rocking this change…9-14-20

This world’s rocking us.  For a breath or two, feel that right here.  Just shift your weight right.  Feel the momentary relief of settling into “new normal” on one side.  Then feel the rug pulled out as you move left.  Don’t settle there.  Now shift right.  Back and forth.   Back and forth.  Until the rug pull itself is the “new normal.”  Keep rocking.  Keep rocking until maybe you just become the change itself. 
 
Living is all about change and teaching is such a metaphor for living.  After six months of continuous change, I’m aware of some deep resistance to all the shifts, even in my little teaching world.  Paralyzed sometimes. So I was surprised how deeply I treasured holding us in that sense of being rocked in Sunday Sweat Zoom-land.  It felt like maybe, just maybe, I finally entered the flow of human/earth events, moved with things exactly how they were, offered up what I could with the means in my possession.
 
What I had in my possession was a strong imprint of the previous day.  An evening on the smoke-filled north coast debating about traveling or scampering on home.  Body check: accelerated heartbeat, shallow breath, jumpy tense low back, butterfly belly, utter brain fog.  Classic sensations of fear.  Our body’s brilliant way of saying beware, be aware, listen, prepare for action.  I went to bed.
 
Rose early, entirely gut clear.  Get up, get packed, get home.  A couple tense route decision moments, pervasive dense smoke…but seven hours later we were at our doorstep.  Disappointed and grateful all wrapped together.  So it turns out I had all day Saturday to sink into Sunday’s teaching, curious what I might harvest from this experience. 
 
I put on music, moved to let in those memorable fear sensations.  Danced from confusion to clarity and back again.  Danced the difference between panic and calm, everything in between.  Felt shapes of dread and excitement, noticed how similar they can be.  Let my weight shift right left right left right left until I became the change. Moving faster than I could think, right in the flow of human/earth events.  The opposite of paralyzed, in resistance.  In no time it wasn’t about me anymore.  Tapped into the global, humanity unified in the face of our biggest fear, which might just be change.  Change itself.  Delivered finally to a felt sense of being watched over, protected, secure, safe at least in this moment.
 
Then I assembled the installation pictured above, inspired by these lines from this poem:
…all of our bones someday fall softly down to meet earth.
When you stand, send your roots down between the stones….
 
Altar complete, I pulled out my cards: “What do you have to tell me about fear and change?”  My left hand hovered over the spread deck a long time, one card shined, I pulled it.  COURAGE, a synchronistic place for it already present on the altar, a bridge connecting the two rock structures.  A  flower struggling to sprout skyward from between rocks.
 
And so on Sunday morning I held space for the intrepid Zoom voyagers to embody this journey from fear toward courage.  Maybe it’s a universal journey right now.  What exactly are we afraid of?  7.8 billion answers.  But might you too sense the embrace beneath our individual fears? Perhaps our deepest fear, the fear that unifies us all, is change. 
 
Somehow I feel like I’m on board for that now in a way that I wasn’t before.  Don’t get me wrong.  The shift is not making my life easy.  But a lot of energy can be expended on waiting.  And denial.  And resistance.  And paralysis.  I just need every available ounce for other stuff.  And what I get after this weekend’s experience is that some of that other stuff is teaching.  For the way it serves you, for sure.  But the leap I just made now happened because of the way teaching is serving me.  Funny thing…teaching. 

Carve out 5:15 Wednesday if you want support for dropping deep inside your body in a fresh new way.  Thursday and Friday 10:00 to drop in there in the most essential way.  Sunday Sweat 9:45—who knows what might be revealed?  The earth is rockin’ us; let’s rock together. 

So much love for the universe of us….Bella