Healing the Serpent Spine

My spine and I stopped very suddenly the other day. The rain coated road lifted our car up just enough to ensure we wouldn’t lose speed as we tried to brake for a car that ultimately rammed us. The Uhaul trailer that stopped us as we bounced into the turn lane barely budged. I think my spine was OK until the airbag deployed. It felt like being punched in the face by an exploding stick of dynamite.
We are water, mostly. If we were all water my spine and I would have just sloshed around in the car for a bit and come to rest without much fuss - airbag and all. The place where the fluid of us meets with the earth of us is our soft tissue. Our spines are a tapestry of soft tissue tendrils suspending our vertebrae in an extraordinarily versatile column.

I remember standing in our local climbing gym, watching expert climbers flow up walls I didn’t think a gecko could climb. Erasing their other body parts in my imagination, I saw spines slithering up the wall, bending here - giving there. We are serpents adorned with a few extra limbs. Our spines make all motion possible. Our spines are miraculous.
Beth, my Continuum teacher taught me to find the soft tissue of my spine and sink into its world. Laying on the studio floor I would follow my serpents breath as it hissed from a prehistoric place in my belly. Every tissue has a pulse, like a river current you can ride, floating to new worlds on its grace. What if you could make the tiniest cells that hold your body together stronger, more elastic - happier? Thats what I learned from Continuum.
Carol, my body worker and healer, started the process of supporting my wounded soft tissue just two days after my spine was injured. Her wise fingers found the most vulnerable muscles and waited quietly until they were ready to open up and let her in. She did not dig or massage, she let the muscles part until the spine’s soft tissue was resting in her hands. She just relaxed and held that tissue, until it could soften more and release its suffering.
I came into her studio feeling like a jig-saw puzzle, I left feeling like I had a spine again. Its hurt, rigid, and still in a state of protection, but its a little less afraid. There will be many such healings before my serpent spine is well again. This is a chance to get to know it better, to learn how to support it more as the years roll by.
Yesterday at dawn I found myself outside. Usually this is my time to dance. Closing my eyes I welcomed the serpents breath and felt it cloak my spine, searching for signs of soft tissue wetness. The pulse of that rythme was still there, though quiet and timid. My arms began to billow slightly into the air, I started to rock and the serpent relaxed a little more. So long as there is liquid to be found in my being, there can be healing. So long as the serpent still moves I am dancing.
Image: Serpent by Tony Hisgett from Flickr, used under 
a Creative Commons license
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hisgett/4777364319/

Intimacy Made Tangible

   Ivan and Lance's home is one of those places that flows gracefully from the partnership that creates it. Taking in their back yard through the disappearing reservoir of wine in my glass, I realized the other day how much at home I felt there. They’ve been our friends for years, our son knows them as his Uncles. I’m always blown away by the beauty they create together, but I’ve never paid attention to how received I feel in their home.

   I don’t stop to think about how much community flows from the couples in my life. Not just couples with children like us, but also partnerships of just two. This is not to say single people don’t create community or beauty in their homes, or that communal homes don’t also change the world. There’s just something satisfying about watching the chemistry of two lovers give birth to a place. It is intimacy made tangible and shared with others.

  Yesterday I was working on the roof of our cob studio when it began to rain. Looking down I saw red leaves the color of burning coals wet beneath a canopy of deep green. The first rains of Fall had arrived, bumping the garden we’ve been developing a little closer to Nirvana. Smells awoke - colors ignighted, creatures emerged from dry burrows. This is not only a garden but part of us. 

  Our cob studio has felt the hands and feet of dozens of people since we began building it over a year ago. My wife Terry first imagined the new space before our shared sweat made it possible. Each step of the way has invited in participation from new friends. Not only is it being created from intimacy, it attracts the intimacy of community.  We’re now pushing through the final stages of its birth.

  We’ve only been here a few years but the risks we’ve taken together, the letting go we have both done, is starting to bear some sweet fruit. The main house is warm in the winter and cool most of the time in the summer. The land down by the road is looking less like a traffic wreck and the fruit trees are coming on strong. Everything is starting to feel like part of a greater whole. A place is being born through us.

  Lance and Ivan have been working on their home together much longer than we have. Walking from the curb through their house and out into the back yard garden is like unwrapping a new gift with every step. One rare plant has colors I’ve never seen before. A room is so inviting you never want to leave. The enameled cross in the garden is surrounded by variegated leaves that seem to laugh. The more attention you pay to what is around you, the more you are fed when you are there.

  Partners dream together, exchanging their desires and values in almost everything they do. Like trading caresses, talents overlap - dancing. A partnership’s alchemy can renew a home every day.

  My wife and I were blessed to act as ministers when Ivan and Lance were married. Whenever I attend a wedding, but especially when I participate so directly in the ceremony, I feel I’ve taken a pledge to support that partnership however I can. The community supports the partnership, the partnership supports the community.

     Our culture seems to prize more the romantic connection between lovers than the way a long term partnership can feed us all. Today I celebrate the partnerships that have welcomed me, fed me, given me hope, and reminded me of how much a gift life is. Their sacred fire’s should not be taken for granted, or stand untended by those who have been warmed by their flames.

Harvesting Story

     Harvesting stories seems to be the main job of human beings. I’m no different, eternally stitching moments together that I gather from my life. Like clover tops breaking off between my toes when I run barefoot, stories develop so quickly I scarcely notice they’re with me.
     I don’t always pay attention to where I get my stories. I ignore my ancestors, the spirits, and the many voices of the natural world. Like opting for fast food as I zip down a highway, most stories I gather have little sense of the sacred.
     The smell of coffee, a gesture from a friend, and snippets of a radio interview are quickly added to a blossoming narrative that builds day upon day - making up a middle aged lifetime. My story is a modern story.
     I’ve been noticing the buzzing sounds of my own stories since I started swimming in a pool last week. I’m working to build up enough strength to swim long distances in the Pacific Ocean again. I’m also preparing mentally - calm water calms my mind, allowing the chattering stories in me to float to the surface like autumn leaves.
     We are the makers of story, and story is the maker of us. It may be that the only thing that makes me a person, and us a people, is story. Without story I have no name, no cultural identity. Without story I don’t know how to put gas in my car or solve a math problem. We are story.
     I suspect stories are important, not because we are important but because story itself is important, especially sacred story. Sacred is just another way of saying “connecting all the dots.” When my evolving story resonates with the profound experience of being alive it is at its most inclusive. Then we are truly a part of the story the Earth is telling itself.
     Swimming back and forth in a water filled box to the sound of my own mental yammering, its not hard to see how far I stray from sacred story, though its not so hard to find my way back. So long as I have feet and ears, I have a way to connect to sacred stories. When I dance I can harvest new stories directly from the deepest moment of being. I’m brought to a place within myself from which I can witness the bigger story unfolding all around me. Feet really know how to connect with the Earth, if we don't get in their way.
     Funny how swimming makes me think of dance and dance makes me think of swimming in the ocean again. When I dance I feel the rhythm of the ocean, flowing through its waters as I turn and bend. When I’m moving with the currents I can only dance, anything else would be disrespectful to something as mighty and elegant as the Ocean.
     You might think that when I’m dancing or surrendering to the Oceans currents that all story has stopped. When I’m at peace in these places I feel that I’m actually fully embodying story. I’m more deeply a part of what I’m doing - the story that's unraveling. There is no space between me and the wave.
     I’m setting the intention for this coming new Pagan year (Samhain approaches!) to swim a little deeper and dig a little deeper with my feet to find the stories the Earth needs to be told. I hope what I’m able to share will inspire you to find the sacred in your every day life.
Blessings to you and yours!
Image: Moon Over Mombasa by Angelo Juan Ramos from Flickr, used under 
a Creative Commons license
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wandering_angel/1467845474/