It's Sunday morning and actually beautiful and sunny outside, for the first time in days. I've really been enjoying the cooler, cloudier weather. It gives me permission to be more internal and quiet. When I see the clear blue sky and the sunshine, I rev up and hear myself saying, "OK, what are we going to do today? Where are we going to go? What am I going to get done?" I feel like a knight getting ready to charge off on a horse. My masculine side becomes engaged and full of energy. On the rainy days, my feminine side feels more held and nourished. Hadn't quite realized it like that before.
I mentioned that I started my period the other day. Yesterday was a full flow day. I got out into the garden later in the day and weed part of the labyrinth that we have in our yard. Doing that reconnected me with the Earth, the soil and the plants, as well as with the labyrinth. I haven't walked it in months, like I got out of the habit or something. The soil is so perfect for weeding right now, that I just want to get back out there, and weed, and plant. And then I think of all the things I have to do inside too. I all too often get caught inside when my soul longs to be outside on the soil. This is the inside/outside split. I mean to go outside and work in the flower beds, to create my vegetable beds, and to create a shady hosta bed, but I end up inside working, cleaning, picking up. In seeing this, I make a promise to weed and tend to my garden a little bit every day - to take action in my garden every day, even if it's only to just weed one or two weeds at a time. My feminine side then gets tended to a little bit every day. Thank you.
After I wrote yesterday, awarenesses were just popping! They were so amazing that I was sure I would remember them. Hmmm....they seem to have slipped back down into the depths. I am going to attempt to re-connect with them as I write. I was standing in the shower (here we go, it's starting to come back to me) and I put my hands on my belly. I realized in that moment that my belly is so beautiful and that its beauty is way more than what my belly is physically. Even my body is much more than what my body is physically. It may be the most physical aspect of me, but even so, my body is so much more than its physicality. This is the paradox.
Let me explain it this way. Always before when I have tried to love my belly, I would hold or rub my belly and attempt to just love and accept my belly, for how it looked and felt physically. This would make it very difficult for me to love and accept because what I would see and feel is its size (too big), its texture (skin dimpled from stretch marks of pregnancies), its fullness (too full). I focused only on its physical attributes.
Yesterday I somehow experienced a deepening in how I experience my belly. I was aware of how it is willing to hold my shame; how it has been willing to receive the rejection and scorn that I have piled on it; that it has been willing and able to hold and birth my babies as they grew inside; that it has been willing to be the center of my attention and focus (both positively and negatively) for pretty much every day of my life; it has been willing to be the bane of my relationship with my body.
My belly has also been willing to be of the highest service to me and my path of growth, both spiritually and physically. It has taken the brunt of my negative feelings about myself. It has actually taken the brunt of everything. It has been willing to hold the shame until I was ready to heal the it. It has been willing to love me and hold me and be there for me, no matter what.
My belly has been the biggest ally for me, everyday. And I made it the enemy. It became something wrong and ugly, something to hide, to feel ashamed of, to fix.
In that second of awareness yesterday, I realized that my belly is so much more than what it appears to be physically. And in that nanosecond, I fell in love my belly and accepted it for what and how it is. Completely. For that one second.
I now have the experience in me of fully loving, accepting and appreciating my belly.
For that second.
This morning, I woke up and all I can feel is how big my belly is, and how it feels bigger every morning, and how the exercises don't seem like they're doing anything, and that I must be the only person who is getting bigger from doing the exercises while everybody's else's bellies are getting smaller, and how am I supposed to love this, and what do you mean accept this ugly part of my body...I hate my belly. The same old familiar thoughts and feelings, right back.
Yet, at the same time now, I can also remember and tap into the moment of experience yesterday when I fully embraced and deeply loved my belly. It may have only been a moment, but I now have that moment. I now know that my belly is not just my belly. It is my ally and my biggest gift.
I actually chose to have this big, beautiful belly, split, wrinkles and all. We're in this journey together. I signed up to heal the split this lifetime. This is my mission. This is my challenge. How else can I heal the split unless there is a split to be healed? This is where it all starts to get a little circular!
The words from the goddess chant are in my mind right now. "We are sisters on a journey, shining out as one. Remembering the ancient ones, the women and their wisdom...the women and their wisdom."
I am sisters with my belly, and together we get to heal the split.
Suseya!
Sahara
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