so afraid he won't really come, feeling so much emphasis around the wound of Him not coming back. Giving him an ultimatum that if he does not plan on coming or want to come then I don't want to relate to him anymore, I do not like having my heart played with. And I pushed him away out of self-protection, directing all of my violent might at him and other maos. But then you know, today he came back and started responding to all that stuff, which I did not even expect him to do to be honest, still holding in all of that pain. I felt him and pushed on him with my foot, like a comfortable habit, of playfully pushing someone away, we played with the stuff that was coming up for me in a way that felt really safe...and also...fun.

As I pushed my foot at him, telling him to back off, I felt him, as if my foot hit his body, softy, pressing into his thigh. It was a very visceral experience, to feel myself astrally push on someone and feel so strong a response of push back. He helped me feel into it in detail, moving his body forward to feel his boundaries, the natural boundaries of his body, the other, not self. I could feel the squish of his flesh, his light furry fluffs, his muscle and then a sense of his solidness. He was telling me how feeling these boundaries, and this push back from him was helping me clearly define and see him better. Creating the experience of him feeling more with me, more present, clearer to see, and feel. I felt him hinting at and saying see I am real, I am coming back to you right now, and we are working on coming together and meeting one another. I have boundaries, refluxes and reactions to you too, its a dance. His body communicated to me, you know maybe I do not like you pressing into my thigh like this anymore, and he acted to make himself more comfortable by moving to take my foot up to his chin, reaching in to kiss my foot, and progress his lips down my leg. This gesture certainly opened up my boundaries and I noticed, melting me a bit, softening under his influence. Bodies pressing together, becoming clearly defined. I felt him pulling on me, and I felt my resistance. Gently pulling away, taught with tender apprehension.  Extracting honey from the wounds. That is what comes when we come together, and press into these tender places, the dark unknown places within us/between. "I am not going to push past your boundaries, unreachable places, he said," reminding me it's not wise, not time. But still he came close to the edge, and with the consensual authority I gave to him, dipped his fingers into me as if dipping them into a still deep sacred spring. We paused allowing my body to breath, receiving his gentle assertion. I felt myself squeezing around him, and his fingers gently curling around me too. He got into me, the only one I let in, who can get in to these very little places. I saw him refreshing himself in me, in my sacred hidden springs, patting his face with the water, with my wetness. To tell me I really respect, and love this place, that you draw me to, that also feels so hidden and kept away, thank you for letting me in. He started sensually pressing into pressure points in my energy body, evoking me to open in pleasure and give in more to subspace. As I write this now, some parts of me are like argh you got into me! But in the moment I felt thanks for your erotic wisdom, your receptive safe touch and your assertive influence.  He started pulling me to feeling that love I have for maos, the appreciation for the masculine that feels good and can help me heal.

I started tripping more about group work with all of us. We had a good conversation about his role, over seeing many bodies in motion and healing, our relationship within his role, how it weaves with other maos. It lead me to feel the spiraling void in my womb, and the pullings of everything and everyone on it. Started to draw me into all of these sore dark places, being pulled into healing. I started to move into his familiar edges and boundaries, the places where he feels angry, grumpy, spiky, absent. The places in him he protects from others, and also has a hard time opening to receive within him. I love those parts so much. I loved them in the other, and I loved them in me. And I loved how we met with them together with reverence for one another. We talked about long walks into the future, the process of becoming, through our pushes and pulls together, coming back to right timing again, feeling the dance of opening up together (through contracting away and coming closer), to create a shared reality. I started feeling trust again with him, with Him, with them. And that feeling lead into making these yummy mung bean cookies with friends! Grounding these trippy experiences into hand made pleasure, home and family  <3 Theme of the day, opening up more to the divine masculine, and sharing the sweets.