Thought Nestuary

Home sick. Finally my body has given in to infection, been taken over. But, this is the chance I have to recover myself, my strength, my purpose, my openness. There is so much learning and no time to assimilate. Who am I? I graduate from massage school in less than four months. I know the body better than I ever have, the geography, geology, meteorology. I know how to help aches and pains, how to help people connect, become aware of self in a safe space. This is good work. I continue to firedance and Michael has taught himself well so that we dance together now. on fire. I am going to an authentic movement and drum jam every Sunday morning. My soul loves the chance to play and go inside of my body, dance my feelings, dance the music, sing aloud, become the goddess and move through the archetypes that I am. I am also involved with a graduate project at Naropa--an experimental fairytale, lots of movement, peoples as stage sets. It is a small cast and I am a bit concerned about the project as a whole because it seems that the director and writer have gotten sort of a late start. But, what I am there for is the chance to play and move and learn something new about being on stage, expand my movement vocabulary, engage with other people in a project, to do something for myself. I have been climbing a lot, as well. Inside the climbing gym. I participated in a competition last Saturday, just as a beginner, but it was fun to challenge myself, to believe that it really meant something if I got to the top of the rock without falling. And it did. I did well. I pushed myself, I won according to my own terms. All of this activity has pushed my body too far beyond where it is used to playing and now I am pushing out the junk that there is no longer room for. The quiet is wonderful. Quiet and now outside trigger for emotional swells. There have been many tears lately. I think it is just a part of it all, whatever it all is...a growth experience, too fast, too much. Some people assure me that it is beautiful that I am so open to my emotions, but it is kind of a drag. I just want to be a tough girl and I learn everyday that I am not. I am delving far into the feminine, fighting it, fighting myself for who I am. I am finding so many rules that I have set for myself, abided by, prided myself on. What do they mean? Which ones are valuable to me, useful, which ones block my path to becoming the most expansive person I can be. There is no one way, not even for one person and this is a hard lesson for me to integrate, to accept. I am still myself, even as I am my many selves. The Christians don't want me to believe it. They have done well, slowly I am cracking the shell, poking my newborn beak out, I am trying to birth myself and it hurts. I found some tree branch antlers in the woods yesterday. Thank you. I am trying to open my wings again, but my body is sore. My mind is tired. I want to walk. Michael has been here with me through all of this...he is the mirror that I hate to see sometimes and the mirror that reassures me that I am a beautiful human and that this process is important, that crying is okay, that breaking my own rules is okay. He is amazing and funny and kind...and just as emotional as I am sometimes, and oh my, two children trying to share one heart. One lesson in my relationship with him is about relinquishing any false sense of control that I have over another person. The universe set it up that way, I am trying to accept it because I know it is the most important lesson for me to learn. Many are the challenges of living with my lover, going to school with my lover, sharing a car and a living room and a bed with my lover. I am working to recover those things I can have as my own right now. Three snowflakes fall outside my window. Yesterday I climbed up the mountain and sat in the sun, let the wind blow through me. My hamster keeps me awake at night, or my anxieties do, or my internal alarm sounds too early on the weekends. Sleep has been poor for the first time in my life. My waking mind needs more time during the day to process, time I don't give to it. To myself. My dreams have been vague and unrevealing, mostly. many are discomforting. It is February and I miss the saltsandsweat. Michael and I will travel to New Mexico over Spring Break, no ocean, but sun at least, flip flops, sunrose cheeks. feet on the earth, I need the wildness that is within me to reflect on the outside. So I can find myself.