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  

On work addiction and waking up into a cloud of anxiety & internalized capitalism...

hi loves....

here I am writing at 9:34am on a semi cloudy morning. Palm trees through the window. Still can't believe I live here. What is my life? A glorious, quietly triumphant one.

I want to write today about work addiction. About the tiny incessant call of my dopamine receptors, bound to a systemic drip of productivity as happiness, as self-worth.

I woke up after not enough hours of sleep, and as has been happening lately, a small sleepy peek at the morning light turned into a jolt of adrenaline as an anxious thought ran through my whole body. I don't remember what it was; it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that it woke me up, the damn monkey mind.

Awake now, I watched with envy the slow rise and fall of A's sheet-welted body beside me in the soft light. The cat snoozed, a tortoiseshell crossaint, in her adorable resting spot between our two pillows. And my mind continued to whir. I checked the time - hours before my alarm was supposed to go off. I worried over an unresolved conflict between two friends, rekindled by them both inadvertently showing up at a virtual workshop we did. I lay in the rumpled blankets and wondered about the possibility of naturally falling asleep again. I'm awake, my mind insisted. I'm dead tired, murmured my body.

Then a gem flashed through my mind, and momentarily erased my worries.

Remember the workbook on "working softer" that you're creating? It whispered, gleaming. When it was clear it had my attention, it dropped some shiny wordplay into my consciousness. "A break in the moment is worth two in the mind."

"That's good," I replied. "I should write that down."

Suddenly, I didn't feel tired anymore. Even though I resisted immediately writing it down (thank you, years of healing my tendency to just start working while still in bed), I mulled over the quote in my mind and thought about a few other things I needed to do for the workbook. My mind briefly wandered back to the anxiety-provoking friend situation, but then I went back to thinking about the workbook. A moment later, I grabbed my phone and typed the quote into my note app, so I wouldn't forget it.

Before I knew it, I was flashing through possible launch strategies, thinking about the sales podcast I wanted to listen to, and mentally re-arranging layouts for the workbook pages in Canva. In a last ditch effort to get myself back into a more restful state, I opened the #SelfCare app on my phone and drew a virtual tarot card:

The Devil: Materialism, Addiction, Ignorance.

"Don't give in to temptation."

I frowned. Tapped it again (because sometimes the AI gave different - better - messages the second time). 

"Don't give way to impulse."

My breath caught as my brain finally registered the word "addiction". In an instant, I remembered my body, lying on the bed. And I asked her - how are you doing?

Exhausted, she said. 

What do you need?

I need to rest!!!

Oh.

I clicked off the phone and I lay back, feeling gravity gently pull my back against the mattress and the crumpled sheets. I thought about how conditioned I am to subconsciously equate any hint of productivity with excitement, how it conveniently masks my other emotions, how it makes me forget my body and my need to rest. 

And I also thought: it's not my fault. I'm doing my best to heal. This is not about me; this is about capitalism, and the way it gets into our heads, latches onto our unresolved stuff.

I wish I could tell you that I went back to sleep, but whatever weird thing is going on with my body and morning anxiety patterns lately prevented that. But instead, I listened to my body, moved out onto the couch so I wouldn't disturb A with my restlessness, petted my other adorable sleeping cat curled up on said couch, did a bit of soothing breathwork, and gently reflected on the insidiousness of internalized capitalism, which led me to journaling this piece.

...

and of course that same dopamine drip is saying:

PUBLISH THIS TO PATREON AND MAKE MONEY HONEYYY

BE THE NEXT BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WORK SOFTER

GET EVERYONE TO SEE HOW WISE YOU ARE SO THEY'LL FINALLY NOTICE AND APPRECIATE YOU

.... oy.

No, I'm gonna post it to the kitten blog... and then maybe do some more breathwork.

I love you, my love.

You are good.

I know that it feels good to write, and have big ideas, and potentially be able to share it with others in a way that feels reciprocal.

You get to have that. And also, you don't have to get love that way. You are already loved. I love you. You're safe.

We can do this our way, capitalism be damned.

And I'm giving that part of you that didn't get your needs for love and safety met as a kid, as a teenager especially, who thought she had to work to get those things, a huge hug. Rest now. You get to be loved even as you rest.

<3 T

Thoughts percolating for our ritual conversation next week!

*Editing to add a tidbit from my comment on your most recent post, Isabella!*

I think we need to resolve the inner powerlessness we each feel in different ways, if we are to bring out the power we hold.

So how do we resolve our inner places of powerlessness? Where do we feel powerless, in our bodies / minds / inner spaces?

.

Alia & I have been talking about what we want to bring to our conversation on ritual embodiment next week, and we wanted to share some of our inquiries:

How do we root into our power and find balance in our selves as we respond to what is happening in the world? How do we do our work at this time?

What's blocking us from being able to root into our power, right now?

What are we attached to that is preventing us from centering and rooting?
Some of the things coming up for us:

T: "Carrying without controlling." The fearful part that wants to control what happens, how I show up, the impact I have, how I'm seen. Not trusting that I'm already in my power is taking me away from being centered in it.

So how do we trust that we don't have to force or control how we show up?

How do we carry everything that we feel responsible for, and the work, without trying to control it?

(Maybe a ritual of releasing control, rooting in self-trust...)

A: What I'm attached to that blocks me is the feeling of safety from dissociating. From not being here, not being in my power, not manifesting my full self. That way I don't have to deal with the responsibility of standing in my power and the impact that has on the world. This has a lot to do with being sick and just not having the energy to field the world's reactions to my real self, which were really violent in my childhood, so I ended up shutting down a lot of things in me so I wouldn't have to deal with more coming at me from the world than I had energy for.

A lot of the solution to that is trauma healing, so that dealing with the world doesn't trigger so much baggage and therefore take so much energy to process. Some of it is physical healing, which I've been doing, which makes more energy available to me. And it's also about...letting go of perfectionism, of the idea that I can only manifest my power if I do it in the perfect way that won't get me hurt. In that sense, it's also about control. Control so that I'll be safe, trying to control others' behavior towards me by controlling myself in certain ways and toward certain ends. But that always ends up backfiring, because when I'm not standing in my power, I'm more vulnerable and unsteady than ever.

It's also not about me. I think there's something actually very liberating about that statement, when it's coming from a place of inner peace and not self-abandonment. And I think as I heal my trauma I'll be able to come from that place more and more. Decentering myself from the idea of standing in my power, in a healthy way - recognizing that I want to stand in my power so that I can serve, so that I can be a conduit for divine power to manifest, which is so much bigger than me. And I have to take good care of myself and love myself in order to be in synchrony with that power and live into my heart's desire, which is to see love and liberation rain down on earth. And standing in my power is a part of that, not an isolated event.

~~~

**ALSO those of us with privilege have been unconsciously centering ourselves in/with power that isn't ours (!!). And that's traumatic in itself. The answer isn't to center our guilt and remain off balance - that doesn't serve anyone. The answer is to heal that ugly imbalance and come into our real power, so we can let go of what isn't rightfully ours and come into what is.

So how do we de-center ourselves from the idea of standing in our power?

How do we address these inner power imbalances, and come into our real power?

I'm excited for us to talk about and ritual~ around these inquiries (and more from you Isabella!). 

Also to keep working with these things in the various groups we're gonna be part of! (I just joined a small cohort of Asian-American friends gathering weekly for the next while to process / learn about / heal anti-Blackness together. And you two are gonna do the April Harter coaching thing. Yay!) 

<3

Grounding in our power and a "finding inner justice" practice.

Hi loves, I wrote a post with the practice I started to talk about in our GroupMe chat, that I will be sharing on our business insta early next week. But I wanted to first share it here and come into dialogue around it. 

BTW I'm also creating a new label called "Grounding in our power" for our ongoing inquiry, so we can keep returning to it as we explore and share experiential wisdom.

Basically, for me, this practice is about addressing almost an internal sense of injustice. "What is inner justice?" is a potent question for me right now, and I think all of our work points in some way to this. It feels deeply relevant to current events. I don't necessarily want to use this framing publicly yet, because it feels new and I don't want to invite angry comments about what justice is/isn't, when the foundation for this work is not yet established externally. But I want us to talk about it.

Here is what I wrote:

The world feels full of deeply disturbing + unacceptable things right now. Black lives continue to be taken, and it's not okay. From a systemic change & trauma responsive POV, we have been learning a lot from @racismrecoverycenter about the wisdom in not acting from a place of unresolved pain.

So we want to share a powerful practice that we've been using lately, to lean into what is here and not run away from it or pretend otherwise. 🔥

This can take just a minute or two. You can do it right now for yourself, or try it before a difficult conversation or taking more direct, outer action. 

🍃

Feel the tension, fear, anxiety, or discomfort that is here.

Name & witness it - What is it? What is it saying? Why is it showing up right now? What is it afraid of?

Then ask yourself: What is this voice trying to do *for* me? 

Is it trying to keep you safe or protect you? Is it trying to warn you about something? Is it trying to bring about balance? 

Often, our stuff is rooted in old survival patterns. As dysfunctional as these urges & tensions can seem, they are about deeper needs that some part of you is trying to fulfill.  

When you've gotten some clarity about what needs are trying to be fulfilled, ask: What would help this underlying need feel more taken care of right now?

The answer may surprise you in its simplicity. Sometimes, all we need to do is reroute our focus to what we *actually* need when it comes to safety, balance, protection, etc. 

🍃

When we take the time to listen the small, scared, loud voices in us, and to the unfulfilled needs they represent, we can begin to access inner harmony. Then we recover more capacity to address what is before us, and the unfulfilled needs of the world around us. 🌱

Let us know how this goes for you. 💙

*

Alia and I have mostly used this practice to help ourselves ground into work sessions and work on stuff that feels intimidating, but I honestly think this could be a practice to help with activated racial trauma, and the overwhelm that can come with witnessing intense injustice in the world and not knowing where to start, NOT necessarily because the external resources aren't there, but because the *internal* resources aren't there. 

I mean, this feels so obvious to me - when our nervous systems aren't online, how are we supposed to do anything helpful? But there's a lot of nuance here too, because there is a certain amount of discomfort that those of us situated within or adjacent to whiteness need to face and work through. And trauma healing isn't as simple as just doing the above practice. (Alia and I are going to actually sign up for April Harter's year-long coaching offering, and hopefully will get a lot more clarity there.) 

But this is a place I think we can start.

What do you think? Also interested in how the "ritual as justice" somatic work may dovetail with this "inner justice" inquiry.

<3 Tessa

The In Between Time

Hello loves.

Writing from the strange in between time in which I find myself, where my semester is over but not totally over and I'm getting better after being really sick but not totally better and my nervous system is calming after being really activated a lot recently but not totally calm.

I'm also going to get my period any day now, and I'm feeling the flux of hormones in my body, the extra sensitivity and irritation and difficulty sleeping and mood swings and deep sadness and anger processing through me. I'm thinking about how in tune fenix is with the rhythms of their bleeding cycle and how much permission they give themself to be with what they know they need in different parts of their cycle...I don't feel as much awareness around my cycle, except in the week leading up to it, when it announces itself with sore breasts and sore pelvic bowl and extra irritation and migraines and mood swings and trouble sleeping. And sometimes, like this time, with getting really sick.

I had been going non stop for a while, though trying to pace myself, motivated both by self-care and love and by fear of getting really sick if I overdid it. It was going alright, but then the workshop that was supposed to happen in March and had to be rescheduled (for obvious reasons) snuck up and jumped on me. Workshops in my program are intensive all-day things that happen on two consecutive Saturdays, and this one had been rescheduled for the last two Saturdays in the semester.

So my careful rationing of energy, fitting everything I needed to do into the time I had available with enough time around it for me to take care of myself, fell through the floor. I started trying to readjust things and postpone things that could be postponed to make room for it, but in the end there was no getting around the enormous drain on my energy.

The workshop itself was actually really wonderful, it was on Facilitation and Dialogue, and run by my adviser, a very cool person. It was his class that Tessa and I sat in on when we came to visit the school in 2018, and that was the main reason I felt really good and excited about actually enrolling (because the weird tour and everything else was so unimpressive lol). But I hadn't actually had a class with him until this, so I was excited about it. It was really lovely...he always makes time for everyone to free write while listening to beautiful music, and he uses storytelling to teach, and he arranged the structure of the day really well, trying to take into consideration that a workshop via zoom is a different kind of thing (he didn't actually have us be on zoom from 9-5 for instance, just from 9-2:30, which was really helpful).

But in between the two Saturdays, I ended up having to spend hours and hours prepping for the final assignment in my Media and Conflict class, which honestly I had been struggling with and dreading all semester. It was about monitoring and analyzing mass media, and everyone had picked topics at the beginning of the semester to monitor. I had, unfortunately, picked the primaries, because I wanted a topic I really cared about, and at the time I very much thought things would go differently. And because our professor wanted us to do this with partners, one of my class mates signed on as well.

Even when things with the primaries weren't total shit, though, I was having trouble engaging with the three news sources we were supposed to be monitoring - CNN, NBC/MSNBC, and Fox. Ugh. I honestly hate all of them with a passion, and find looking at them physically toxic. So I hadn't really been keeping up with them all semester, and my partner hadn't really either, what with all the disruption, and also because we hadn't really narrowed down our specific focus until the very end.

We decided to focus on the media's treatment of Bernie before and after he dropped out / before and after coronavirus. So I ended up going on each of the three media sights and searching Bernie Sanders and going through months of articles, copying and pasting the ones that seemed relevant.

God, it was exhausting, disheartening, depressing, anger-inducing...and I did this for hours and hours over several days...I hate mass media so much, wow. I mean, it was certainly interesting to see the extreme machinations of the corporate media glamour machine, but it was also really hard on my subtle bodies.

And then I had class and then I had another workshop and then my partner and I met to try to get somewhere with all of this and she had started putting together a power point but hadn't been able to narrow down which articles we should focus on so we ended up spending the whole time figuring that out, and drawing some preliminary conclusions. I was trying not to feel frustrated with her, because she's super super busy in her last semester of grad school and trying to help her sister keep her restaurant afloat, I honestly have no idea how she's doing all of that. But at this point I did kind of feel like I had done a lot more work on this project than she had. And we only had one more day before we had to present it.

Aaaaand....the next day, the day before our presentation, when we were going to try to finish analyzing all these articles and putting it all together and everything, I woke up so sick I could barely move. I could barely open my eyes or get out of bed. And I still tried to start doing the work. But after awhile I had to recognize that there was no way I could do all of that and probably no way I could even show up to class to present.

My partner and my professor were very understanding, at least in their texts/emails. At the time I didn't even feel conflicted about it at all, because it was so clear that I really had no choice in the matter. I took it very easy that day and the next day I slept through almost the whole time that I would have been in class.

I realized at some point that what was going on was this virus thing that I've been dealing with off and on for a year. It starts with a rash, and then I feel a little extra tired, and then it hits me like a freight train. And I think it almost always gets me right around that week before my period. And it definitely gets triggered by stress, so the stress of the end of the semester and the workshop and not sleeping enough and really, the stress of those fucking news articles...the grief and pain of what the fucking mass media did to Bernie's campaign, the lengths they went to to stop him and then to turn around and flat out deny that they were trying to stop him...the gaslighting, the baldfaced corruption hiding behind layers and layers of intricately recursive glamour...god, it was evil, and it was awful to go through that in depth tour of it. It made me so, so physically sick, and I'm still dealing with the ways that it effected me.

And I'm also dealing with my feelings about having to miss that last class, the last class of the semester, and feeling guilty about my partner having to present half-prepared by herself, and feeling like I have no closure, and still not being sure if we're going to have to redo the presentation and send in a recording of it...which I really, really don't want to do, because this fucking assignment made me sick to my soul. But another part of me really wanted to do it, wanted to fucking officially analyze how shitty and screwed up the media is in their treatment of Bernie. But I don't think I actually can do it. It hurts too much.

But this whole thing is also bringing up all this stuff about having to miss so many things in my life because of being sick, and all of the misunderstanding I've gotten about it, and I have all of this fear come up that my partner hates me now and thinks I really let her down...and then I feel angry because I did so much hard work on this assignment that it actually made me sick....and part of me feels like my contribution is meaningless now because I couldn't do the final part...but I don't think any of that is really true. My partners texts to me were really understanding and she thanked me for doing so much work on the articles. This whole situation just brings SO MUCH SHIT UP from so many different angles, so many different times in my life...

And now I have one final assignment from that class before I can be done with it (unless we have to redo out presentation, which I really hope not), and that's to write a one to two page paper just reflecting on the class and my experience and what I got out of it. He changed that from having to write out a more in depth analysis of our mass media project, which I am grateful for, because again - I don't think I can touch that subject anymore. But even this reflection paper was feeling really hard, because I had all of this stuff in the way, all of these intense feelings about how this final assignment went and how I got so sick at the very end of it, and couldn't even finish out the class with everyone. I wanted to be there at that final class, get to discuss and debrief the semester with everyone, get to say goodbye. Now it feels so strange for it to just have ended....no more waking up at eight AM and rolling out of bed and onto zoom....haha. But I'll miss it, as strange as that was.

Talking it out with Tessa really helped though, and writing it out here. It's been a really overwhelming couple of weeks. It's been a weird fucking semester. I started it out feeling so crappy, and I was having such a hard time for the first half of it, because I just felt so physically awful and I didn't feel like I could get my momentum going and I couldn't keep up with the mountains of reading and was struggling emotionally with feeling like I could do any of it. Then the pandemic hit and campus shut down and sent everybody reeling, but weirdly that actually really helped me, because suddenly I had permission to be struggling, there was so much understanding, because everybody was now struggling. That was actually really healing for me. And I no longer needed to actually get myself out of the house and drive myself to school and struggle to find parking and walk up a giant hill to get to class, I just had to get on zoom. And partially with the help of these things, and partially because of the natural cycling of things in my body and in my being, I started to feel way better than I had in quite a while.

And I spent most of the second half of the semester feeling really good, navigating lockdown really well, feeling really close to Tessa, feeling really hopeful and happy about school. Before these last couple weeks that really overloaded me, I had been feeling consistently better than I have probably since I was a child. And that's really amazing. I'm trying to remind myself of that, and remind myself that it will come back, even as these last few days have been really hard, since I got sick and am going up and down a lot as I heal. But even with that, I'm healing faster than ever from one of these virus episodes. And a lot of the physical pain and discomfort I've been having I think is really related to all of the deep emotions I'm processing...

I want to feel good. I want to dance. I want to be in my body. I want to play music, I want to sing, I want to create tools and spaces of healing for people. When I'm not feeling good I have so much stuff come up, from all of the years that all of those things felt so out of reach. But I know they're actually closer than ever. I know I'm getting ready to actually move into my power and my flow.

I miss you, Isabella. I loved your last post, by the way. I haven't been able to comment because things have been so crazy and I've been finding it hard to communicate. But I loved it, and I read it at a time when I really needed to hear about the things you were talking about <3 <3 <3 and the story that you shared about the belly and the head and the heart was sooooo nourishing and real and good and part of what I'm going through too.

I'm reminding myself that it's okay not to feel good. It's okay for things to feel hard. It's okay not to know how things are going to turn out. It's okay to slow down and rest. It's okay to just breathe and enjoy the moment. It's okay to feel weird and sad. And things are healing at a deep level within me. It's been a weird semester, but I have done a lot of amazing things with it, and there are more amazing things to come. It feels weird to feel so hopeful and positive in the middle of global crisis, but in some ways it's the global crisis itself that's making me feel so hopeful and positive. I've lived so long in a constant state of personal disruption, to have that disruption mirrored on a global scale gives me hope that things are cracking open, that things are getting ready to change in big ways, that there will actually be room for change and possibility for change in places where there wasn't before. For sure, nothing will be the same after this. And I'm glad.

Love you both so much.

<3 <3 <3

Alia

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!