Always the Fear...Parts I & II

Part I:

Finally dipped back into a brief breathwork practice this morning, once Brian had left for the morning’s services. I found my mind mulling over the vagaries of “practice,” like it does when something has impacted me fully, intensely. Will it be like that again? What if I don’t ‘do it right’? Blah blah blah. None of it matters for the practice, whatever it might be, but it is what my mind does as I enter in. The invitation is simply to be with that until my body invites me more deeply in…

…to awareness? To insight? To feeling? One never quite knows, which is the gift of the practice.

So this morning, I began to feel what I’m beginning to recognize as a familiar pattern: a tightening around the back of my skull, upper neck muscles. Not a painful headachey kind of tightening, but one that always makes me think I have my readers on the top of my head, with the ends pushing into the space behind and a little below my ears. I stay with the practice and get curious…

Tears arrived, so I let them come, unsure what they were about.

I had listened to a Blessing of the Child of Wonder this morning, and had dipped into the invitations surrounding the Little One in my Walking the Sacred Wheel online-journey. I could feel my young self coming to the forefront, realizing I could get to the actual geography I walked when I was 4-12 years old. More tears, and then the wave of belly-fear.

Always the fear… Not being enough. Being me in the wrong way. My body being shameful. Me being chubby or overweight. Too heavy for how I should be. Walking the sidewalks to and from elementary school, fearing the big dog by the orange-brick house with the white shutters. I had been bitten by a St. Bernard, Missy, when I was 3. The fear was visceral, remembered pain.

So today...staying in the breath. Listening for what I was willing to release from this season. Then a short musical piece to simply rest in normal breathing inhale-exhale, soft belly rest. The phrase “always the fear” arose.

I am now reborn so to protect myself, my younger and older selves, both. There is much that is fear-worthy in the world today. I do not give up all fear. But I do welcome a fearlessness for my Little One, because I now have her back.

We will return this morning to those sidewalks, with my heart-dog Nala, and smile at all we may discover.

Part II:

I was startled by the wave of recognition.

Nala waited (relatively) patiently while I worked out at Open Gym, satisfied with some little treats for the bother. We drove up to Troy together.

I paused in front of the house in which I grew up. It looked basically the same, though with some porch tschochke that made it so clearly "no longer our space." As if there were any question there, of course. I thought about taking a selfie on the front porch, then decided against it.

I observed all I could see from the car...the big tree in front of which you cannot park, at least if you want to open the passenger car door; the lawn that seemed so small now, though huge then; the front steps; the slate pieces that led to a garden hose hanger, now empty; the plastic cover by the window well, close to the garage; sparse landscaping, bushes in front of the dining room windows. I tried to feel into memories, anything that might arise. My room had been on the second floor, middle windows. A good perch to watch so much happening and not-happening in a sleepy suburban neighborhood. The bodysense was gentle, sweet, poignant. Healed, it seems.

Choosing to stay warm in the car, I drove slowly up Surrey Rd. to Hook Elementary. I noted the sidewalks, smiled at various images that washed through me. Remembered the house where Dad had pulled over the car, right before he passed out at the wheel. We had been on our way to a dinner out, but wound up at the hospital, for safe-keeping and nothing serious, thank heavens. I pulled into the parking lot where Mom had always parked her car--sixth-grade side of the building, close to the cafeteria entrances. I put Nala on the retractable leash, to give her more spacious running room, and we walked onto the playground together.

The wave of recognition was visceral, overwhelming with gratitude: two pine trees I loved to play under when I was on recess. They were large back then, nearly fifty years ago, but even moreso now. I had not remembered them until I was right there, but then a huge sense of connection and gratitude filled me.

I had elders there I'd not had language to name before. I was never alone, even as I felt it so. Two pine trees seemed to smile and welcome me home. Immediately, I felt my memories return to the Sacred Mountain journey, my camp-site underneath two pines. I marveled at the seeds that get planted in our embodied energies about which we have little to no awareness. Were they why I was so drawn to the two pines at the Mountain?

I breathed with the elders for a while, there on the playground. I let the gratitude seep into every cell. I walked Nala around the other parts of the playground that seemed to call, including the now-paved path by the creek. We circled around, back to the car. I put Nala in the car for a time, and re-approached the elders for some pictures. I asked if I might take a couple of their seed-cones with me. Both seemed to say yes with a smile.

How I felt so very alone, inside, for so very long...and how I was, raw in the hurts I sustained...yet no less true? I was never alone. Guardians stood all around me, waiting to be seen, heard, welcomed in. I want to remember that more often, particularly in moments when I feel isolated, for any reason. We are never alone on this mysterious greening, watery, hurting planet.

Expand your chest. Open your heart. Learn to sense what you've been told is not there. Wait. Listen. Repeat.