The Birth of a Descent
Last year I watched a film called The Deepest Breath that had a life altering impact on me. It was a documentary about free divers. The individuals whose calling it is to descend down into the dark layers of the sea on one breath alone. 100 meters deep. The film tells the story of Alessia Zecchini. One thing she said is that at about 30 meters down there is a gravitation pull which takes her down, and that that is her favorite part. That it feels like flying. Any time I share that with someone they tend to gasp in fear at the thought of that. And this is why I decided its time for me to finally offer the container that my soul has been calling me to for over a decade now.
Most people fear being in their bodies because they fear that there are emotions there that are too painful to feel. The idea of going down and into ones being should not be something we fear, I thought. I would be like having a home that you never want to go to. My work as a bodyworker has taught me how to come home to my own body more and more and to make it really feel like a home, though I assure you it is still a long and slow process for myself as well. I am honored to guide people to begin the journey home to their own body and meet what arises along the way with vulnerability, honesty, patience, and compassion.
Around the time I saw this film I had been studying with Todd Jackson, an incredible bodyworker, teacher, yogi in Portland, Oregon. His teachings of Biodynamic Massage and Biodynamic Craniosacral function as a surrendered state of meeting a body right where it is at, without preconceived ideas or intentions. It it a very feminine form- chaotic at times, intuitive and deeply trusting. Craniosacral revolves around the cerebrospinal fluid and its flow or lack there of. After I trained in these modalities I felt so moved by the imagery that would come to me as I felt the body from this vantage point. I saw caverns and coral reefs in the body. It felt very oceanic. And then the pearl emerged.
The pearl came to me in so many beautiful layers. Its medicine is still very much with me. I wear pearls now every day. I sleep in them in fact. There energy feels very protective, comforting, and divinely radiant. But what they signify for me is a reward from the depths I have dove. Recently I was reflecting on this with a girlfriend I have known for 20 years or more. She reminded me that I have always been a rebellious risk taker, willing to take the leap into the unknown. Willing to get messy and bruised in search for the truth. Willing to stay on the edge where the cutting edge resides. Where discovery lives. As a pioneer and trailblazer this excites me. It is what I feel I was made for. And for that there are challenges, pains, and rewards.
The leap that I am in the midst of as I write this feels like one I have been preparing for for the last decade. It is the most important leap thus far because it is the most personal. It is the one that relies on my full and unflinching faith in myself. And it is funny because it is the exact leap that I feel I am here to midwife people into themselves. So of course I would have to go first. And the energy of depth has been consistent over the past year in preparation, through grounding, an initiation into what the divine feminine means to me. Of course, the soul knows the way home when we listen and align with it.
The feminine womb is surely a salty one. Though I feel myself an earthy Virgo soul, I lived on the upper left edge of Oregons coastline for my 20’s and the sea has become a home to return to. I visit my father who lives there and I have a community that I consider family there which receive me into their warm, loving arms every time I return.
I was once asked what place on this planet I love more than any other. I answered Arcadia Beach. There is a cliff side there that I call my conception point. I feel like I am back in the mothers womb when I am there. It is a portal which reminds me I am child of the Mother, the Earth. As I age I see how all these dots are connecting. I wouldn’t know how important each element would be until later. Like the last pieces of a puzzle that quickly come together to see the image in its totality.
The deeper we invest and commit to what lives at the center of us, the Truth of who we uniquely are, that thing no one can certify us in, or validate, the more free I believe we become. The wind comes into our sail. I am experiencing that now in my life. I am in the unknown yet somehow it is also known because it is my own territory. Someone can say you are crazy for wanting the thing you do, maybe because no one has done it before, or because it scares the other to want that… because it is not theirs to want. It is yours, and it is sacred. It requires patience and an utmost trust in its becoming. There is a longing that draws you closer to it. There are no guarantees as to how it will feel to get there and what it will require of you. Perhaps its like what its like to bring a child into the world. So many unknowns, so many fears that can arise. A sense of powerlessness and a surrendering of control which is required. The wild unknown.
And yet, we can learn to surf the waves of this unique thing that wishes to be born through us. We can live a safe life where we just stay on the surface. Where we push and pull to make things happen which can or cannot feel satisfying in fits and spurts. Or we can let go to something of a miraculous order beyond mind and manipulation. Life can be lived as art. And the spectrum of emotional experience gets limited by the safe range of what seems safe but can from a distance look more like a straight jacket than a comfort.
We dont know what we dont know and we are not shown much range in the mainstream of our culture. We can chase an eternal summer, avoiding the depths of winter, the quietude and personal stillness it can draw us into. Or we can have the courage it takes to dive deeper to potentially uncover abundant rewards and a deeper peace of resilience. When you become the ocean the waves dont rock you as much. Reorienting in this way is the purpose of service I feel devoted wholeheartedly to.
If you are interested to descend with me please apply here.