RECLAMATION OF YOUR POWER SENSATIONS- an exercise and piece of art
I'm sitting in my hot summer yoga room...a ring of shell, a ring of amber, and a heritage ring of ruby, dirty bare feet, pink eye lids, and breath flowing to the deep sea of my belly easily.
Hello, my name is Hannah Anastasia Ruth.
I think of the word "thrumming" and how my friend mentioned that word over and over again in her joy, and it's the one word I didn't repeat and revel in. Now sitting back with clarity of "aaahhhh...thrumming.....
I am just as enchanted by what I miss as what I see, and evermore curious to find what is hidden in plain sight.
I want to talk about power.
I think of my family's worthy Christian ambition, but how that distorted consumed destroyed and decimated my soul, spirit, and body. How it colonized me. Then rooted down in me. Then became me. Seemingly.
Our birthright, us all, includes sensations of power.
But...whenever we are divorced from our sensation-body-soul, we get confused about where that power is sourced from and who it belongs to and why it is here.
History is full of people who rightly loved the sensation of power.....(I think it's one of the most electric magnetic powerful wondrous sensual pleasureful experiences we get to have in this life.) and grasped for that sensation in all the wrong places to own it, feel it, and control it.
This obsession with and distortion of power...
In Buddhism, suffering comes from grasping. In this case, when power is not a sensation happening in the body, many people try to make it happen. They try to control the present moment and force their favorite sensation to happen. Then, when that sensation comes about through the wrong means, they associate their power with that thing.
(This blog is meant to be felt, not read.... https://open.spotify.com/track/1L7lw4wmGbK3369usZUqEq?si=KmIXOUKWTq2hXyu2KmoqDw )
Thinking that enslaving people is what makes them feel power in their body....
Thinking that amassing a large following on social media is what earns them their power-sensations....
Thinking that becoming president is what makes them feel powerful in this world....
Thinking that becoming a pastor with the intent of being the next Billy Graham and "sinners in the hand of an angry god" is what is going to earn you status and reward...
Thinking that being a billionaire and walking like you own the planet (LITERALLY...exploiting the planet for your sense of power sensation in the body) is the reason behind your prideful gait and sense of being....
I think of the millions of people who deny their power, thinking that the sensation is wrong. And I think of the many more who experience the sensation of power, but it's tied to pain. Can we rewire and reclaim?
I worked with people who have different needs. There was a woman, let's call her Abitha. Abitha painted a painting. It wasn't conventionally good, but I studied her face. A swell of pride rushed up from her chest up through her throat and into her face. A smile of satisfaction. I could almost feel the sense of top-of-the-worldness as she looked at it and felt the feeling I have known. Pride. Power. This sensation was hers.
Men will go and fight hundred year wars just to get that sensation. They can't see that it's a birthright that belongs to us all, that you needn't kill for. It's not something you can take or control or own. It's there already for us all. Every single person.
There is only the illusion that power is sourced through ownership, control, and competition.
What is the shadow side of your power experience?
In what ways did people try to harvest their own personal power off of you?
Is there any way you source your body-power-sensation wrongly off of other people?
Do you allow yourself the chance to experience and bask in the birthright of your power-sensations?
What is the language of your power-body-sensations and what does this sensation want to give to the world?
The divine's nature is to give and love and feel and connect.
The nature of power is in giving and loving and feeling, overcoming obstacles, reclaiming, redeeming, restoring, and connecting.
So I do have an exercise! Hopefully a gift to you to feel your power and get curious about the language of your power and how absolutely delicious the sensation is that men will literally think they have to go to war for. They'd be SHOCKED to realize that people who experience the MOST power are NOT senators or purple hearts or billionaires. It's the least of these. It's living in the moment, allowing power to come and go as the tide because it's not yours to own.
PICTURE THIS....
I'm driving in my car listening to music LOUD. It's post therapy.... the music comes on and a surge blasts through my chest. Like nothing, answers flood my body as if from god themself. I feel confident like I could own the world, take the world, steal a husband, rip a town to shreds, die burning at the stake, walk in high heels in a baptist church. All around own the place. This. sensation. My. Favorite. Sensation. YUUUUMMMMMMM.
And a fair amount of work untangling the shadow of the disowned sensation.....reclaiming the sensation as just PART of the present moment experience...something that will come and go without really warning or explanation. Something to be felt and felt in full exactly when it comes up and not conjured when it is no longer time.......
I'm in my car jiving like a badass thinking about all of my badassery. Thinking about how I rebel against every social norm and I'll do it again and again and again. I'll walk on water a million times over.
Then.....
Seeing a yellow dried up corn field.
HOT DAMN......
Run my fingers through that.....
Yank the car over....because this present moment is ONLY HERE NOW
men go to war for this thinking they'll find it after the 100th dead body and a medal pressed into their chest by their so-called leader, after they force other people's power out from under them to find a false sense of their own...........
and it's MINE in a corn field with nothing but a floral chintsy cheap dress.....MINE MINE MINE
And it's got a message because it's a divine birthright sensation that comes, whether you will it or not, to us all......
the most juicy sensation, I think. The sensation....AGAIN....men die for and drill oil, exploit earth for................
Rip the car over, put on the blinker....
Go turn up the music, noise cancelling headphones. I've been bringing them because the sensation to dance in cornfields keeps calling me every time I drive. I just see myself dancing in corn fields and feeling nature with my body with the music too.
Go walk like a woman about to steal a man......drop my phone into the dry parched drought earth
Walk proud...hips sway like nothing could take me down. Because that's the power. We all have it.
Look at the tree line like a studio ghibli film....my heart SCREAMING "NOBODY OWNS YOU!!!!!!!" and start dancing. Start dancing wild wild wild. Things are going wild. This is my power. Relishing every car swiping past that might see me. Watch her dance in the cornfields. Watch her. The Muse. The Fire. The Whore. The Witch. The Martyr. The Warrior. Watch her dance on the bones of capitalism and dare you to come to life. WATCH.
And So I dance dance dance. And all the while, a spirit fills me because I know this power has a message, has wisdom, has guidance, is shattering paradigms and giving me something divine, and is passing quickly, will fade, may not be here again for a day, a week, a month. It's hard to say.
It's a wild insane rebellion flooding every single cell like a dam ripped torn shredded open. Listen.
It screams at capitalism, "You do not own these fields. You do not own this earth. You do not own the trees. The forest. You do not own my body. You do not own me." And it dances to say it. I'm one with my spirit in this moment. I know she'll be in my dreams saying the same thing.
The dance deepens as my body loses itself in the rhythm, the tide, "I do not own my body. This body is not mine." It doesn't feel like a curse or a condemnation or a bible thumping narrative. It feels like....I can only say a gift. A profound gift. A profound responsibility. A treasure. Magic. Wealth. Wonder. Curiosity. Power. I'm dancing with this body and this body is not mine. Nobody can own this body or colonize me. Not even me. I will die and surrender this body to the great unknown. I'm afraid of that all the time, but in the dance....I'm not. In the dance, the power feels like forever. It feels eternal. Surrender becomes laughter becomes love.
For a moment and for forever, I got to dance in the cornfields and proclaim their freedom singing the song with them. For a moment, I set my own body free and danced the universal power all over me and felt how I was all right and perfectly alive.
Then the power melted out and I was willing to let her go (albeit sadly....)
and in came peace....
A new song....
my flip flop had broken in the other dance.
In this one I put it back on.
there was twirling...
there was hands up into the sky looking at the clouds feeling...
then there was going back to my car, peering in the backseats, making sure no one was in my car, protecting myself because people are always trying to claim their power by means of force and harm and war. Reality.
Drove away, gentle music. The feeling was through me, but my belly was in pain. Tapped into the opening where my power was once consumed and eaten alive by other people. Breathed into that space and allowed it it's own language. It needed to scream and roar and go hoarse. My vagina pulsated squeezing in then out. My pelvis tightening and releasing. My belly filled with air and compressed hard then shoved air through my chest and out my mouth. The release was relief of pain. While the release sounds like the most painful part, it's actually what brings healing feelings and full bodied relief.
And now I sit with you in my hot yoga room just afterwards, sweating. My left butt cheek squeezing down to the bone and my whole thigh tensed and shaking. Fully bracing then releasing. Bracing then releasing. Over and over again as expression flows through my body and, like rivers of water, feeds the spaces all around me. Trembling. Tremendous energetic charge moving through the body.....
Reclamation.
I'm certain I'll need a nap, tons of water, and deep nourishment (aka lots of food, a big blanket, and watching the rest of Lord of the Rings tonight...oh baby!!! Cuddling with Jake and my dogs, melting) haaaaahhhh My feet feel happy!!!! A little buzz. My sciatic pain significantly lessens....mmm.....
This is again an invitation into the sacred, an invitation into feeling a language in your body that is considered taboo. I'm inviting you into the full expression of your power with a wild curiosity about how your body expresses it. With the knowledge that every part of society wants to make sure you are shamed AWAY from that body sensation because if they knew they couldn't own you???!!!!
If you were free to embrace your power and fully claim/embody it in ways that heal rather than harm?????!!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
And I want to thank my therapist today and bow to her as we bow to each other after every session. My gratitude is for a relationship that changes the whole world. My gratitude is that it's the session today that enables me to go get coffee at my healing coffee shop then go dancing in a fucking corn field then come home and write this. All the energy is connected. We are all connected. Thank you, Paula from the deepest trenches of my heart.
exercise ideas (make it your own)...
Where you experience power sensations in the body will be different than me. That's quite mysterious to me so it's important that I share I have no idea what enlivens that sensation in you. I don't know the harmful or shadowy sides of your power experience. I DO know that exploring that shadow and loving on it is where reclamation and integration happens. This week, Make a Pinterest board of some shadowy energy you have. Some unhinged desire. Something nasty. Something powerful. Something that makes you feel ashamed of how much power you have. This is an exercise IDEA and a prompt. Feel free to skip over or edit it according to what feels good for you. Questions I would like to ask your Pinterest Board: How is this showing up in your life right now and exactly how yummy delicious does it feel?
How is your power trying to bring healing into the world? Imagine the last time you felt the sensation of power. Sit with that sensation for 10-20 minutes like a meditation. Allow it to move through your body and speak through your body. (There's likely a resistance within you against this power. Ask that resistant part to step aside just for a moment. Thank the resistance for protecting you and others. Let resistance know you are in a safe container and will do no harm. Then allow power sensations to flow flood river run through your body. Allow power language to speak through your body...whether feeling, dancing, writing, screaming, orgasming, etc. Find the message underneath the sensation. What medicine does your power have for this world and for you? Like dancing with corn fields and singing their song with them "you cannot be owned" Power is collective. Power is craved. Power is dance. Power is love. Power is Jesus walking on water. Power is a finger touching the garment and illness disappearing. Power is enormous. Power is birthright. Power inspires change. Power dies for all and lives despite it all.
Find music this week that sparks power sensations in your body. Listen to the songs that do it for me and get curious. I'm curious, what shows up in your body when you listen to these songs? If power starts to show up, can you dance or move with it until the message shows up and plants itself so deeply inside of you that it can never be stolen or taken away? (Songs below)
We are afraid of reclaiming our power and unearthing it in the people around us. Perhaps because war and abuse has been the expression of power-sensation-grasping-obsession. It's a birthright, AND we do not own this pleasureful sensation. It is a gift. It comes and goes. We must allow it to pass and live with all the other sensations equally.
All of our power, each one of us, has a unique feeling, expression, and manifestation. It's all meant for good, and it's pleasure delight restoration.
Men go to war...
for what I found forever on a cornfield midday hot barefoot dance
I cannot own this. Nobody owns this. It's a gift.
P.S. With every huge sensation, there is usually a come down period of reflection. That resistance might be all-consuming. This resistance and inner war is really REALLY important.
The process of reclaiming personal power is also the process of resolving inner conflicts and dancing with the war within.
Every part of you has a message, a need, and MUST be heard, embodied, and listened to in a safe container. The commitment to this process brings deep soul knowing, washing your life in a baptism of clarity, resonance, connection, and oneness.
Some conflicts NEED an unshaming, loving, wise witness to be present in your struggle. There is absolutely no easy way to break this to you: those people are hard to find. It's not your fault. You're not broken or wrong or failing. We all need unshaming witnesses, and our culture is short on them and all too often, they are financially inaccessible to us. I spend my nights praying for more accessible unshaming witnesses for us all. (See David Bedrick for more information on Unshaming!)
Track your waves of sensation. What happens after you bask in the power sensations? What is the come down like? What emotions and voices-of-resistance are in the come down? What's the emotion?
MOST IMPORTANTLY....
Can you bring love to all of your resistance?
Pour love into every crack of your inner war.
After any and all power experiences, after all exercises and outcomes, ask pure love to wash into every crevice.
What does pure love say? What is the language of pure love that you may have never heard?
Pure love has the most power of all.
That's the truth of power.....
Pure
Love
SONGS:
(these are my power songs of late. What are yours? Comment below.)
https://open.spotify.com/track/646pXmilpKaPZIjgHzwPhR?si=xlXDKH6WR1SGDKsbE9hh4w
https://open.spotify.com/track/2ZCu2xskiEBCV3y0eu0zJG?si=FjEkz_EgTVSa0dxP2wK5PQ
P.P.S
A conversation I just had with my dog
BARK BARK BARK barkety BARK BARK
"Poppy. Poppy. Do you wanna come over here and talk to me."
Poppy trips hobbles second guess looks away turns back runs to me as if stumbling drunk home....
I put my hand on his throat. Tap in. Feel his energy in my body. Invite his energy in my body. Feel feel feel.
Listen to the language. Interpretate Poppy's language. It's easy to do because when I get it right, he completely attunes to me. We are in sync. He's dancing around me, me around him. Honor his language no matter what shows up. His language is always good and always right for him.....
"Oahohaha You wanna have fun. You wanna have fun. And talking is your way of having fun. But you're also scared."
Poppy trembles. Sits. Plops. Lays next to me. As I write this, gets up, finds a wall, lays down. He just wanted to be allowed to bark. Bark is his language of enjoyment and his body's experience of pleasure, but his body is also frightened. There's an inner conflict. Body wants to BARK BARK BARK. Like chewing on some interesting object. Wrapping his mind around his mouth. His mouth his favorite thing. But scary! Life is scary and his body is untethered ungrounded. He wants to be allowed to bark and also held when the bark is too big for his body. Hold Hold Hold. He likes when I shake his throat and pat his ribs chest hard and pull him into my body and wrap my legs around his spine and look into his big brown frightened eyes then release, then come back, then release, come back. And after a while, he trusts I'll keep being there and he goes off on his own. Usually finds a wall, plops down, drifts to sleep.
We didn't need experiments to prove learned helplessness......
We don't need to know that the same way you hurt dogs is the same way you hurt humans, and we didn't need to hurt anything to tell us what hurt does to us. ugh.
We need healers to show us that the same way you heal dogs is how you heal humans.
P.P.P.S.
The hunger for power sensations...a huge motivator for wars, extraction, exploitation, and oppression.
Reclaiming the full expression of these sensations in your sovereign soul-body....
the first will be last and the last will be first, I think, is an expression of fully embodied power. It's not martyrdom or self annihilation and smallness. It shatters hierarchies, exploitation, separation, and oppression through power's true expression. It doesn't deny it's own power sensations but surrenders them and allows them to be expressed into the orgasmic self-realization of pure love.
(Picture me: writing this then squealing, getting up, and jumping around thinking, "I'm a philosopher. I'm a philosopher. I'm a philosopher woman of embodiment then jumping and punching my arms like a crazy lady to this song. An expression of power https://open.spotify.com/track/7JvfZmLdyvZFvRl1DRtJvL?si=QD_3_72uSrebX5dM-HKHnw and also my spine felt SOOOOOOO good releasing to this song jumping within my range of pleasure)
A quote by Audra Lorde from the book "Sister Outsider" chapter Poetry is not a Luxury:
These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of an examined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. It is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep. When we view living in the European mode only as a problem to be solved, we rely solely upon our ideas to make us free, for these were what the white fathers told us were precious. But as we come more in touch with our own ancient, non-European consciousness of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted with, we learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power, from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes.
May this inspire you to action, to dance, to write, to rage, to act, to dream, to sit with sensations until the release into movement.
a song for the come down and resistance:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4xQ6weGXjibzUUGs8BR0dh?si=mZ3u-ixdQcyJkRL42ng6qw