Chronic Tension

It is the height of summer and I'm in class teaching. We have come to the end of the 60 minutes of somayoga. The yogis are invited to enter into corpse pose, I invite them to sink a little deeper. To release more. To practice the muscle of letting go. Most are fit and in shape and used to working hard to bring tone and physical definition to their bodies, but in this class we are experimenting with how much tension we can release and still function.

Most know how to feel tight. Many know how to feel strength. I know I do. I do it with regular ease, I hold tension. Its an underlying current most of the time I have never realized resides in my body. I clutch. I hold in contraction. Tightness can be my norm; if unexamined. I realize this more this summer. It is such a contradiction to what summer calls for, being in full bloom. Open. Relaxed. Basking in the sunlight. Growing toward the sun. Being deeply rooted into the nutrients of the earth.

With this growing awareness, I have begun to play with how much tension I can release. How much awareness I can bring to my chronic tension. How much I can exhale and let go. While a certain amount of tension is helpful to have for daily activities, the unconscious chronic tension most of us hold as we stand, walk, run, even miraculously hold on to as we lie down is amazing. I can be lying down and my neck can act like it is still in an upright position. My hand can still be clutched like I carried grocery bags into the house and have yet to fully set them down, like their ghostly memory lingers onward.  Unless I slowly bring an internal light to my body and invite it to release.

art by David Hackney

Why do we hold unnecessary tension? I wonder if this chronic tension held in the body is some of the origins of unexamined anger or our hurried nature doing and doing. Does the exhale come when we be? The anger that lurks beneath the surface, and seeps or explodes out when the external pressures become too much, when the nervous system screams, "Stop! I have had enough!!!" I became aware at how much I no longer want to hold this excess tension, this harbored anger in my soma, my body, my system at the last advanced intensive I did in SourcePoint Therapy. A larger awareness washed over me while I had a session, and a long exhale followed of my entire system especially of my physical body that said, I am tired of that anger, I no longer want to know that current. And I felt it leave me. It has me aware, alert to its presence how much can I release, let go of, no longer harbor so that I can remain in full bloom?

Poem of the Day

Inspired by your 2012 project poem of the day, and your post on Power Bursts, which is totally the only way I can write these days, I share with you some of my poems of the day. Written with a call response form from my friend, Melissa, and inspired by her relationship with her children as well I give you...

Crayons

Coloring and Art work by Liam call me William

Request of a friend: "There's a poem to be written about crayons...their divine capacity to both transform paper and be an inspired tool of creators....as well as their cursed presence littering floors and demanding organizational attention...Who will write this poem for me?"

Coloring and Art work by Finn

My response to a friend: "Crayons crayons crayons, waxed and papered, prim and pointed. Belaying my child's inner world brought forth on crisp white snow of paper, on walls, in their mouths so that they speak their color. Oozing reds and yellows, wax indented molars, littered crayons, with scattered peeled paper traipsing my floors, missing my trash. They scamper like mice when I graze my unassuming toe upon their forgotten presence. Evidence of a masterpiece."

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Hiccups

Hiccups!

That's.how.I'm.thinking.of,this.dark.day.of.anxious.transitions.

Sleep.WILL.come!

Calm.will.reign!

Rest.will.be.restored!

For.now:hiccups.....

Xox

Total hiccups. Damn hiccups. Interrupting speech, thoughts, dreams. Hiccups total intrusion. Upside down water glass, peanut butter, surprise scares, prayers. Hiccups damn hiccups. Holding breath holding hope hiccups. Damn hiccups be gone!

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Hammocked

Sacred space, when analog time holds no meaning,

life suspends itself like a hammock between two rooted trees swaying in the breeze between here and there,          

between before and after,

swaying into that intimate space of the present.

When all you can do is breathe, deep breaths, shallow breaths, breaths…because no one can prepare you for the threshold you are crossing over,

they can only silently, reverently, hold your hand,

offer a gaze,

provide a subtle gesture to let you know that you do not walk alone;

the oils you were baptized with, blessed with, live in that garden of your body’s memory.

The hands that laid upon your own still lay there caressing you.

No, no one can do what your life asks of you.

They can just lay down on the tall grass next to you and sigh,

watching with you as the clouds overhead pass,

and notice as that ant climbs that blade of grass near your face, and that tall strand curves under its presence;

much like the arc of God’s arms cradles our weight in his embrace-- as we too strive to climb nearer to his heart.

And when we rise together from the summer’s green grass

and look back at the matted imprints our body’s left behind

we know we were there

in that sacred space of raw, real life that brings us to our knees

only to know what it is like to rise rooted again.

______________________

(Poem, prayer inspired by the Kiemde family written in July.)