Poetic Revelations: A Fine Balance
Seeing the line in-between
“If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective.”
~ Mark Nepo
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Because Human-ing is harder than Adulting. This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, swimming through this thing called Life.
Selected Readings and Sounds:
The Sky Keeps Surprises, Ahmad Almallah
I am asked a question, Jane Hirschfield
Kathy’s Song, Paul Simon (writer)
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
Just like the country, I’m in a strange place I haven’t been. This letter is about finding myself standing in an epic in-between time, between an old way of being and a new one. It’s been harrowing. I was struggling mightily, until I found a line of sight. Nature and body wisdom led me. First the funnies:
In other news, my girlfriend showed me the cartwheel emoji on my phone. 🤸🏾♀️Did you know this existed? I love its exuberant feel yet I also notice that it is the first time my emoji is doing something that I really haven’t done?
My 5 year old’s niece POV upon what she liked about receiving a dance mat as a birthday present from my parents: “Well, we already had one but … now we don’t have to fight about taking turns.” Smiles. That’s great little one. 😅
Announcement: I1 have the pleasure of being the Viva Center’s Holistic Presentation for Growth speaker this month! You can earn CEUs.
First, Nothingness. For those operating in the 3D to 5D realm, alignment is everything. In fact, motivation is simply an alignment of your inner energies with your outer actions. Yet...what if your inner energies remain strangely silent and still?
For months now, I can’t find my source fuel, for anything. As this video’s title suggests, I was losing all motivation, drive and purpose. Not feeling myself, I roamed mapless, feeling lost. I could barely remember my vision. This unmooring chipped away at truths which had formed over the past five years, shaped by the self that was authentically emerging. But Where am I? Where does it lead me?
It feels as if the river I've been swimming in spat me into vast ocean. A nothingness, wide and deep. How to orient here? All the old markers were gone. My outer circumstances were taking their toll. Whether home, marriage, finances, health or profession, all I could feel was the acute lack of unmet wants. Almallah’s poem The Sky Keeps Surprises tenderly nails my insides.
the wound is bleeding into white
the wound is threading clouds
across the eye, across its view
and how can it be
that I am
caught
by the end of this road
by the beginning of a faraway
flame
off guard
Reading the whole poem, I too wonder if I was “a follower of clouds”, “a sort of clown” for those watching.
Seeing the Line. I go on a walk and let the grief hit me. I can't help but cry. Maybe I'm not who I thought I was. Maybe this is too hard and I'm not up for it. Suddenly, I choose to slow down, placing one foot in front of the other intentionally, like a walking meditation. In a couple of seconds, I feel...gratitude.
Oh look, my feet seemed to say, I can place one foot in front of the other.
A gate opens in my heart where gratitude keeps going: for the ground I walk on, the air and sky, the new professional relationships I am building, the support I am receiving. I marvel at abruptness of this shift. It's as if I'm standing right on a line, in the middle of darkness on one side, light on the other. I can dip into one or the other in an instant. It’s a fine balance. The gate in my heart seems to manage the flow.
Nature’s Magic. This line of sight keeps expanding. To fill my cup, I hike up Sugarloaf Mountain. I notice mountain laurel growing bravely out of cliffside. In this moment, I am happy with my time, ok with not knowing. I'm LIVING.
That night, after co-leading a transformative 14-week course where participants visibly shifted through InterPlay Body Wisdom tools, my heart swells with the fullness of what we created and shared. Going out for a walk to integrate my experience, I step into the summer twilight. Here I remember:
This line between light and dark in twilight has its own magic. I can linger here.
An experience with another meditation that focuses on bringing your 5D to 3D reminds me that my desires are right here, in my field, ready to come into fruition. What if I surrender to the nothingness? (Notes from the field: working on it!!)
The Why Questions. Later, I hear Paul Simon's Kathy's Song play in my head. These words leap out to me, sweet, gentle, sad:
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.
~ Paul Simon, Kathy’s Song
Yes, here are my guides affirming my present experience with a song I love but haven’t thought of in decades. This isn’t an usual ebb and flow—there is an old and a new to this dark and light, a loss of knowing—and my body feels it.
Now, I’m curious. I have Why questions. At least one fat Why is leaving—I was driven by an inner child wound that needed to stick out, find differentiation. As that fear and lack leave, the underlying drive, the outward conditions I was striving for also leaves. Now I wonder, what are my truer Why’s? For my relationships, my money, my work, my play? These questions feel like opportunity.
My Body Speaks. I schedule sacred movement time with a wise IP leader where I dance on behalf of my Why’s. (Yes, we do that!) My body reveals not one but three of my Why’s. First, it told me I am legit tired. I have been working hard. Beneath this, it shows me my professional why: feeling alive and curious in the moment. Then a third Why appears: to take in the scene and rest in what I’ve helped create. I especially notice that I’m not interested in putting extra effort or polish in my movements. This is my favorite reveal. It highlights the hubris of my prior embellishments. Jane Hirshfield has this same seasoned self-gaze in I am Asked a Question:
My life asks me a question.
I suggest a better question
one I like more the sound of,
with more pleasing grammar.
My life humors me.
My life asks me that.
No wonder I didn’t feel anything! The new motivation, from service not identity, is still arriving. Here, my heart-mind has peace. I can have time to integrate, take it easy and make room for this in my body. This liminal space reveals much—it stands between invisible and visible, not knowing and new knowing, ego and heart, suffering and curiosity, and even more than I can know.
Amazingly, others have the same experience. Even though I wanted to quit, I’m glad I stuck with my human experience, because I might have by-passed burning off needed ego-muck if I didn’t. Remain true to yourself, you can trust far more than you know!
To your exquisite unfolding. Stay #heartwoke!
Monisha
When we belong to ourselves, we move freely. ~ Monisha Mittal
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Hi! I am a Somatic Practitioner and Play Architect. Between the ages of 4-6, I was separated twice from the family unit I called home. The second time I returned to my family of origin. This led to a high level of anxiety and depression that plagued me most of my life. Over the past five years, I’ve been climbing into my body and heart through an embodied play practice called InterPlay. With no dance background, here I found a deep assurance, compassion and joy in my body as I moved and spoke; it wasn’t mental but felt and sensed. Not only did I step into greater embodied presence, more of my own vitality and truth came alive. I laugh more readily, trust my life, and want to build relationships on honesty and joy. I learned I have a sensitive-body and how anxiety was a valid response to the spaces I was in. I am now trying to forge a new career path using InterPlay as an expressive arts therapy. I am in awe of how our bodies nudge us to our truth.