my Body and Earth awakens in me
this gentle presence
a journey of reclamation
“You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”. Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
And similarly, since I left my body at 4 years and at age 68 my physical presence returned or re-emerged…
As a result of both a grief process, now in the 10th month, and daily inner work I have reclaimed the center of my physical body: thighs, hips, groin, and regions of my abdomen.
It’s difficult to describe this feeling of a new presence within my being. It has power, but not the kind of power we ordinarily associate with the word. There is the Power-Over, a power that is part of an ingrained dominance of the so-called “strong” over “weak” (or vulnerable).
And there is the power of being; the power of presence. This kind of power says: “I am” or “I am here.” I have been without this power in my physical body for 64 years. There are marked differences before when my physical presence was missing and now. It was so easy to disappear and live solely in the mind with fleeting trips to the heart that were exhibited with an oft tear-soaked cheek.
In my early 20s my girlfriend told me I took portages to movie theaters where I cried in the dark with strangers during many sad parts of movies and especially the gut-wrenching scenes of Ingmar Bergman films. People who thought they knew me would say I was “so sensitive” but I felt nothing. I lived in my head where I felt safe.
Recovering Heart
In the 70s I knew I wanted to live from my heart. Through a circuitous route from the 70s to the ’90s I found my way to uncover the broken parts of me and begin to heal. Thus, I entered the world of emotion: empathy, compassion, love and a myriad of many more feelings.
Fifteen years later I began to feel other peoples’ moods and my own feelings too. [I have a screening system if I get overloaded by others’ emotions that I sometimes employ.] Being at home in my heart; I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable, but life has become more exciting. Nevertheless, I can identify attachments more easily and work at letting them go — sometimes; when I think about it.
Physical Presence
A few days ago, I came into my body and felt a presence there. Wow. I have finally returned to Earth. I am home. I felt excited and thrilled in heart, body and mind.
Wow!
The Miraculous
After this feeling of presence returned to me I had a vision during a hypnogogic state:
a. I was in the woods approaching a copse of Redwood Trees by foot. I looked down at my feet and saw pulses of light inside my body. The light began filling my physical body while retaining the shape of a human: me.
As I looked back at the Redwoods, they too were beings of light and shaped as Redwoods. Between me and the light imbued trees were small shavings of white light floating in sunlight.
As I walked towards the trees their light reached out towards me as my light reached out towards them. We merged in a joined light.
We asked Earth how she felt. She conveyed — we are balancing.
b. Yesterday (8/15/20) the thermometer under the overhang read (out front): 111 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought about rain on and off all day. I thought of how it felt in the mud on my bare feet. Late in the day I had a brief vision:
I was rain falling from the sky.
When I woke and opened the front door I saw a light rain falling from the sky. It’s rare in Northern California for rain in August, but there it was. I walked in some mud and thanked the rain. I inhaled the aroma of the wet ground.
A relief.
I thanked the rain and earth too.
I stood with my favorite (friend) a front yard plant — a bulb with single orange flowers and saw that they had been migrating around the house where the blackberry bushes once were. Human name for the bulb is Indian Root. I began to feel the presences of all the bushes and trees in the yard and the flow of energy as I began to connect to them and them to me.
©2020 F.K.Ontario
