I just rearranged the furniture to undo 500 years of repression & anger.
Surprising? I know, it is not my usual M.O. I mean I love to rearrange furniture (After all I AM a woman in the time of "Real Simple" and "Martha Stewart" magazines), but normally the process is a creative release at best and a distraction from negative feelings at worst. Today the activity had more purpose - the healing of collective wounds.
It's been an unusual day. Okay, week. Okay, year. I've been mad. I mean M-A-D, mad. The kind you can feel through walls, from the other end of the house. Yesterday, as my partner and I did some errands on the way to the "Medicines From the Earth" conference, I stewed. Waiting at the juice counter at the grocery store, a thought congealed, "I've been angry for...god...I don't know how long...Years? Decades? Eons? For a long, long time. And not healthy anger of the lioness. No this is the unbecoming repressed anger that gets stuffed down deep, deep into the bones and then seethes out into the ethers.
As the thought came further into my awareness I realized I wasn't just angry at this beautiful, sweet, patient, spiritual man I profess to love, I was angry at MEN. All Men...many of the men I claimed to love...even beyond that. I was just plain pissed off.
It would be so simple to blame it on my parents (sorry guys)...you know the usual stuff we blame them for. "She did x" and "he did y" (fill in the blank). And sure there may be some truth to that...but since I believe I picked my parents to fulfill my Karmic destiny the story must go beyond that. And since blaming them hasn't worked for me in the past...I figured I'd go where I felt it most...to these old bones of mine.
The bones...mmm...the bones...the heaviest part of our bodies..the part made of minerals...the part that correlates to earth...to ground. Sandy my yoga teacher up at HI is doing some work on the energy of bones...but she's pretty tight lipped about it. Recently, I've met some earthy Taoist practitioners who introduced me to the concept of bone beating. Bone beating entails taping 20 or so wooden dowels together and rapping them against your body. I know, I know...it sounds crazy...but so did beating yourself with soaked birch branches in the saunas of Finland...and selling your house to tour via motor-coach (Dad)...and canoeing down a flooding river (mom)...or loving your dog beyond your budget (sis). I may be crazy, but I something about it feels good... Like a great yoga pose that you need to relax into...something that clears me out...unknots old habits...reconfigures patters. Mixes up my DNA.
That DNA comes from my parents...and theirs from their parents...and theirs from theirs...and back and back and back. Really, I got my DNA from the original man and woman. Its in every tissue, every cell. And if I have their DNA, then I have their history. According to Mayatitandanda (a beautiful Ayurveda practitioner), I have their memory in my bones.
Well, I can think of a few things from my Northern European descendant's history that might make me a little ticked off. I've been reading lately about the Enclosures of England..of the persecution of midwives and healers (witches)...and the dismissal of Mary Magdaline by the council of Nicaea. I don't know about you but I might feel a little angry about being forced into a role that casts me as a financial burden because my skills of animal husbandry, herbology and midwifery is no longer valued in a newly commodified world. I might develop repressed anger about being burned at the stake because I was a skilled healer, a beautiful (or for that matter, ugly) woman, or competition for the rising medical profession. I might be irrationally pissed off because my role as equal and empowered partner was reduced to that of mere whore. Yeah...I guess there is some unacknowledged rage in them-there bones.
Ok, ok, ok. How does this relate to furniture?
We'll I was talking to a new acquaintance today and we were sharing how sometimes we feel permeable. For example, how sometimes the strong opinion of another, or their perception of reality can make ours feel less real. It's like I'm not heavy enough to hold my own opinion in the face of others. I blow around in the the wind of their ideas. The alpha dog's wavelengths colors my momentary reality. (And here's an interesting tidbit...the word Guru is sometimes translated to mean heavy. Like a guru is heavy enough that the opinions, ideas, and realities of others doesn't affect his/her ability to know the real truth of things.)
Even when other people aren't around, but I'm in their space, I can be influenced by the conviction of their ideas. I do a lot of house sitting. The feeling I have of myself can shift depending on whose house I'm living in. (this week at a dog sitting job I was content and peaceful, last year at another job I felt brittle ...at my And those walls are heavier than I am.
Rosita Avril (the student of Don Ellijo Ponti and the women who has lived in the back of my consciousness since I met her 20 years ago in the jungle of Belize)...was lecturing today about the properties of water (not quite as heavy as earth...more like the consistency of blood...but that's besides the point.) She was saying that if you're drawing yourself a bath (or tea) and stewing on something negative, the water will absorb that energy and you'll end up bathing in that negativity. She referenced the work of Dr Masaru Emoto, who photographed molecules of water after they were prayed over (images like snowflake) and then molecules after they were cursed at (murky sludge). Again and again he got the same results. So, if the bath can absorb the energy after a short while, what would 20 years inside the walls of a house do?
You all know, I live in someone else's house...and I don't know much about them. From what I can guess, it was very traditional (in the sense of the 1950's traditional.) I love it out here...its beautiful AND sometimes I feel unlike myself. It's like it can calls me to play some role that isn't really me....or the role my grandmother played and hated. So, today...after the whole anger thing about being a repressed woman...the discussion about heaviness...and the lecture on the vibration of water... I decided to follow in the steps of my new acquaintance and switch up the energy of the place a bit. I decided I needed to put more of my own positive vibrations into the place I live...to make this my temple...and to do that i had break up the old patterns...like breaking up scar tissue. Since I can't tear the walls down...or even paint..I moved the furniture around. Then I lit some incense; prayed to the powerful females I know; and did a little jig.
If I can break up the scar tissue held in the walls of this house, even if it is only symbolic, then maybe I can breakup the scar tissue held in my bones. If I can build walls of positive vibration, then just maybe I can build a body of one. And then maybe with a clear vessel I can truly walk in empowered love.
Tomorrow is the new moon. A great time for casting new intentions. I'm having some women over to celebrate. My intention for this new moon is for us to support and encourage each other in becoming powerful, loving, receptive beings. In loving ourselves enough we can let ourselves shine...become empowered loving women, sisters, partners....and perhaps heal these collective wounds in our bones. Too often I find myself competing with the women in my life...feeling inadequate...insecure...and not enough. Then I get angry at my friends...at their successes..at their dreams. I find myself being less then whole, less than loving, less than...well less then me. (again I wonder if this is a throw back from my competitive childhood household...or from Junior High...which in fact could just be a throw back to a time when women had to compete with each other to find a good mate so we would be taken care of and survive.)
I want to create new soil in which to grow. David Weiss is a agriculturist from South Carolina I met today at the conference. His occupation is to put nutrients back into the soil to alleviate the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid blight. He hypothesizes that if the soil is sound and full of the proper trace minerals and macronutrients then the tree will be healthy and can resist the disease. I want to do the same thing in my life...i want to put the trace minerals and macronutrients of love, support and encouragement back into my soil so that I can resist the blight of anger, rage and blame. There is so much love and support and encouragement around me. From my dear, dear sisters to my profound brother...from my loving parents to my inspired teachers...I am loved and encouraged. Since my bones have been carrying the vibration of anger...I've been a bit blinded to this.
But I'm moving the furniture around...getting heavy and light at the same time. Creating more space, making better soil, and letting in the light. It's a new time and a new tribe.
Blessed Be.
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