Elements necessary:
Edge of ocean on slight mound, sand water, waves, empty space, air, breeze, me ~ body, mind, emotions, energy
The last day on our somatic beach retreat we were told by the teacher, Jamie McHugh, to each go find our own space in the environment, a space that felt defined. Explore that space, making contact with what is there, make a ritual of the space and if you choose, invite a theme to bring or unfold.
~ I went searching and was at first drawn to a space with a lot of activity and variety to the environment. It had large black rocks to climb, waves were crashing overhead and also spiraling around the rocks carving shapes into the sandy beach, there was sun and shade, sand, seaweed. It felt exciting.
But I thought, no let me keep looking maybe this isn’t it.
I then came to an open area on the beach at the edge of the water where a mound of sand had been pushed up on the shore by waves. The mound was dry as waves flowed around it. I saw this mound as a possible space. Inside myself, I felt anxious, “it’s too exposed and open, there is nothing there, it’s empty, No!” But when I tried to walk away I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t move, at the same time as the no, there was also a clear, “This is it!”
What happened is a repeatable score that I will share here along with my somatic experience ~
-Start with walking the boundary of the mound using the sounds and arm gestures of ah (arms up), ee (arms out to side), oo (arms reaching forward). Be aware of 3dimentional self and other & the differences of sounds on space and self.
I ended up settling into the following it felt so good I could have done it for hours. Walking clockwise down the mound toward the ocean I sounded oo and felt gravity pulling me down hill, arms reaching forward and flopping with my steps. Then turning right up hill sounding aw, arms reaching toward sky. At top turned right and walked across top of the mound sounding ee with arms wide to the sides.
After a few times doing this, I realized the mound was in the shape of a heart, and there was my mind saying “come on for real, this is too corny”, but my body increased it’s focus and intensity on the task.
-At top center of heart mound witness waves and how they have formed this mound.
At this time I discovered my space was not empty at all there was actually a pile of seaweed and a white seagull feather sticking out of the sand right at top center. How did I not see this before? The seaweed looked to me like the flame of the sacred heart, and where the cross would normally be was the white feather. It was then I named my dance.
I observed the tide coming in and yet there was a clear sense sitting there that I was safe on this mound, the cold waves would not be able to crash on me here.
I will describe more later about how the waves created the heart.
In this moment I understood.
-Draw in the sand the movement of the waves and how they have created this heart. See drawing
-Now embody the heart mound
Sitting still at top center of heart, I had a clear sense of my self being created by waves. Eventually my body started to respond with sound and movement, playing with my vibrational self expanding and contracting.
-Now embody the waves.
Starting at bottom of heart standing shin deep in water, I let my self flow up around the mound part way and then tumble back like the waves. I discovered that at the bottom of the heart there was a strong suction out further into the ocean, I was easily caught up in spirals and loss sense of direction and self as if I had entered cosmos. It was a strange sensation of both panic and surrender to a greater will that felt so familiar and satisfying (like my time with my guru). I somehow remembered my focus, to create my sacred heart, and with the determination of the waves forward motion, I ran up the center of the heart mound with all my strength and speed, near the top I leaped with arms spread out wide, sternum up, legs arched back and fell onto my heart!
-Repeat jumping into heart like a crashing wave
(over and over again, until I’m exhausted and satisfied).
I have continued to feel the effects of this sacred heart dance as I entered my daily life back in Santa Fe. At times I have felt my heart center still spiraling inside as if it was being flushed clean and or enlivened.
I happened to have a tattoo appointment for the week that I returned, so I spent hours drawing this heart and the spirals, and the motion of the waves. That night I had an interesting dream: I was lying in the warm sand, belly down one ear listening into the earth. The earth’s vibrations were reshaping the spiral shape of my ear. It was this that allowed me to be more sensitive.
I remembered upon waking a book called Sensitive Chaos: the creation of flowing forms in water and air. This book has pictures of how the embryonic fluid spirals and forms the different parts of our bodies. As I was looking for the picture of the ear I found an image of water forming a heart, flowing around an obstructing plate or slab. That was my mound!
My drawing is a more artistic rendition of my heart mound.
The inner heart is the mound and the outer the water. In the picture from the book, the water keeps moving forward, like in a river. In mine, the water reseeds back again into the ocean. The crescent shape, is both an expression of my arms as I leaped and the beginning obstacle. And getting back to the original Sacred heart image, then the thorns that are usually rapped around the middle of the heart are the mound obstacle. I am imaging the waves first pushed ashore some extra sand, and eventually that sand became a larger obstacle, creating the inward dip at the top.
I am in aw of this nature teaching. It seems that this stubborn Taurus to truly receive a teaching; I must feel as though I have made a profound discovery through an embodied experience. If any guru had ever tried to tell me that in order for a heart to grow it needs obstacles I would have push awed at the idea. But here I was fully dancing this teaching alive.
For over a year now since I moved next to the Santa Fe river where there seems to be an abundance of heart shaped rocks, nature has been slowly revealing to me this teaching. I have often found myself in contemplation of their formation. I now know their secret!
To see photos and stories of the SF River heart rocks go HERE
Since separating from my fifteen-year relationship six years ago and then gradually leaving my guru, my heart has felt broken and unwilling to trust in anything to do with love, intimately or godly. I suppose I believed I was no longer capable of love. But to have nature so sweetly talk to me, to let me know that the pain I have experienced is actually creating a more beautiful vibrant heart and is a sign of my actual willingness to love deeply, and the drawing inward (like the top of the heart) is also a natural movement of the heart… i soften in gratitude then to what was perceived as hard obstacles. Like a pearl forming around a grain of sand that felt so irritating to the mussel that it had to excrete white fluid, does the mussel know what beauty and value it's creating, is the sand not it's lover?
And perhaps I can go forward now in the river of life and learn to enjoy the curving spiraling around small and large rocks, knowing I am making hearts along the way, in myself and others. Knowing that I am both river and rock, creator and obstacle, lover and hater. Life becomes beautiful art from the tension that naturally exists to move, to dance, to breathe. I am alive with river and rocks!
