Hello Precious Soft Siblings ~
I recently had a potent and unusual experience. I was spending time on the Oregon coast letting the salty air and crashing waves wash me clean and help me settle back into my bones a little. I need as much help as anyone as I try to navigate this surreal and heartbreaking world and my own personal upheavals and changes! This is no easy school we are in, this human life. I stayed in a fifty year old dilapidated motel right on the beach…the refurbished insides with purple paint, kitchenette and lots of beach/ocean decor banished the mold and held me well.
I spent each night sitting on my balcony watching the sunset to varying degrees of WOW. This night I witnessed an altercation between a brown pelican and a bald eagle and by the time the eagle flew off and the pelican waddled out of the surf and sat huddled and solo at the tides edge, it was clear that she was injured and unable to fly. Needless to say, my attention was not on the sunset but entirely on her. Through my binoculars I could see she was sad and hurting and every so often moving up the sand as the tide slowly rose. Pelicans are not solo birds, they live in colonies and support each other in raising their young. She was right in front of me and I sat with her and watched her until there was no more light or warmth and all the different possibilities and impossibilities running through my heart-mind of what I could do for her came slowly to a halt. Ultimately, I knew that I had to turn out my light and go to bed and that the best offering I could make was of prayer and love.
The next morning, I walked to the beach to find her beautiful dead body washed up just in front of the path. She seemed to be there waiting for me with a message. She was elegant and be speckled with fresh rain beaded on her oiled feathers. I sang to her, made an altar with driftwood and collected various items from the beach to honor her. I said prayers and asked her what she was here to teach me…why was I witness to this on my very doorstep? And then it was so obvious…everything dies, everything changes, nothing stays the same for ever, even the beautiful things, the lovely and honorable end. I spent much of that day sitting on the beach close by to my sister pelican and watching the ever changing waves, sunlight, shadows, emotions, thoughts, people, dogs, birds, etc. I sat very consciously with the invitation she offered me to be alive with death, to be unbroken in my brokenness, to embrace the inevitable of my own death and the many endings, the little ‘d’ deaths, that I am living through each day. And the truth, that in all the change and death, is freshness and rebirth. This is not a new teaching but there was a potency in her grace-filled body and the knowing that I was helpless to stop the unfolding of this process. But more than that, I am not really helpless…there are things that I can do… but they not always what is obvious…pray, sing, create ritual, acknowledge in anyway available, cry, give thanks, tell the story, sit and be with it all. This life if precious.
Along these same lines I was recently introduced to Alua Arthur. Her beautiful and inspiring TED Talk speaks to this practice of living with death in a culture that has forgotten and in my opinion, desperately needs to reclaim this knowing. To be able to acknowledge, see and be with the endings in all the many ways they arrive is to be with the present moment in all its precious and glorious unfolding. Can we let go, truly, as an act of love and care? Can we be with ourselves and each other in all the moments of changing and evolving? Can we? What is dying in and around you right now? How are you showing up for this? What is being birthed from this nursery stump of death and decay?
May we remember the ancient practices of tending and honoring death in it’s many forms
May we learn to trust that in every ending there is also an opening and a beginning
May we continue to practice accompanying the myriad emotions that come with loss and change
May we bring wild blessings and fierce love to all we encounter
Practice Prompts:
- Take 20 minutes and watch and listen to Alua Arthur’s TED Talk (linked above) and then take 10 minutes to journal, draw, sing, dance on what it brings up for you. Fear, repulsion, confusion, relief, etc? What is your relationship with death, both the death of your body and those around you as well as the little ‘d’ deaths of endings and transitions that are happening regularly. Is there a way you could get more comfortable with it? How? Be gentle with yourself in this inquiry as we live in a very death phobic culture.
- Ultimately, the practice of being with death is the practice of being fully here in this moment. What are the ways that support you in showing up more for this moment in its fleetingness? What helps you slow down to notice the nuances of life that won’t always be like they now? Endeavor to deepen into these practices and see what reveals itself to you about you and the world and life.
- I offer one to one sessions, in-person in Bend, Oregon, and virtually all over the world. These sessions are centered on supporting you finding nervous system capacity and resiliency through various practices including but not limited to Somatic Experiencing®, Continuum Inquiry, Safe and Sound Protocol and various embodying practices. Respond to this email or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session.
Practice Opportunities:
In Person:
Virtual:
- Yoga for Resilience, Mondays, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Body of Insight (no class June 1 & 15)
- All Levels Yoga, Sundays… Apr 19, May 10, June 21 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga
- 3 NEW CLASSES JUST ADDED…On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Two Dog Yoga
Inspirational Wisdom
The Unbroken
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.
