Poetic Revelations: Cosmic Play
Connecting the dots, with Body Wisdom
The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is here and now. ~~ James Burroughs
Because Human-ing is harder than Adulting. This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, swimming through this thing called Life.
Selected Poems:
Blessings for Sound, David Whyte
The Lord is In Me, Rumi
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
NEWS: I am having fun connecting the dots on happenings in my life that reveal a larger picture, beyond the 3-D perspective I normally have. I feel like a Cosmic Architect finding connection amongst the breadcrumbs, tuning into the Mystery and how it Plays in my life.
Connecting the Dots. A business card from an InterPlay playmate sites on my desk for a year. She is a Feldenkreis practitioner and for 3 years, I have been dealing with significant pain along my right leg. Knee, hip, then foot. The creaky crickety-ness of it all makes me feel old before my time. I especially struggle with reconciling these symptoms with the light and buoyancy I feel in my chest. I wonder, How can this be when everything else is coming up with such promise, when I am wading into my mission?
I want my wholeness back. I make an appointment. I update my password with the same intention. When I take my next step in the world professionally, I want to land with a sense of assuredness.
Very soon, I begin having sciatic pain up and down my right leg. Now what? First tweaks of pain, then full-on cascades of unfurling pain. The pain is unpredictable. I immediately curtail my mobility, walking tiny steps, taking stairs slowly. The doctor suggests Advil and an MRI.
The next day, I see the practitioner. She receives me with compassion and ease. Within minutes, I feel, sense, know that she is operating at the same frequency as my body. She respects my body’s choices, knowing it is behaving this way for good reason. She works with the pace of my body, sensitive to the gentility my right hip is demanding.
My Body responds quickly. Finally, someone who understands me, it seems to cry. I feel tightness in the hip and glute, but this time I feel it as a plaintive tenderness my Body has been holding on my behalf. My Body feels seen, heard but most of all, it feels held by this woman. Feeling safe, it starts to release and relax. Like this, she works increment by increment so my body only moves when relaxed. Like this my body moves how much it wants, freely, without paine. Like this, we let my Body show us the way.
I leave moving gently but with no hesitation. The pain diminishes the next day and disappears the day after that. After the next appointment, I have a bounce in my step; I can sit cross-legged again. I am starting to move better than I have in 3 years.
Skeletal Joy. The Cosmic Play in this that by doubling down on my intention for sure-footedness, my Conscious Self in essence says to my Subconscious, Hey, I want this. My Subconscious replies, “Great, here is some pain. Have fun with that.” This is another sign of Big Love—what’s best of us sometimes shows up as Discomfort.
This is all about surrendering to my Body’s natural gait, to its natural leadership. This is in conrast to my leadership. As an achiever, I’ve jerked myself around, “heading” from one place to another, as if the destination defines my adequacy and worth. This practitioner even explains: self doubt accumulates in our bones. My body has a natural gait, and all of this is allowing my skeletal structure to operate the way it was designed to. I feel it radiating Joy; it’s just so Happy that I’m learning the program. My skeleton is Alive.
Achieving is about There. The pain simply wants to bring me Here.
Being Here. Here, I am re-learning how to sit, get up, and walk. Walking with my shoulders, not legs. Sitting on my sits-bones, noticing the natural S curve of my spine, allowing my opposite shoulder to lift my other hip up out of a chair. The creakiness is going away. My foot is pronating towards my in-step again when it lands on the ground.
My Body still holds a plaintive tenderness in my right hip. The Pain wants me to notice this. It has to do with the Pressure I place on myself. I am now sensing it has to do with how I limit my movement in the world. I see this especially as I re-learn how to bend. This is the root issue. I can use the power in my knees and legs to lift me up. I have been misplacing the pressure of my weight on my lower back, a tiny metaphor for how I’m habitually outsourcing my power by seeking outside support. My upbringing, my mother and father story —they are all in here.
Surrendering to my Body’s natural leadership means surrendering my habituated limits.
Cosmic Play. The Cosmic Play is showing up in many other places in my life: in the steps I am taking to become a professional Somatic Intelligence practitioner, the organizations and people saying yes to my invitations, in the book I am writing. Feeling these connections across different spaces of my Life is like watching fireflies flit ON and OFF in the late dusk of a summer evening. Little Glimmers of the Mystery I am surrounded by and get to be part of. I can feel my Life happening For Me.
The Body speaks in one of the most gentlest voices on the planet. Here, there is much more to learn about these unfoldings. (I can’t believe I can feel downright joy in my Skeleton!) For now, I want to leave you with the wisdom of this Rumi quote:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
Always your Life is nudging you to Self Love. Always. Once you love away the lower vibrations, you vibrate even higher where the Universe comes in to Play more.
With so much Love for you, your journey and your unfolding.
Stay #heartwoke.
Monisha
Yes to working with a sensitive, skillful body wise prationner! have been addressing knee, feet, sciatic issues over the last few years. It's interesting the mention of skeletal joy. I learned once that pain is meant to process through bones and when it goes into muscle or other systems it causes problems.A PT taught me not to resist pain so much. Pain is a brain signal that can get stuck in the "on" position if I work on it too much. Easier said than done when we are highly sensitive. My mother had numerous knee surgeries and my dad was a long distance runner. My reactions to their mobility issues play a role in my resistance to pain and recovery. I am learning not to baby myself. Not to veer toward comfort, but instead welcome the complexity of it all. Thank you Monisha for your gorgeous reflection!