I love the fact that our existence is often lusciously messy and oozy.
The photo above was taken of my daughter, Marina, and her friend, Claire, when they were teenagers. We were getting ready to have a family gathering and they were asked to get dressed for the party. They decided to take a walk down to the pond, and as you can see, things took an unexpected turn!
As we all know, real life is not a straight, smoothly paved road, but a series of paths through the woods – some well-marked, others hidden until we stumble upon them. There are obstacles, unexpected ends to a journey where we are forced to take up another, and times when we are just plain lost. And, there are times when we get stuck in the muck and mire!
When thinking about writing our life stories, it becomes clear that despite our best efforts to put everything into a logical, orderly fashion, real life is simply not that way. How do we get in touch with the story of our life and communicate its deepest meaning?
Thankfully, like a trail of breadcrumbs, there is always a way back to our true selves through the vehicle of story. The connections that are made through just talking about and sharing our lives with other human beings are often surprising. Sometimes the real story we are meant to tell emerges from the act of remembering it.
As my friend, Tae Cyungha, founder of Oakland Garden School, reminded me the other day, “It is the body that feels the sense of truth, the sense of Self . . . It is the same platform through which we understand the world beyond our body, understand universal wisdom, compassion and empathy, the collective unconscious, and divine spirituality.”
One way back to our story, then, is through sensation, of being in touch with our body memory. Think of one moment -- touching your toes to the icy edge of the water, or feeling the warmth and softness of your new baby’s cheek, hearing the wind in the trees outside your childhood window, or having a taste of your Grandmother’s cinnamon rolls, hot from the oven and dripping with butter and icing. See how just thinking of this scene brings it straight into the present moment and how you can actually feel those sensations! See how other memories come flooding in . . .
My wish for you today is that you will spend some time with your tactile memories. Squish your toes in the mud. Jump into the river. Savor that first kiss. Let it take you places you haven’t visited in awhile and see what happens . . .
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