letters from a healing jouney

letters from a healing jouney

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

just sit there

Tomorrow I'm going to the desert, and there I am going to sit for a total of ten hours a day for ten days.  A hundred hours, sitting on the floor.

My body will probably hurt.  I have no idea what else will happen.

While I'm there I will also not be talking, reading, or writing.  I will have no verbal outlet for the train of thought in my mind, so I imagine I will learn to quiet it, and focus on things other than words, like how I feel and where I am right now.

Maybe.  I'm not even trying to guess.  It might be the opposite of what I expect, as is always a possibility.

Monday, January 5, 2009

changing and staying the same

For so long I identified as A Free Little Bird, a swallow/"golandrina", and I would fly wherever I wanted and listen to my instincts and learn from life all the time.  Now it feels like all of a sudden I have this big ol' house and these amazing housemates and my little plum tree and I just don't want to go ANYWHERE.  Thank you, Universe, for that.  I get to sit and press my roots as deep down as I can, and draw up the life and nutrients that come from Sinking In.  I have made new relationships and sunk more deeply into older ones.  I feel like my little world could nourish me forever right where I am and I would continue to grow and be challenged and all of that forever.

Except for the fact that the time for change is coming.  The call to action actually came a couple of months ago, but I listened to the call of Unfinished Business and I have decided to start my metamorphosis while staying in place, then moving away once the sun thaws me out a bit.

Adventure!

Why do we go?  Why do we ever stay?  How do we know when is the time for each?

Sometimes I know how to Listen: listen to my own body and emotions, listen to the plants and people around me.  More often though, I simply worry: worry that things are not quite right, that there must be something more Awesome out there.  Worrying, I will tell you, totally gets in the way of Listening.  This time though, Life stood up and smacked me across the head and said, "Get a move on, girl, you're ready for something new now!" and I was like, "Daaaaang, World, alright already!" and that, basically, is why I'm moving.  That whole conversation took about three months.  Like I said, I'm working on listening.

Again I ask: why do we go seek adventure?  Isn't everything we need to know right here in front of us?  In our own mothers and fathers, in the food we grew up eating and the air we have always breathed?  I would say yes, it is.  For me, changing my context simply means that I can suddenly See and appreciate all those little things that I always took for granted at Home.  The subtle different reminds me how special is the Mundane.  I guess it's just time for a reminder, to awaken my sense of Wonder at Everything.

At the same time, in a way, this coming adventure will be a journey towards Home, and not away.  Even though I will move away from the people and places I most identify with as a part of me and as my community, I will be moving far closer to the land I walked and rode a bike (and mostly drove in cars) on in my childhood.  Closer to the culture of Image Awareness and Fitting In I so easily dismissed as a younger woman, and now am looking forward to engaging with and Looking at square in the face.

What will happen to my Path as a healer and a lover of Health and healing and human bodies?  I have lots of guesses, and lots of plans, and lots of acknowledgement that my life is not my own and I don't need to hold on to it so tightly if I don't want to.  I will keep learning, I will keep growing, I will keep touching other people and stay open to the movement of the Creator in my own little life and in Life all around me, and all of us will see together what happens to each of us, okay?  

Life is exciting!