Yesterday was the 13th day. I've made it past day 2 and 3 and now 12. It seems that the numbers were arbitrarily set by me, and yet Day 13, the next day, was pivotal. The last day of Saul's workshop and the burning coal left from his teaching to fan into my own fire. As I hugged him goodbye, he said: "Phoenix rising!" I rose today in laughter. Ecstatic and ready to be intoxicated by life. This is it. This is all....there is. Right now. I want it to be about compassion for myself and everyone else, even when I slip from being present... And they are part of this life too.
Sitting in Bound Lotus yesterday was both a blessing and very difficult. A blessing in the sense that I found it easier not to be sad that Saul was gone, anymore than being sad that anyone is gone - because Saul's gifts are still with me. Just as my mother's and father's are. The gift is showing us all how to fly on our own. In Bound Lotus I felt the opening I gained from Saul and also the resistance in the form of intense physical resistance in the hips and stomach upset, pelvic cramping unrelated to menstruation. I could not get comfortable for even a minute. It was, in a word: excruciating.
And then expansion afterwards. It was like being stuck in the womb, waiting to get out, and then getting out and living. My breath came in so much more deeply...
Today, as I sit I am full of tremendous anxiety...I feel a raging panic attack coming on. My head hurts. I miss Saul. Yes, I woke up laughing and I taught from that space too. I went to Debra's class and she brought in elements of Saul's teaching. I was back with some of the people I spent the week with - The Sanga. Then I talked to people who were hurting and in pain, and like I do sometimes as an empath, I absorbed some of their pain and anxiety. So, Bound Lotus becomes about releasing. And I sing the Ray Man with all my heart to get past feeling as if I am locked in a box..."with a window and a clock" as Milla Jovovich's lyrics go.
At the chiropractor's later, Bridget tells me that some of the discomfort and cramping I feel in the pelvis is my lumbar spine and sacrum readjusting as my cervical curve comes back slowly. Wendy thinks this chiropractic stuff is all a racket, but I felt intense relief from day 1, and I can feel my cervical spine kind of running away from the change. The body has a wisdom of it's own, and my muscles have been used to holding me up; they are 'reluctant' to let my spine do it. But slowly, carefully...like Sue Luke used to say to me when I wad anorexic:
"Habit is not a kitten to be thrown out of the window, but a tiger to be led down the stairs and safely out of the house."
I think of how Saul had us roaring like lions, and growling like monsters. It was like the little girl in "Little Miss Sunshine" and Max in "Where the Wild Things Are", and the Maori warrior greeting of 'sniffing'. It lets the frustration out, so you can be nice to people afterwards. Funny that earlier today, just before sitting in Bound Lotus, I felt that release when I slammed my water bottle down on the counter in response to ANOTHER call for the lady who used to have my phone number 3 years ago. The calls have started up again recently, and they think I know her because I know her name so well. In a way I kind of do, but I can't connect them with her. So when I slammed the water bottle, I felt a dramatic opening in my back, neck and shoulders. The lock jammed in the back of my heart opened, and air came rushing in, it felt like doves flew in and settled on the rafters of my ribs to "sing the body electric". And when I spoke, I spoke not out of anger, but firmness: "I don't know her. I can't connect you with her. You need to look elsewhere and stop calling me," I said into my phone.
With my arms bound at the juncture of T12 and L1, I felt the anxiety begin to slip away, and the sound of wings rustling in my heart. The bird in the cage, molten and covered with ashes and dead flowers sees the gilt door is open. There is a spiral stairway to Heaven, and there's no gravity playing favorites.
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