The Most Authentic Thing

New Moon of October: Posture Prompt

The world stage is loud and devastating. It’s hard to look elsewhere right now. The eclipse happens today. “They” say it will look like a ring of fire and that, energetically, it’s a short cut to tomorrow. I’ll be out there somewhere under a tree. New Moon also. Let us pay attention. I often imagine how people pre-technology and pre-industry held celestial events like this one. They stopped. They noticed. They built entire monuments oriented around the sun and moon and the precise minute light would hit at a certain angle. Such reverence and pause. In my fantasy (and perhaps glorification) about it, I see many faces gazing up, gazing down, collectively engaged in a holy pause, a moment to honor and wonder.

Honor and wonder.

That’s what I want to do today.

Photos my children took this late summer early fall.

I want to be a listener about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I don’t have any words of my own about it; nor do I want to have any. My ears, instead, are open. I want to sit in a circle with people very directly influenced and whisper, “Tell me.” So many of us feel the heart-break, even from a distance. Two people I know are in it—deeply. I want to share them. Not any details about who they are, or their actual words, just essence.

One woman told me that her body is cued to the tones of sirens, that last Friday was a regular day and now it feels like years ago, that she is noticing her own freeze and allowing it, that supporting others is resourcing for her, that even in it all she is with her particular body.

One man shared on a family text thread that he is scared because he knows what’s coming as he returns to his home country as a soldier.

Can you hear them?

It feels essential to humanize in these moments. Down to the individual.

You are an individual.

You are living your daily life, holding both/and, also evolving. I’ve been exploring self-improvement this October and want to remember that we grow mostly in small, daily moves that accumulate. One day, you wake up and realize, “Oh, here I am being that person I so wanted to be years ago.” Maybe that goes for whole communities too.

Posture Prompt

On this day of the eclipse, on this day of possibility, can you give yourself a gift? Stand somewhere. Lie somewhere. Notice what you prefer. Then 1) imagine in your mind’s eye a way of being you desire. Who is that person? How does she/he/they move? What words want to be said? How are they said? Let it be grandiose. Then, 2) invite your body to assume the posture. BUT, in small doses. They body has to believe it. Instead of flinging your arms to the sky and saying, “I am healed” (your body might not buy that one), open your arms slightly and notice the first inkling of being closer to healed. Then, 3) feel it. What sensations accompany this new possibility? Allow them to wash through you. Allow yourself to notice them. Visualization is one thing. Embodied visualization makes it real.

The 5-10% shifts are where the gold lives.

Perhaps the most authentic thing any of us (individuals or collectives) can do is notice our minute shifts for the greater good and celebrate the hell out of them.

With love,