A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

Knock knock knockin’ (gently and at the door of my heart)

Into the heart of it all…

Deep diving into heart-space in my journal.

Or at least: those were the words I wrote on the page:

Deep diving into heart space…

And then I panicked. And then I noticed the panicking, and gently, lovingly, backed off.

Good intel, thank you

Okay, maybe we aren’t ready for deep diving into heart-space, whether in a journal or generally or at all. Good intel. Thank you, body-mind. That’s useful to know.

Or maybe, if thrill-seeking appeals sometimes if not always, let us go for the thrill of honesty here:

I am here tentatively dipping half of a toe into the waters of heart-space, testing it out, not ready for the deep dive, or any dive for that matter, and, secretly or not, also:

Yes. Yes, I am absolutely drawn to the idea of diving in to the depths.

Where does an idea live? And what lives in my heart?

Anyway, I had this idea that I wanted to go to a yoga workshop about the heart, and questions of the heart, and my relationship to my heart, and being (being!) in heart-space, as in: existing there.

A place I am curious about! And also, at the same time, very reasonably hesitant to dive into!

While also noticing how much I am craving an experience of internal heart space:

Yes, tell me, tell me all about the briny deep…

Speaking of noticing, speaking of the briny deep, speaking of speaking

Speaking of noticing, I just noticed that the bumper sticker says ASK ME about the briny deep, not TELL ME about the briny deep.

Which might be why this sticker wants to live on my refrigerator and not my car, and I am laughing about this a little.

I do not wish for anyone to ask me anything. Pretty much ever!

However, it is true that I do very much enjoy being invited, in a very casual way, to talk about a theme I am passionate about. And I love when someone else tells me all about something they are passionate about!

So I do know about the depths, as it turns out

So I do know about the depths!

I know about the depths in the sense of info-dumping; I can deep-dive hard into a special interest, or something I am excited about!

I can tell you about my briny deep.

Back, back, back, backing into it, slowly

Back to the workshop, the one I didn’t go to.

I had a desire to be in heart space or examine my relationship to my own heart and heart-space, except I realized that the idea of the workshop on heart-space was living in my mind.

Aka not in my heart or my breath or my body. Noticing that the desire lives in my mind. Can a heart wish live in the mind? Sure, I mean, everything lives everywhere in some sense.

Mainly though

I also realized that the workshop itself would realistically probably involve a ton of backbends, not my favorite, understatement.

Mainly though my realization was the usual realization: that a partial yes is a clue, and worth exploring, and also a partial yes is different from an embodied whole-hearted yes.

In fact, a partial yes is even different from a curious open yes that also has some useful trepidation hiding in it that is asking to be explored..

The Signmaker

Also I thought about how my friend Colleen The Signmaker once told me, many years ago, maybe well over ten years ago, in a tiny kitchen in LA, about a friend who was saving up for a big trip, to the Himalayas, maybe. A misty mountains place.

And how this friend would take a picture of every wish that popped up, to remind themselves about the focus of this bigger wish, as in:

Oh yes, this [current desire, a sweater, a plant, a workshop etc] is a beautiful wish and also I am just going to take a picture and not give money to this particular wish because I am gathering my resources for the bigger wish of this trip that will take me to a majestic and meaningful-to-me place.

Calling in some element or elements of the desired experience

I thought about how I could do the equivalent of this, how could I take a picture, so to speak, of the idea of the heart-diving workshop and then give myself some element of the experience I am wishing for…

And this is how I ended up at my journal, noticing how unprepared I feel (in a good way, possibly) for this kind of immersive deep dive.

Completely unprepared!

To quote the title of the Alan Lew book about the Jewish High Holidays:

THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED.

Completely unprepared.

Relevant to so many experiences right now. Including but not limited to everything in the news, and also my wish to visit the depths of my heart space, to meet myself with intimacy there.

Anyway, ask me about the briny deep and I will tell you that I am very cautiously examining the surface, and don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful place to begin.

A heart-clue that resides in a poem

A breath for the beautiful poetry and life of Andrea Gibson, from the poem Every time I said I wanted to die…

And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you’ve spent holding what’s been
nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those
who know how to do that.

Andrea, Andrea. You gave us so much.

Honoring through words, honoring through echoing

Andrea, Andrea. Can I honor your life through receiving these words with love and receptivity? I am going to try.

That is another form of diving and dipping. Honoring through words, speaking them and allowing them to reverberate. Heart-space loves resonance.

Can we honor existence (and the hards parts of existing) through humming in our hearts?

Round space, round sounds. Resonance. Echoing. Reverberation. Maybe not ready for the depths but I am here for the heart-hum that breaks the surface tension.

The heart grieves and breathes, and it drums

The heart grieves and breathes. The heart keeps on keeping on, beats on beating on, a drum of drumming. Percussive. This is interesting to me right now.

You could say that the heart is both the door and the knock, the place and the entry, the hollow space and the boundary.

See? I can learn so much through letting poetry echo through me.

A heart-clue that resides in question (in a poem)

Here is the resonant question that drew me to the workshop to begin with, this gorgeous line from the poet Rumi:

Why are you knocking at ever other door? Go, knock at the door of your own heart.
-Rumi

Go, knock at the door of your own heart.

Tell me, heart, about knocking at my own door

I can do this through journaling.

Or I can do this through moving or stillness, or any combination of those.

I can knock at my own door through breathing and listening, or through echoing poetry, which is also letting poetry echo through me.

Or I can honor my temporal no to a deep-dive while still honoring my own briny deep.

Can I let Rumi’s question be a beautiful stone to skip, letting it echo through my consciousness and onto paper? What do I know about knocking at the door of my own heart?

One good stone (journaling question) deserves another

For example…

Why is it more appealing to feel or perceive that I am close to someone else’s heart than it is to come close (closer, closer) to my own?

Come close. Come closer.

Is this what I am afraid of? Closeness? To myself? With myself.

Asking the question is as brave as knocking, as brave as diving. Any form of approach is brave. Safety first.

More beautiful questions offer themselves…

What am I avoiding (or: what do I think I am avoiding) when I avoid my own heart?

Is my fear or disinclination to knock at my own door a fear that it won’t open to me…or that it will????

What am I gaining from any story I am telling myself about being a stranger in a strange land vis a vis my heart space?

What else do I know or can I feel about the door of my heart, such a powerful image…?!

And again, Rumi’s just-right question, what am I doing at these other doors when I have my own beautiful door to visit!

Call and response

What do I know about these questions? Why am I knocking at other doors?

I guess the other doors feel tantalizing to me, because there is a thrill when they open and there is clear intel when they do not…

However my own door could also feel tantalizing to me, if I let it. Or if I understood that it is the most important door, maybe even the only important door?

I guess I am scared of my own door!

I guess that if I open to myself i might not need anyone else and that is scary too.

Though realistically if I am open to myself then it is more likely I could (theoretically) also have a good connection with someone else, if that came to pass…

What else is known here

I know that daily practice matters and helps, and is hardest to maintain when [circumstances].

And yet: the practice of [turn inward and knock gently at my heart door] could be as simple as three breaths or a walk around the block or free-form dancing for one song. Or five minutes of journaling.

Practicing: let us knock gently at the door of our own heart

me: I am knocking at the door of my own heart, bringing with me: love, curiosity, tenderness, patience, motion, stillness, a sense of weaving, a readiness to give and receive, a readiness to be present for the encounter

door of my heart: you are always welcome

me: hmmm for some reason I thought it would be more complicated than that?

door of my heart: it is in fact if anything much less complicated than that, and you are always welcome, this space exists entirely for you, it is your home in the best meaning of that word, and if that word is not your word then it is your place

Because

me: I don’t know why I have been avoiding heart space
door of my heart: because you are hurting

me: I am hurting a lot, sometimes, at times, right now, it ebbs and flows
door of my heart: this is a good place to bring that

me: I want to burn it all in the hearth
door of my heart: there is plentiful hearth space in the heart space just for that

What else happens when I knock at the door of my heart?

Here is what I learned through asking this question…

Nothing is wrong, there is no judgment and no shame, nothing to be avoided.

I do not have to force myself to look at harsh truths, there is only lovely light and lots of space to be comfortable.

My pleasure is welcome here, I do not need to earn it or do better or be better, I can just rest into whatever it is I need to be resting into without worry or concern.

There is space and there is time and there is respite

There is space and there is time and I am not doing anything wrong, which itself is the respite from the rest of the day and people asking me what I am up to these days, and me being like “wellll I am trying to figure that out!”

And then telling them and then regretting it, or not telling them and then regretting it.

Especially on these wanting to crawl out of my skin days. A good reminder. Breathing into the reminder.

Back, back, back, into The Heart of it all

Thinking about how the heart is at the back as well as the front, and I can breathe into back space.

Back, back, back. No bending required.

On ventricles and vestibules

Thinking about ventricles and vestibules.

Thinking about how the heart has ventricles: cavities, open spaces, chambers.

The heart and brain have ventricles!

The belly

But — and this is also interesting! The word itself comes from late Middle English: from Latin ventriculus, diminutive of venter ‘belly’.

So a ventricle is a space, and also it is a mind spce and a heart space and a belly space. A space for trust your gut and figure out how to digest it?

Chambers

Meanwhile, a vestibule is also a chamber.

A chamnber that is a passage, an antechamber between exterior and interior, a bridge space.

So, when I wish to go into the heart of it all, I do not need to dive into depths. I can simply move into a chamber.

In fact, maybe I don’t even need to knock. I am already there, in the spaces of moving between. I am the passage and I am in the passage, in the heart of it all.

Into the heart of it all

I love being wrong, and I especially love being wrong about the depths.

I am all about the depths, and also I was wrong about the depths. How is that for poetry?

The depths don’t need to be scary unknowns at all. As the kids say, it’s not that deep.

A memory

This reminds me of how for many years I didn’t want to try sensory deprivation float tanks because I was picturing them as very deep, when in fact they are like shallow bathtubs.

The depth experience comes from the floating, being suspended in your own personal tiny sea of salt, but you can always touch down whenever you want to.

That is also poetic. It’s not that deep, literally. And also it is a chamber to access the briny depths of self, and to be held in sanctuary.

The heart can be deep and also the heart can be a bath

I was anxious about the (perceived) briny depths and it turned out there were none at all, because it is all surface!

This is true for my own briny depths and for the float tank experience.

It all happens on and at the surface, and that’s the beauty of it all.

I love this so much and especially love how it feels like a little joke about surface tension. Surface! Tension! It’s all at the surface! No tension needed.

I can relax into the depths of my own heart, and also touch down at my leisure. I am contained in a right-sized space. The briny depths are an idea, and I can float on the surface, held in love.

What lives in my heart / How do I live in my heart

Here is a clue I received in yoga this week:

I AM THE KEEPER OF MY PRECIOUS PEACE

I am the keeper. I am the protector. I am the one for whom the door of my heart opens, no knocking needed.

This quiet place is for me. This must be the place. I reside in my own heart.

Unprepared. My heart could lift a city. My heart can be a city. I can visit whenever I want to. I am the keeper of the space, and the space is the keeper of me.

Peace, peace, peace.

Knock knock

Listening to the thump-thump (knock knock, who’s there? it’s me!) of my own sanctuary, laughing at my own knock-knock jokes.

Letting the thump-thump knock-knock of heartbeat and laughter reverberate through the briny deep of this body of water, this place of being.

I am the keeper. Keeping on keeping on.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.