The past four days have been filled with expressions of headaches, sore throats, congestion, exhaustion, fever, and chills. I have been complacent, frustrated, bored, restless, and curious about these expressions. Often in my life, I have found that the timing of these types of expressions has much to teach me. Very often, expressions such as these become opportunities to shed what no longer serves me. I think of them as physical detoxifications with roots in my spirit. And so while I search to provide what I need on a physical level to heal, I'm also mindful of what might be alive under the surface.
In the midway point of all of this - two nights ago - I woke up in the early morning hours from a very vivid dream. In this dream I had returned to the weaving studio to pick up my final project. I was excited to see how it looked off the loom and how the colors and patterning would come together as a whole. (In real life I have apprenticed in this weaving studio, and do have a final piece waiting there that I haven't yet seen off the loom.) I walked into the studio and my teacher pointed me to the table where the weaving was to be found. As I walked closer to the table, I became very confused. What was there looked incredible different than what I had woven on the loom. It was smaller in size - perhaps only 3x4ft - and the colors were not bright and fiery - instead they were deep and earthy. When I looked closely at the pattern, I could barely see the patterning as I had known it and woven it - somehow the weave had become much tighter and the patterning I had known sat below the surface, covered over by a different pattern. And then as my eyes moved towards the lower part of the weaving, I saw the image of a white deer. I was perplexed as to how and why it had changed so much. And I examined it with great curiosity. To some degree I was sad because I had so deeply enjoyed the colors and the patterns I had woven. And to some degree I was intrigued at the changes that had taken place and the piece that had transformed itself. I wanted to know more of how it had happened, and what I could do in the future to better understand the transformation, when I would weave another piece. I wanted to know so that I could create with more intention and thoughtfulness. My eyes traveled back to the image of the white deer again, and I realized that even the materials were different from what I had started with. Overall, I could feel the hardiness and earthiness of the piece. It would be durable. It was rich in its tones. It could be passed forward for generations, it had come to me through generations.
When I woke from this dream, I didn't know what to think at first. But as the last few days have unfolded and I have watched my body move through this expressions of imbalance, I have more clarity.
These past few mornings actually - in the space of being sick, I have somehow found my way back to sitting with my altar quietly. I have gone through a few months of feeling fidgety and impatient, and slightly confused as to how 10 minutes suddenly began to seem burdensome. Now, in the space of my body demanding for me to slow down, I sit easily, lavishing in the connection. Feeling my soul in all of its edges and unrefined shapes and opening to the nourishment of that quiet space. This morning I was keenly aware of what I would refer to as the edges of my soul - the space of my deepest truths and knowings of who I am - alive and well - waiting to be given space to come forward. And I was aware of how different that space felt from that of my physical self which was riddled with a fever, sore throat, and tired to the trunk of my body.
Ah! There it was . . . the door opening to my understanding of the dream and of my body's current expression. The physical being that carries our souls through this world - our bodies - our altars. We decorate them with our clothing and haircuts. Shape them with our actions and the foods that we digest. Modify them with tattoos and piercings. And yet, no matter what we do, our physical selves move through the process of transformation inherent in the living - slowly moving towards its return to the earth. Our bodies serve as our altars - carrying our souls through this world. And it is how we attend to these altars that can help us to reach deeply into our soul - our heart - the generations of ancestors that come before us. And sometimes, those altars need to be wiped clean, rearranged, reorganized, to reflect our own shifts in the transformations of bringing the edges of our souls more deeply into immediate action and connection with the world around us. Sometimes it requires our bodies to be worn down to the edges, so that the path has less resistance. Sometimes it is the will of the universe for us to slow down from our modern life, so that our souls have more space and time to be filled, nourished, and to expand in our bodies and in the direction our lives are taking.
As in the dream - what I thought I was creating - was merely the outer layer to something much deeper, older, and wiser. And in the process of the weaving coming off the loom, the elegant patterns that I had created in the bright and fiery colors, receded to reveal something with far more sustenance and body. The altar found in sitting at the loom and weaving, combining shapes, colors, and patterns, was only the practice meant to open the doorway to the soul of the piece. What it was that was really meant to be alive and present in this world. What I was truly here to create and give birth to.
And so I realize as I ride these waves of fevers, headaches, and otherwise, that the food that I place into my body feeds and nourishes on a physical level, but truly is meant to reach into that deepest place within myself - to draw that essence out into the world. So the choices that I make need to match the vibration of that deeper self. Because the food, just as with the things that sit on my altar in real life, is the offering. The offering to the altar of my body. The offering to the divine spirit within and without.
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