Free yourself to grab for a moment

When my daughter was born, I reached down and literally pulled her from the physician's hands, and then took her warm, wet slippery body and merged her with my own heap of weeping flesh. The only reasonable explanation I have for acting with such unabashed abandonment to urban, hospital convention (waiting for my physician to hand her to me) is that I was so lost in the heat of passion that my body simply expressed a movement pattern that organically happens when we lose ourselves in desire, like how we did as infants when our survival depended on us to reach and touch and hold and pull it back. So in that moment of giving birth, I too was unconscious, somewhere deep in an ancient part of me that lives so far beyond my lessons of protocols and manners and policies and procedures.


Many of us were taught not to grab at a very young age. Yet taking hold of our desires and pulling them towards us is an in intricate part of a developmental, sequential patterned movement that not only insures our survival, but supports our confidence and capabilities of reaching for what we need and want in this world.   The pattern is one of

Yield---------------Push-----------Reach----------Take Hold-----------Pull


Free yourself to grab for a moment, a meditation exploration.

Take a comfortable seated posture on the earth and place a shiny, attractive object about 2 feet in front of you (or, wait until you are really hungry and make the object a small piece of your favorite dessert!).

Take a moment and really look at the object and notice how you feel.  Notice your breathing and how it helps to keep your mind still. Begin to reach for the object with both hands and then grab a hold of it. Observe yourself in the position of holding for a moment. Can you notice how your breath is deeper and fuller and at the same time, it pushes your hips back into the earth, and that you feel more grounded?  We call this, yielding. Now pull the object back to yourself and take your time to explore it.  Continue to notice your breathing and how you may feel a softening to be more present in the moment. 

Certainly, cultivating the part of ourselves that is able to discern when to refrain from acting impulsively is a good thing, especially given the swarm of temptation that we all must learn to move mindfully through if we are to avoid getting stung with the often too brief excitement of gluttony. However, there are those rare, exquisitely divine moments in our lives like giving birth that call for us to act boldly and follow the body's wisdom. When we do, such action awakens us to our power to reach far beyond our comfort zone that more than anything else leaves us joyful, content and feeling deeply satisfied.

Join us in our circle.  Explore and Practice to Integrate and Enjoy.