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I have had to let go. I'm still working (isn't it ironic?) at it. It's happening all the time, at every spilt of a second: seeing, loving, and letting go.
These days, the theme seems especially highlighted. It has to do with my imminent departure from the beloved Bay Area/ West Coast.
There is all my stuff, for one thing.
These are the material possessions I believed were important to accumulate and keep around at one point. Now I have to sort it out, and let go. I've been purging my room slowly. I feel an urge to live in an empty room for a while before I depart. As if I needed to transition gradually into emptiness.
While my old friends are buying property and setting up careers, I feel like am shedding my skin once more. I'm twenty-eight and I don't own much. The only things I cannot quite let go of are my books (and that's quite telling of the way I'm attached to the intellect).
Most emotionally charged, still, is the idea leaving my wonderful friends behind. They have been around over the past five years, inspiring and witnessing me as I've grown into the self I have become, and vice versa. Together we have shared a lot of of hopes and visions. 'Cuz that's what we're here to do!
And there is little Claire. She's three and a half now and she sometimes tells me "I love you forever" out of nowhere. I have held her in my arms since before she could hold her own head up.
I have sang her the same French songs. She knows my heartbeat, and the energies of our bodies are "familial". Sometimes I find it so difficult to remain present with her. Sometimes I get bored, or frustrated. Often I feel helpless. But with a smile or one of her clever remarks, she flips my heart around and makes the whole world shine with love.How will I let go of that?
My upcoming adventures are so much about faith. It is a pilgrimage of sorts. I want to reside in my heart and listen to my creative flow. I pray that the universe will provide.
Sometimes I get scared. I see my friends partnering up with their significant other, projecting into the next ten years, even piling up for retirement. I envy them, because they seem to have a security, net.
Sometimes I wonder what it is about my ... living from such a metaphysical place. Isn't the physical realm just as significant? One day, I might need someone to bring me chicken soup. One day, I might fall in the shower, and being alone could be tragic. I enjoy my freedom very much, but sometimes I get a bit nervous about the aloneness it seems to entail.
How much of this existential fear is actually, ultimately, warranted? Gautama the Buddha gave us the Four Noble Truths and through them a formula to find en-light-enment. Non-attachment is the answer. The fears and the hopes belong in the ego realm. This is not the full picture. I am but a drop of water in a ocean that dances beyond time and space. (Each drop is an integral part of the whole.)
And I've become so fascinated with Butoh because it is a form that lives beyond form. Butoh is consciousness embodied. It is a meditation and a journey, it is a re-membering of our place within the All, and a dis-membering of our so-called place in the social sphere. Butoh is performative and ritualistic. The leader in me is falling in love with Butoh. Walking slowly is a radical act.
The body is on my mind a lot.
My body hurts, and I'm afraid of that impeding on my grand ideas.. I'm afraid I'll be forced to be realistic before I'm ready. I know the body ages and eventually perishes. Butoh speaks of "killing the body". How do I let go of that which has been my primary vessel for a lifetime?
I have lived an existence of much physical effort. (I was an athlete for ten years.) Nowadays I seek to mindfully bridge my spirit and body, i.e. through meditative practices, physical theater, dance, etc. However, I find it extremely difficult to find the right balance between pushing and letting go. For instance, I want to become more flexible. But how does one get there? Flexibility through pushing?
I mean, I've built this self through a lot of tension and strength, and I've come a long blessed way. Still, this body holds a story... There's my psyche, stored in this body.
(And of course, all of this personal stuff is actually embedded in a greater story: my body is but one interdependent manifestation of the greater natural and social bodies.)
Last night, my ex-girlfriend's lover practiced Tui Na massage on me. (There is a lot of emotional background to this story, indeed. In short, let's just say that I have loved her with such passion and pain, and now I am happy that they both have each other...)
I laid on my stomach, with my head in the hole of his massage table: that simple position already felt so relaxing... I was filled with gratefulness. Besides, I have been craving touch and nurture for some time. I told him I might very well sigh and cry, just to release some of what I've been feeling lately. He then proceeded to warm me up and soon was pulling on my limbs and pressing my joints towards my center. I had never experienced this specific method before, so I was a bit surprised by the intensity of it. I felt that familiar mixture of pleasure and pain, or I should rather specify: that thin line between the two. I could sense my mind and body resisting the pulls, engaging so as to protect myself. I wanted to trust what he was doing, and I wanted to trust my body's own resilience and integrity, but it was quite a challenge. My upper body is tight, my lower body is tight. Am I so delusional to think I'm open-minded?
There is of course something to be said for the fact that he is my former lover's new lover... And as much as everything is perfect, that's quite a trip. I could not quite understand the extent of what that meant for me. It had to do with a special new way to trust... and surrender.
How I want to let go!
And perhaps,
inch Allah...
find (h) aum...
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