I wrote this poem over a year ago, after a 10-retreat with Hameed Ali, my spiritual teacher (http://www.ahalmaas.com/). I was reminded of it today, as I was sitting with an emerging layer of imprint in my body, a layer deeply embedded in my nervous system, repeatedly uncovered after weeks of meditation and inquiry and penetrated today after an hour of somatic inquiry with a close friend. It seems to be an impression from a precognitive period of my life, perhaps when I was an infant, or even earlier. It brings me in touch with a terror that takes my breath away, a fear for my very survival, and the front of my body contracts as it tries to contain this feeling by controlling the shape of my physical form. I understand that I am working with a level of trauma that Peter Levine’s work addresses (http://www.traumahealing.com/somatic-experiencing/peter-levine.html).
I have noticed behavioral impacts of getting in touch with this impression on my psyche – the way I try to control my environment when this visceral feeling surfaces after I am somehow pushed past my psycho-emotional capacity in the moment. Growing up in a chaotic setting with a distracted mother (I was the seventh of 8 children), I sense that this re-activity was originally an infantile attempt to feel safe or contained by “circling the wagons” of her physical form around the terror provoked by my early holding environment. In the end, it is not my cognitive understanding of this precognitive imprint that holds the space for this work. It is the sacred container of my body, my physical presence and its patient stillness that wraps this infantile terror in the warmth of human contact. I am just beginning to metabolize this impression from my history. As the Ridhwan approach (www.ridhwan.org) has taught me, I work with it in a way that helps it slowly relax so it can be lovingly absorbed into my consciousness. In time, the way that it “hooks” me softens and gradually leave a nutritional understanding my psyche needs. This will require the dedicated, steadfast support of my physical form, ever widening its inward gaze to welcome every ounce of this terror as it seeps forth from my tissue, meeting it with the open arms of essential holding. A deep presence in my belly center breathes in and out as I continue to tread forth with this work.
Leap of Faith
By Sheila Kelly, September 9, 2010
My eyes are being opened
By a force older than time
Deeper, broader, more penetrating
It awakens my drowsy mind.
My lips are being parted
My slumber nears its end
The shutters pulled open,
As I sit in meditation again.
My breath is penetrating deeper,
I am dizzy with disarray
All the “contents” of this container
Splayed open in the fray.
My heart is at the center
Awakened with a hush
The windows blown open
I’m here, and there’s no rush.
This flame deep in my pelvis
Ignited by release
Security and holding
Let loose like wild geese.
Home bound, no longer bounded
By the constructs of my mind
Three centers swirling dervishly
Yet I can take my time.
This moment at a crossroads
A choiceless choice again
The quaking ground below me
Cracks open this old pen.
The game is ever widening
Beyond my ordinary mind
I hope and pray, yet realize
It’s time to get off my hind.
My legs are strong and sturdy
My heart is true and kind
This leap of faith is calling
And I’m not far behind.