 These are stories of stories. The tellings of the work I do. All situations are true accounts. All realms are included. All things are shared with permission. Names are omitted for privacy.
................................................................................................... . . . . She sits down as she holds her arms close to her body. The little gap between her ribs and her forearm is just a sliver but cradles lifetimes of tension. She has come to find the parts and layers that have become buried. Her eyes seem as though they are always a bit ocean like. Salty. She lives on the edge of complete emotion and numbness; the thread that weaves together the innocence of childhood and a future that has always felt heavy for no explicable reason. Pressure comes like waves that bare down on her as she tries to keep her lungs inflated with enough breath that the force doesn't collapse her. I take her hand and place my fingers at the point on the outside of her wrist. The balancer of the nervous system. When I touch her body I get the sensation of squeezing, as though the space inside is being replaced by something pressing against her. I close my eyes and see mothers and fathers of fathers. The tension runs through. There is a cord, it ties old patterns through generations. With one swift intention it's cut. Simply. With honor. As we travel deeper we do not avoid the tension. There is no skirting around. Everything has intelligence. We let the pressure speak. It tells her it had come to fetch her. To wake her. It was the only way it knew how to call her to her depths. Like a storm that forces the sapling's roots to grow deeper, out of necessity. Out of balance. This is the language of nature. Not the balance of the scales. The balance of what follows the next, what gives life or lies down because of the force of something else. This isn't merely cause and effect, but it is the web that quivers when one strand is touched. The mind. We call in the mind. The Ally of the observer and the lens of perception. 'What if,' we ask the mind, what if this force, is but a loving intelligence leading her into herself? Guiding her into the cave of her own power?' We stay in the woods surrounded by the tall trees, our elders, for many hours. We stay, and with the rattle of the seeds in their pouch, and the boughs of the cedar we talk to the insides and the outsides until they flow into one. Until it is no longer the grip of the unknown, but the guidance of something both within and without. Raven comes and so does deer. They come not because they are called, but because they are connected. Because when you weave one part of the web, it all quivers. I'm holding the points on her wrists again. There is a river of energy moving down her arm into her body. Into her womb. There is a conversation happening between her nervous system and the place she created life. They had been shut off from one another. Just now the river runs through. Almost a lifetime of catching up. Her womb speaks of babies she's nurtured into creation and her nervous system hums about years of exhausting vigilance against a stimulus of fear. They speak until both relax into a mutual agreement that the fear was false and they settle into the awe of accomplishment despite. Raven calls out and I hear deer's hoof steps in the branches off to the right. The earth is still damp beneath us. The canopy has shaded us from the sun. Here we are held. I place my hands on her feet. I press into the big toe points. Merge the spirit with the body. Her body shimmies slightly as I hold concentrated pressure and a sweep of heat comes through. It is complete in this moment. The whole web quivers.
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 A day in the life
Wake up to early morning light and big brown eyes saying, 'mom, I'm starving'. Go gather apricots from the tree, greens from the garden and make smoothie. Go back and pick, gather the rest of the sun drenched apricots that have ripened over night, help youngest son out of tree. Do not rescue, instead, patiently and slowly guide his little feet with your voice a route down. Enjoy his satisfied and proud leap to the ground from the last branch. Cut and freeze apricots. Sit down to work on healers training manual you are writing. Look up to a familiar voice saying mom I'm starving. Feed little bodies fresh wholesome food. Go out into back yard, put your bare feet in the grass, move. Get upside down. Breathe in the achingly vibrant color of the morning glories. Check garden, find two cucumbers tucked among the leaves, give them to the boys to munch on. Go inside and sand and mud the entrance way walls by the stairs, trying to do bits of renos each day. Sit down to work on another big project you are co creating. See those big eyes coming towards you with that hollow leg attached. Eat lunch with the boys and talk about the ocean and how crazy cool the goblin shark is. Go outside, pick raspberries and gooseberries. Listen to oldest son explain his idea to modify one of his lego clone mini figures. Spend half an hour helping sand, polish and paint a little helmet and body to his desired vision. Revel in his joy and pride at creating something unique. Do load of laundry. scrub toilet. Work at computer. Go check yard for water needs in blazing sun. Ask the now curling blooms of the morning glories why they choose to leave so soon. Listen as they tell you they are merely an expression of the whole, they simply bow out to make room for more blooms tomorrow. I contemplate this as I pluck one of the retreating flowers and rub its brilliant violet into my arm and wrist. Skin to skin. Ill try to let its stain of color remind me through the day to let go of what needs to be. Gather boys, food, and drop boys off at sister's. Do healing sessions with clients. Unravel personal and family stories stored in bodies, in ligaments, in muscles, in hearts and in minds. Watch as people transform their pain, their loss, their confusion into understanding and release. Feel that familiar overwhelming gratitude for this work. Be in awe of the inexplicable beauty you see in each person. Pick up the boys, go grocery shopping. Try to maneuver them, and the two wheelie carts they each wanted to have, through the store as they regale you with tales of giant fish seen while canoeing with uncle while you were at work. Smile as they insist on carrying the groceries out to the car. Arrive home, unpack, with hovering bodies and a voice that says, mom, I'm starving'. Make dinner while Facetiming with my mindfulwonderer from his locale in the middle of the Sahara, and talk about which plants we need to plant in our yard to keep the bees happy through August and September. Eat with the boys outside in the grass and laugh at their silly jokes. Work a bit more. Jump on trampoline with boys as last giggles of the night. get boys washed up and in bed. Do distance skype healing session. Wash up, realize I didn't get to work on my canvas that is sitting in the studio with 4 white beech tree silhouettes, or research the things I needed to for tomorrow. Look down at my arm and see the purple stain of the morning glory. Sigh and let it go.  and still I write bare boned, bleached out my words, like buckets descending into my well pouring water at the mouths of rivers until the vessel is spent and still I write scooping unrelenting digging my words tunneling through my body hauling stone weighted emotions to my surfaces Honesty cracking me open and still I write raw and unending my words, like cicadas released from the sky descending into my fields drowning my being in a cacophony eaten desolate and still I write |
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