A note from Erin:
Helloooo!
This season is so utterly glorious where we are. Are you loving the season?
Friends, how are you? Could your upper back use some lovin’? Some gentle movements to liberate stiffness?
I’m inspired to offer an Awareness Through Movement Lesson as a gift to you, our readers, this week because I just keep thinking of so many people who could really benefit from it. It’s a recording from a live class I taught earlier this month where we worked with softening and mobilizing the upper back, shoulders, ribs, and neck. One student in the room said she felt like honey – part crystallized, part soft, after doing this. Let’s turn your upper back to honey, honey!!
It’s an unedited live recording. I think the lesson is great. You can listen to Upper Back Clocks right here. (Instructions start at about one minute into the track, and sound quality improves a lot at about 3 minutes in.) I hope you enjoy it! Please use common sense and don’t do anything that hurts. All you need for this lesson is a comfortable spot on the ground, perhaps on a mat or blanket for a bit of padding.
A friend in one of my online writing circles shared a sentiment earlier this week. It was something to this effect: “I’ll never need “goddess status” or any halo or to transcend anything at all. This being human is everything to me. The chance of a f*cking lifetime!”
Isn’t it though? This being human – the chance of a lifetime, just to be here, in this glorious mess! I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
This, in fact, is how we approach meditation, embodiment, and basically everything we do. It’s not about becoming some better version of yourself. In fact, we often offer courses with the 100% guarantee that this work will not improve you. :) But it may help you to show up more fully, as your authentic self, with more of your embodied presence available for this chance of a lifetime.
Here’s a poem from the numinous Fred LaMotte, whose prolific poetry never ceases to move me.
‘Glorify God in your body…’ ~1 Corinthians, 6
Don’t try to transcend by rising above the body.
Transcend by sinking into the body, without effort.
Dissolve your mind into this star-clustered host of photons,
this inter-galactic hum of atoms,
this black hole of unbounded space and limitless information
at the center of each proton.
Yes, there are other worlds,
higher worlds, celestial worlds, angelic kingdoms:
they are all in your body.
And if anyone tries to tell you, ‘I am not this body,’ laugh, sing, dance, and meditate.
– Fred LaMotte
Don't miss a single post. Sign up here to get them delivered straight to your inbox.
