The Only Way Out is Through
This is an unaltered photo of Sunflower growing wild on the land I tend, 2022.
Originally posted March 30, 2023 on substack
It is absolutely overwhelming to me at times that I am with a body on Earth. Made of Earth. That I am the Earth, right now, in this time and space. Animated Earth. The magnitude and minitude are like tumbling with your own shadow down a sunny, prairie-top slope midsummer.. and midwinter for that matter. When a body is in pain, this awareness is deepened. The pain that can wake you in the night.
I began intentionally engaging with my body in 2015 before I began any of my actualized study toward the healing arts. My partner had been experiencing chronic pain that affected many aspects of our life. I had been researching meditation as a way to help alleviate pain and came across a guided meditation that piqued my interest.
The first time I listened, I was lying on my bed naked and hungover, in pain myself, feeling exasperated and sad. I remember listening to the words. Speaking of the body as a Being all their own, with an attitude and aspirations apart from my conscious mind. The body does all sorts of activities without our direct knowledge all day every day. As these realizations poured over me, I remember holding individual parts of my body and weeping. I wept in sadness, apologizing for the years of neglect. Yet, I also found myself weeping in pure ecstasy for my newly remembered reverence for this Sacred, knowing Creature before me. So gentle, so patient, so quiet I almost forgot She was there. It was that day I realized I could have a relationship with my body, we could interact. I asked Her to teach me the language she spoke. Ever since I have made it a priority to engage with my body and the intelligence inherent within.
Much of it started with me showing up for myself. Taking the time to slow down, to be with myself in the present. To breathe. Each breath taking me deeper into myself. I let my belly loose, unraveling the organs in my gut until they become heavy, allowing gravity to set them where they are designed. After my belly softens my brain begins to quiet. The more I show up for myself, the greater my capacity to show up absolutely anywhere else.
In 2016 I began my formal herbal studies. These perspectives I had begun to learn with my body, were made manifest in the lessons I received from this vast, global tradition. The magic of the Natural world was alive inside me and cracked me open like the nut I am! I was being offered a more accurate understanding of this limitless, imaginal, nuanced world. I was hearing words, feeling sensations that were embedded in my soul framework. This philosophy, this lifestyle, this way of being is part of the underpinnings of who I am in this world. A light shown on what was inside all along. I was able to call my truth forward in a way not previously known to me. Allowing me to be a resource and authority within my own life.
I find it necessary to recalibrate with impulses, feel into the sensations, the stopping and going, the quickening and the lessening, like a heartbeating until the very end. Endless activity melting into the vastness of eternal silence. The only way out is through and the only vehicle worthy of the transit is the body. Knowing my body is with me, being with the body, being a body, as consistent as a thing can be in this place gives me peace in between. And when life becomes so loud I can no longer hear the rhythm of love beating in my heart, the body is who leads me back to myself every time.
