Both/And

Kids finished school yesterday, and we're in the midst of a big transition most noticeably into our summer schedules.  Somehow I often feel like I am just getting on a role when school gets out.  How is that?  As I ask myself that question, I realize that it is because I love spring.  I feel the most creative, open and flowing during this season.  When I align with the seasons and plant seeds in the spring, both literally and metaphorically, they take root, grow strong, and flourish.  Right now, I feel as though I am planting many, many seeds.  The difference this year is that I actually have a container to plant the seeds and plants!

As I sat here and checked in with my body and my belly just before starting to write, I became aware of how my belly is truly starting to feel more contained.  It feels different.  It's not the same as it was.  Somehow, the feeling is familiar.  I know this feeling of a cohered belly.  It feels right.  Just like having the split became a familiar feeling, so too is a cohered belly.  There's actually something very reassuring about that.

Part of being able to grow and expand is being willing and able to contain and integrate the expansion.  In the past, I have felt like I have leaked out the expanded energy that has come into me, from attending workshops, reading great books, being loved, seen and/or acknowledged by another person.  I receive the knowledge, insight or love, and then I haven't been able to contain it, hold it or cultivate it.  I know that this is not an all or nothing situation because of course I have contained and cultivate some of what I have received or I would even be able to be here writing this blog.  Yet overall, I have felt like a leaky sieve that only contains the most obvious or poignant.

Now I am beginning to experience something different.  I feel as though I am receiving and containing, and as a result, I am also expanding.  The expansion feels different.  It's not just from the head up, expanding upward and outward.  The expansion is more of a 360 degree expansion with a deepening and lightening occurring at the same time.  This is embelliment.

I am having more fun with my new word - embelly.  It is a all encompassing word for me.  In one word, I can say it all.  Embelly. Embellied.  Embelliment.  Embellished.  To embelly oneself.  To feel embellied.  This is the evolution that is occurring for women.  We are coming home to our bellies, to our innate power, knowing, creativity, wisdom and love.  It is in the heart of our belly.  It is the heart of our womb.

I am just remembering something.

I have friends who are "spiritual" teachers and healers who say that our heart chakra is going to  become our base chakra, and that as we ascend and become more spiritual, we will open up and develop higher chakras than what we are currently aware of.  Our lower 3 chakras are essentially going to become useless and in a sense, dry up and wither away from unactivity.

I don't buy it.  I actually believe that is we give away our connection to these chakras - the first chakra being at the base of our spine near our perineum and our connection to the Earth and our groundedness, the 2nd chakra centered in our womb and the center for our sexuality and creativity,and the 3rd chakra, our power center and solar plexus, located above and behind our belly button - we give away our power, our creativity, our sexuality, and our groundedness and centeredness, both in our bodies and to Earth.  How could this be a good thing?

Why is being connected to our bodies and to Earth such a bad thing?

I just don't get it.  And there is also the part of me saying, "I'm not going to work this hard to heal the split in my body and become embellied only to give it all away and discard it."  Moreover, I have tried the disconnecting from my body path and to just float above it all, and quite honestly, it didn't work so well and it didn't feel so good.

All this love and light New Age-y stuff is just as polarized as the 3D thinking it's trying to get away from.  Crazy, eh?  I believe that it really is about the integration of good and bad, light and dark, heaven and earth.

Oh my gosh, here it is again.  The split.  Don't you see it?  I only just did...again.  People, even "spiritual" people, are operating out of the split paradigm.  Either something is light (which means good), or it's dark (which means bad).  Either it's God, or it's the devil.  This either/or mentality is everywhere and so pervasive that it has become the water we swim in.  We don't even realize that we're caught in a either/or paradigm and that when someone questions or challenges it, we might as well be calling out to the Emporer with no Clothes.

But I want to challenge this paradigm.  This is the paradigm that has embedded itself in my belly and revealed itself in the split.  I am so grateful for it, and I am committed to healing it.  Whatever inner and outer work I have to do to heal the split, I am so grateful for.  I am learning, growing and expanding so deeply right now.  I am stepping more and more firmly onto my path and why I am here.  And I would not, could not be stepping onto my sacred path without the split here to call on me, get my attention and show me the map to come home.

I am committed to the paradigm of integration, of both/and, and of compassion.  I am willing to see the gifts, lessons and blessings in all of life in all of its expressions, and I am willing to step out of blame, to release the shame, and integrate and celebrate all of who I am - in my belly, in my heart, and in my body.  What a gift and a joy it is to be in this body, to live this life, at this time, here on Earth.

We have to remember that we chose to be here in our bodies at this time.  We are part of all of the forces,
cosmic and personal cycles, planetary influences, and the mystical laws that are converging right now on every level of the universe, happening right here on Earth.  What an exciting time to be here.  Not without its challenges, disintegrations, and collapses, but we have to remember that it is all part of the birthing process of the New Earth, the new universal human and our future.


I know that I just shared all that without much context, but I am going to leave it at that for now.  Just know that we are each here as an essential part of a much greater whole and a must greater birthing process.  Each of us has the opportunity to heal the split within ourselves, to own our own magnifience, and to walk our sacred path.  What do you choose?


Suseya!
Sahara