An Embodiment Exercise In Remembering Your Soul
how rarely we are invited into the sacred......... !....... how rare it is to be told, "here, this is sacred. Hold this moment in your body as long as it is here, available, and burning in you."
This blog post is also an exercise.
Yesterday I was reminded of who I am. I was guided back into the bones of my soul. It reminded me that's the giving I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to keep remembering, and I want to guide you into remembering too.
Today, therapy, another sacred container for remembering who I am... a gift.
In my life, I've skimmed over gifts and have been quick to trample through them to the next thing. But these precious fleeting moments are here once and last lifetimes. So, if you are drawn into feeling these words and are drawn into the exercise, feel your soul in your body just as long as you can. Just as long as the flame burns and reminds you long enough to set your path aright ablaze.
You're going to forget again. That's what makes remembering so precious. so rare. so important. so so so holy. so so so so
And if this exercise doesn't do it for you, pay attention to what does, and don't rush past it.
At the end of this reading, there will be music. There will be dance. There will be questions.
Ruthie Lindsey, Thank you for helping me remember. "I am an expression of the Divine. I am Divine. You are Divine."
Consider approaching the next reading as an exercise in feeling.
Listen to these songs before, during, or after to feel the energy of this post. Connect with the songs and get curious about how your body wants to embody these energies:
To be Loved by Adelle and Little Girl Gone by CHINCHILLA
(two VERY dynamic and VERY different energies)
https://open.spotify.com/track/10ImcQk9tihY1EKMDIbvXJ?si=Y-EPjl5JTIOqu_QWKq3MzA
https://open.spotify.com/track/5OLcsBO28uWHMzS0EEeZNp?si=HTEqIQNwQo-IkTjrOs8sfQ
Post therapy remembering:
I have this desire to go dancing on the streets of Chicago. Throw caution to the wind. I remind myself of the fairies I stared at as a kid. I remember loving beautiful women. I need more. I am a dancer in spirit....not just to heal these wounds and feel this body....a dancer through and through down to the marrow.
I am a mystic and a magician, in this life and the next.
I paint with holy water.
I devour the Eucharist. not tenderly. not timidly. not piously. Like biting of f more than you can chew. No, that's not true.
I'm such a saint. I hardly give a savior a reason to bleed. I hear him screaming from the sidelines like a football game, "C'mon! C'mon! Take Take Take!!!!!"
I feel this power hot in the palms of my hand like I could touch everyone and heal them. But...is anyone looking for relief in this American Greed? I think everyone is looking and no one wants to be found. I think I just like how that sentence sounds.
But really! I know endless friends who will do anything to keep these systems proud and bind their true self underground.
I feel the aching call to go back to frivolity where everything was surface. A part of me still watches reality TV and vegges out on the couch. A part of me is a gossip. a drama queen. a glamorous socialite. a shopper. ambitious social climber. an escapist. and a laugher. but....she can no longer be separated from my soul,
my existential grief
and torrential rage
my pulsating probing questioner who is curious about my shadow and sees gossip and drama and all the things I reject as a mirror of me, an opportunity for more....
to heal the war.
the one who is dissatisfied with surface in the face of soul....
the one who rages and cuts to the bones and feels the knife between my ribs turning man to woman and woman to man indistinguishable. One. Body Mind Soul wandering...
a great ship on the sea. the sea shanties and bottles of whiskey morning regret and begging for more. the first squeeze of the orange life saving right under my nose. coming home and climbing the masts one more time.
I'm not the girl you used to shop with and I can't even apologize because she was always here just out of reach.
I still love the outfits and versions I tried on...I don't want to lose the weirdos that walked as weary travelers on this lonesome road keeping me afloat...but I can't segregate myself anymore. Can't skin myself alive and be a walking flesh without a soul.
So who am I now??
I am the witch who was burned alive for lifetimes still burning that fire they set alive in me!
How could you put that out! An impossibility! I've got potions you wouldn't believe.
I'm a wilderness wizard with hot magic in my palms ready to scorch this earth with a song. And the earth, like a mistress, is begging me! Earth will have her desires. Her broiling core churning loins for my magic. She has to have me!
I am eyes that light a match inside your soul that won't stop looking and peering into the abyss over and over again into the cold into the dark night into the darkest darkest night into the moment before the Big Bang into madness I'll ask the questions that are already on your face, there for the taking read your scroll aloud.
I can't stop.
My eyes are ablaze burning lights fanning flames. Seeing you, I cannot unsee.
Who can stop the oceans waves who can snuff out the sun's blaze?
I am just me, just here. All of these things.
A healer even when I sleep. Still a drama queen. And more. Everything all of that but more more more
END
THE EXERCISE!
If a feeling state is particularly accessible to you right now, light a candle. Put on a flowy beautiful outfit. Get alone in a space. Maybe headphones maybe a speaker. I've got some songs for you, for your body, for your feeling. Bring a pen and a journal.
Call your soul into your body. Notice how that feels. How does it feel to call your soul into your body? For me, my body gets very warm. Suddenly I feel almost hot and entirely present. What is it for you? (it can be tenuous and fragile a connection)
The first Song is Apple Tree by Marika Hackman (links below). Don't move until you feel this song somewhere in your body. Maybe you don't feel anything. Feel that. Note it. Say, "I don't feel anything." And notice how non-feeling feels in your body. Does it hit somewhere else. Your soul is moving in your body. Where is it moving in your body. Really REALLY pay attention to where the song strikes in your body. How it strikes. Where it sits. How it moves. WHAT IS THE LANGUAGE? You might not recognize it. You might not even allow it. Notice THAT.
The next song is Magnolia Blues by Adia Victoria. Allow body to dance when the sensations in the body rise and rise and rise until you HAVE to move. Stillness is movement. Don't be afraid of the still movements of waiting for the body to speak in it's own rhythms and ways. This dance isn't about movement. It's about soul language through body language.
And finally The Beast by Delta Rae
Three songs. Three Movements. Three questions.
What does that body sensation you just danced with tell you? (aka, what is your soul's language? Soul's feeling. Soul's desire. Soul's craving. Soul's expression. Soul's power. Soul's remembering)
Are there parts of you that repress this voice and keep it from speaking? (what do they sound like? a parent, teacher, bully, well-meaning but-terribly-wrong friend, oppressor, violator, abuser?)
How does it feel to let your soul speak through you EXACTLY the way it wants to with all it's hugeness or softness or tenderness or wildness or raw vulnerableness or joyfulness or pridefulness or ragefulness or madness or terror or self-pride or ambtion or spiritual nonsensicalities-so-profound? Can you give that part of you a voice and feel how it FEELS coming through your body. ALLOWED. breathing. SCREAMING. pulsating. DANCING. fire. water. smoke. trees. forest. ocean. breeze. ALL.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6EqCxnulMcawu0qN8B8Y5W?si=ZsH_tmRgQumVEwt7u8j_jw
https://open.spotify.com/track/7piCuE6DVjnko9oTNTqVAO?si=UnFYcX9mQJekODnU578mBg
https://open.spotify.com/track/3Ots0w8hKuBavNkhLjlJ79?si=im5cyY5GRJePByT_q3gSww
Just before writing the piece above, I colored this with all my spirit in the coffee shop and i ADORE this. I absolutely adore it.
Little soul notes from Ruthie's self love zoom call <3