To feel our aching hearts

I came home from the hairdresser a little while ago.  Going to get my hair cut is a time my body is connected to others.  Living alone some days I don’t see anyone much and am not touched, though Jasper, my dog and I get out most days to try and connect with life and nature and grooming and being with Jasper give me some connection.  Some days its not necessary to see others, but I do know that long streams of no connection between my body and other bodies does set up a hunger deep in my soul.  And there is a difference between just connecting and actually connecting intimately although that doesn’t always happen even when we go out.  I still need to keep my body active.

While having my coffee this morning I read the chapter in Peter Levine’s book on Embodiment.  I want to post some of it later when I am not so tired as in it he makes such important points about modern society and things like eating disorders and pornography as well as the growing prevalence of highly stimulating movies and computer games full of violence.  What he argues is that the more we disconnect from a vital alive connection with our inner body, the more we begin to hunger for this kind of over the top stimulation but a lot of it requires us distancing emotionally and treating our body or others as objects rather as living breathing deeply sensitive beings full of sensation that is related to spiritual aliveness and presence.

The chapter gave me a lot of fuel for thought.  I find that blogging is sometimes good for me but at other times it becomes a bit too much of an obsession.  Ideally I want to be able to write FROM my body, rather than leaving my body behind by writing what then becomes a head trip full of concepts and ideas.  As an Aquarian you may have noticed that I am fairly analytical and intellectual, I used to get in trouble about it a lot from my ex earth sign partner who was a Capricorn.  That said I am also deeply emotional and often when I write a poem it has come not from my head but from my body.

After getting home and connecting with my dog, Jasper who always puts me back in touch with my heart I got to crying.  I felt in my jacket pocket and pulled out a little drawing I made while playing with my grand nephews on Saturday night.  Little Christian had composed a rap song with the lyric “Sunshine in my Pocket”.  I just loved that so I did a little drawing of a shirt with a pocket in the place of a heart with sunshine radiating out from it.  Just thinking about the brief time we spent connecting on the weekend brought me to tears.  For me coming out of long years of isolation it was an amazing experience.  I know it wont be the last one.  I will go and visit Christian and his family one day soon.

The beautiful thing about children is that they live in present moment.  I just spoke to my hairdresser about how Christian is already getting trouble at school for speaking his truth.  I noticed over the weekend how his parent’s were trying to pull him into line.  Its interesting as my sister who died was a great truth speaker. She often got in trouble for it.  Seems like Christian is carrying a family trait from this GM on.  We were also speaking about how in modern days kids are cossetted, not allowed to get too wet or dirty.   Its a sad thing that we may be raising more disembodied children as society gets stranger.

Anyway I had my little cry this afternoon and then noticed I had been sent a message on Facebook which I rarely go on these days.  It was one of those message you are asked to forward to 10 other people that I usually ignore and it was all about how to help yourself if you are alone and having a heart attack.  How apt?  Aren’t we more liable to have a heart attack the more stressful, disembodied and remote or isolated life becomes?  Just thinking about it is enough to make you cry.  But I am not just sad any more the sun is out and there is life to enjoy, its just not half the fun living it alone or in isolation.