Your Body Speaking

Your Body Speaking

Don’t lie to me.
I have never lied to you.
I’ve even asked you to alter me, when it became imperative.
So trust me, I will lead you.
Receive me, don’t hate me.
Don’t say you’re dissatisfied with my form
or dislike the image I cast back from the glass.
Or rather, when you say it,
pause,
              and step away.
Sit in this chair.
Place both feet on the floor.
Take this hand and rest it here,
on my chest, sternum or stomach,
don’t dismiss the tightness, feel it,
say hello to the tension of your fear, anxiety, ambition,
welcome the strain of disquiet with kindness,
welcome it the way you welcome your collie,
tender, the way you are with your best friend’s baby,
and invite me to breathe — 

              to breathe and be still.

Go ahead and notice all the calling-away thoughts.
Acknowledge the weary trail of worried characters
filing through the mental part of you.
Now release them the way healing skin sheds scabs
and feel your way back to me.
Join me.
Read me.
Take a survey beginning with hair, scalp, ears, mouth,
feel any damp, heat, cold, dry…throat, neck, wondrous spine…
feel the colours, the shades of cool and warm
and move slowly down,
imagine warm fragrant oil flowing down,
covering everything, flowing into joint and marrow,
filling fat cells, lean cells,
              awakening the body’s holy water,
feel the goodness percolating up and outward,
the goodness that was always there.

When we are together like this we can say the word soul,
be the word spirit-matter;
see our own small sun slipping above the cloud.

Having left the world of sirens to join the human dance
we are at peace, we are deep listeners,
yet able to speak the truth with nothing less
than the force of a crocus
thrust up through February snow.

This is a meditation for the adventurer.