inching toward union…. 1/6/15

I had opportunity and loving support to bathe in deep silence for a long-short two and a half days. Long enough to know my busy and future-oriented mind, which is not new information. In the quiet frigid days there was beauty sprinkled, as well. I walked across forest floor meditating into an eternity reflected in plant decay at my feet, enjoyed the pure and intense physical pleasure of just breathing, marveled at delightfully easy heart access. And for about an hour, well into the second day, a clear sense of teaching territory spontaneously revealed itself.

To welcome this with me, ground yourself, enjoy the pure and intense physical pleasure of just breathing: Receive the in-breath into left side body, feel your feminine earth body roots. Express the out-breath clearly into the world via right side body, know your masculine fiery heart nature. Repeat several times until it feels true.

Collect the next in-breath through entire back body, let your watery nature dissolve feminine-masculine into a degree of union, backed by community, past and present. Breathe out front body, grateful for air, aligned with your soul’s presence in the world. Repeat several times until it feels true.

Breathe in through the soles of your feet down deep in earth. Draw breath up through center and out crown, as high as you can manifest. Feel the still center of your being awaiting. Greet spirit as you exhale down the same route. Repeat several times until it feels true.

That middle piece, the territory of back body, capability to dissolve into a degree of divine feminine/sacred masculine union…this landscape calls me. In 5Rhythms practice we’re talking chaos. No surprise this community (including myself here!) has a maturity that demands a deepening of this domain. Integration of these poles – to feel, to understand, to appreciate, to utilize – develops in fits and spurts over a lifetime. There are times we are quite at odds within, more battleground than happy union in there. And the unique way this manifests within is reflected in all our outside relationships. Including how we show up on the dance floor.

So it was with a bit of trepidation I gently invited us to dance this question Sunday: “Sometimes this is what comes up for me about being a man/woman on this dance floor.” You had a lot to say and then you moved with it. And then you had a lot more to say. Many of us can airy-fairy talk about the “illusion of separation”, we can glibly intellectualize about one-ness. We glimpse possibility. I’m totally interested in the mechanics of this so-called illusion, because it does not feel like an illusion when we suffer about not belonging or we are unsure about when, where and how to draw boundaries or we have very complicated rules around trust or we would choose any route other than the intimate one, or we are quite sure that life (or the dance floor) would be perfect except for this one person or when being triggered has become a predictable outcome, excuse or default. None of this separation feels like an illusion.

I’ve been married 42 years, two friggin’ thirds of my life..to the same man, no less. I remember past monumental battlegrounds in our relationship; truly they were reflections of my interior world. I am not going to tell you I have it all integrated now. Sorry. We still have our skirmishes, still paralleled on the inside. But to a certain extent, a quiet peaceful truce has developed over the last decade compared to the early ones. That’s why I need your help. This Thursday we’ll dance (of course!) and expand what we did on Sunday…a little more talk, a little more fleshing out.

I want to hear from you, I want to co-create with you, I want to shape our practice to serve whatever we feel our needs are. I know we need to ground, be fluid, receptive and I know we need to be clear-hearted in our expression. We need to shake it all out and land in a real place of integrity, not some look alike, feel good, reasonable facsimile of alignment. I know this is a tall order. Other than posing the question, I’m pretty unsure about how to create answers. But I trust our practice. And you. I invite you to come out and create this for yourself, for each other, for us.

And check out that sidebar. January 22 is the early bird deadline for AGE. Promise to write about that in more detail next week. Movement as Medicine March 15 is moving to the front burner. Ditto on more detail next week.

Of course, this would be Rumi: “…How much longer do I have to wonder apart? Take me back to love’s first place where we were in union…”

Inching toward union….bella