Whenever I am at the bus stop, I remember that its secret name is bus shelter.
And then I whisper: SHELTER.
I fill up on shelter.
I breathe it in, as a quality that lives somewhere inside of me and is sparked by this moment of remembering it.
Collarbone lungs.
Wally told me once that the lungs extend all the way up to the tips of the collarbones, even slightly over the edge, almost curling over them. I can’t remember exactly. He said it so perfectly.
God. Our lungs, our amazing, amazing lungs.
Breathing all the way down into the secret corners, all the way up into the secret nooks and hidden openings.
I love this.
Especially the moment of imagining.
Thinking about this makes me feel like a butterfly.
Even though butterflies don’t have collarbones. That sense of spreading, opening, outstretched.
This is what I am doing with SHELTER.
This is what I am doing with SHELTER.
Breathing it up into my collarbone lungs. Imagining that shelter is kissing my butterfly spreading heart.
I become so full of shelter that I am sheltered and I am sheltering and I am all the shelters.
Sometimes I can’t do that. But I can still stand under the shelter and remember: shelter.
It’s like being under the canopy. I love that word. Canopy.
Under all kinds of canopies — of stars. Of trees. Into the sukkah. Which is its own tiny temporary home. Making space through covering things. It’s a blanket fort, really. The canopy of peace, remember?
Hello, shelter.
I say hello to other things too.
I say hello to other attributes related to shelter, because all qualities share genetic material.
Hello, sustenance. Hello, grounding. Hello, protection. Hello, going inside. Hello, receptivity. Hello, presence. Hello, delight. Shelter allows for delight. This is something I learned from shiva nata.
Sometimes I write on the palm of my hand with a finger: Shelter.
Sometimes I am a bell (Havi is a bell, Isabel is a bell is a bell is a bell), and I ring a a secret bell.
I ring the bell of shelter inside of me, and then I reverberate with shelter and being sheltered.
Or I ring the bell of shelter inside the shelter, and then the entire shelter comes back to being a source of shelter.
Sometimes I look for clews or wonder what I know that I don’t know that I know about shelter.
I claim the superpower of shelter, and then I take it with me onto the bus.
I take it with me.
Breathing it through my collarbone lungs.
Remembering that I am in the costume of a person riding the bus, but really I am riding this truth of shelter.
As a secret glowing heart of shelter. Safe inside of my shining force field shelter. Quietly humming the bus into peacefulness because this is what happens when I have SHELTER.
Notes, responses and murmurings. The commenting shelter.
Wally is my massage genius. His hands are always warm. He knows what is good. If you come to Rally (Rally!), definitely get a massage with him. He is in upstairs from Stompopolis and down the hall from the Hidden Playground.
Today I am receptive to: all the words! Words like: SHELTER. Or comfort. Or delight. Or if you have a word you would like to breathe in and you want to whisper to us what it is, that would be beautiful.
I am also okay with things that have been sparked for you or other places/situations where you practice or might feel inspired to practice this or something similar.
As always: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We take responsibility for what’s ours, we let everyone else have what’s theirs. We tread gently.
Hello, sweet words. Hello, butterfly breath. Hello hello hello.
Follow
I would very much like to breathe delight today, but also shelter. I’ve taken to taking my tentacle parasol out with me into the bright sunshine, so I’ve got some shelter wherever I go. Also, just a little bit of delight. The intersection of these two qualities, that’s where I’m going to sit for a while.
I can really use this today… because I’m taking a tiny step out from under Shelter today… to ask for something that I want and that I may not get… and I need to know that the shelter is there for me to run back underneath if I need it. Asking is hard.
*puts a pebble of asking down next to me*
This came so perfectly today.
While dancing the 5 Rhythms this morning I kept hearing, “there must be a safe place for all this fear.” And then, while in the midst of Chaos I noticed just how much my breath wanted to spread out into the top corners of my rib cage, especially to my arm pits – you know, right into the hollow. And then after, there was this post about shelter, about lungs, about being shelter, receiving shelter. A safe place – at last.
Home. Breathe it in. Arriving home. Everything is home. I am my home. I am home. Home is my home. Om in my home. Home. My mantra is home.
Immediately thinking of huppahs, and how beautiful and varied they are, and how beautiful and varied the people who gather beneath them, and how full of hope.
And also those parachutes we got to play with in gym class as kids. A weird kind of fun with worn yet sturdy silk.
Sitting with the memories and what they are saying to SFM about the kind of presence (and presents) I’d like to grow to inhabit.
Mmm.
Shelter. Safety. Sustenance.
I have been loving “Sustenance”. It come before Provision, Tradition, it comes after Safety, Presence, Trust. It comes with all of these, too. I looked up the origins, the etymology, and I found this: “belonging to the holding”
The whole process of research is here (from Floop):
Origin of SUSTENANCE: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from sustenir. First Known Use: 14th century
Related to SUSTENANCE: Synonyms: aliment, food, nourishment, pabulum
Makes me think of Latin, and I adore Latin.
– sus = his? of something. as in: “this” belongs to “something else” ;
– tenir = to hold something, to keep something, to have something
to belong to the holding… mmmm
Shelter allows for delight. hmmmm.
If shelter allows for delight, what else would it allow for? And if my house is my home is my shelter, is my home in a state of congruence for the growth of delight?
I’m sure I need to do housework… but I’ve always had an issue with why (which is usually why I try to have company over – it makes me keep things up). But perhaps its to allow delight to grow?
That might be its own, much more magical reason!
I love your style of writing.
I like to think…. partially influenced by A Course in Miracles…
that the only thing that exists is shelter. love. that to be safe is to simply know that i am taken care of by the love of the universe.
and yet it is so scary to believe that sometimes….
shelter. mmm, nice cozy feeling.
Mmmmm, shelter!
Makes me think of roofs and rooftops (and why on earth can’t it be formally rooves? besides being unkind to everyone learning english…)
And how every rooftop serves both as shelter and springboard for ninja-style night adventure! (at least in my head)
And how that was the first superpower I chose at a Havi-event when I didn’t really know about superpowers… but maybe I did. Because “something about roofs” is actually a pretty sweet superpower. Shelter/Delight! Safety/Adventure! Both/And!
<3
Shelter. Cozy comfort. Snuggly safety. Deep peace.
A fire in the hearth. Warmth. Light.
Mmmmm, Provision. Breathing that in.
I’ve been working a lot with Provision this year. And provisioning.
Also portable shelter, in the form of Mantles.
And breathing in Chests. Coffers. Treasure.
And Crowns.
Shelter is the perfect superpower, the perfect ask, for me, right this very moment. I came home last night from traveling, and need to invoke the superpower of Shelter, even as I crossed the threshold of my actual, literal shelter.
Because there are storms coming; I can see them out my window. And I need my Shelter to hold.
Forcefield, forcefield, forcefield.
Shelter. Yes.
@katana – I have no familiarity at all with a Course In Miracles. I imagine, as always, that so many of us are all coming at the same things from a variety of angles all the time. <3