My liver expresses pent up rage.
My kidney complains of storing old files.
My brain begs for a break.
“When did you disassociate from your body?” the reiki practitioner inquires as I jot notes from our energy session.
For the past hour she’s been expertly communicating with my organs to identify imbalances and discern natural remedies (lymphatic massage, licorice tea, rose quartz gua sha facial).
Her question prompts me to stop.
My third eye blinks blank. I unpack my earliest childhood memories only to re-remember the same subtle and distinct disconnection I experience now…of feeling vaguely out-of-body, as if I am hovering, uncertain about touching down, a movie witnessed without full-animating life-force.
Lately, my over-thinking has produced dizzying headaches that are only pacified when I place my palm on my forehead and the other at the base of the skull. I paint a mental image of a wind-rippling field of tall grass and purple wildflowers.
“My thoughts are calm and I am serene,” I borrow the Louise Haye mantra to speak to the whipping currents of my mind.
Breathwork, my reiki friend recommends, to befriend the body and bring the mind in as an acting agent of assistance to the body’s intelligence.
In the morning meditations that follow I center on an visualization of robust roots stemming from the soles of my feet down into the amber core of the earth. As I breathe in, the roots travel deep into the life-giving pulse, retrieving and propelling nourishment up into my legs, my spine, my wildflower swaying mind. I breathe out to soften all my muscles, tissues, skin, to sink back down into the unconditional support of the ground, to begin again.
I learn to not strive to maintain this connected state.
And this realization arrives with the fading outline of the waning moon.
Fear lurks in the striving. The striving tenses my shoulders, bunches my brow, holds my breath, leaks stress and warps the present time. Striving will never bring me closer to myself, to my relationship with life and those I share my life with. When I begin to strive, to push toward a conclusion, I become aware that I am in a fear-oriented mindset. I have abandoned the guidance of the innately wise body.
And so when I direct my gaze to the waning moon, I know what I wish to release -- the striving, and free myself of the mental tiredness that striving incurs.
When the moon wanes, I replenish my relationship with ease.
In retrospect, I see that all my joyous decisions, aligned yeses and serendipitous occurrences unfolded from embodied ease.
I’ve never problem-solved my way to joy. I’ve never analyzed and concocted a strategy that brought me to love. I’ve never micromanaged and elbowed into magical moments.
I’ve been receptive, present, in the enjoyment of flow. In this harmonized state of enlivened existence, I felt the nudge of affirmation that articulated from my gut, an openness around the heart, a relaxed trust. And then, with a clear yes, my mind eagerly jumped on board to make the decision into a full-fledged action.
And so, when this March moon wanes, I relinquish over-thinking and empty out that mental energy back into my patient and informed body.
I reprioritize the choice that catalyzes embodied ease.
I dance. I cry. I vocalize fears, truths, hopes with magnificent listening hearts.
When the moon wanes, I catch my perfectionist tendencies and gracefully drop them into the cradling lap of compassion.
When the moon wanes, I soften around the striving and slip back into the soles of my feet, the back of my belly, the height of my heart.
The moon shapes into the flutter of an eyelid, a wink of encouragement, a closed and bright intuitive eye directed inward.
And now my third eye blazes awake. Like my reiki friend, I speak to my organs and listen to what they have to say. And when I am allow the answer to come and utilize that brilliant, musing mind to put the answer into the action, there’s the reassuring confirmation of rooted ease.
And this is where the waning March moon finds me.