AND, HOW DOES YOUR BODY FEEL NOW?

• Today's suggested practice: Three (or more) minutes to feel into the truth of your body... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: O Let Me Weep 

• My morning practice: 90 minutes, with short warm-up for lower triangle, Kriya to Know the Other as Myself (mantra and mudra), and Linking to the Infinite (pranayama and mantra)

• My vulnerability practice: It makes no sense to allow her pain to pierce me, no sense but the sense of allowing myself to be vulnerable and to receive all of Her gifts...

—Hans Peter Meyer

MY MEDITATION Today I am my sister's brother.

We have never been close.

My mother has ached for us to be close. Since my sister's dying, my new sister's tragic arrival, an unfinished part of her mothering I think: that we too, sharing a birthday even, should be so distant.

Nevertheless, we persist in our distance, our mutual solitudes, in our strange way.

One of the gifts of falling apart several years ago —one of those unbidden gifts of Her ever-changing nature— was the slowing down. This allowed me to feel safe to her, for a moment, now and then. And in those moments, when I hold onto myself, for she is all brusque and bristly bluntness as she defends herself against my incursions, a new landscape appears between us. My eyes fill with tears. I feel her pain. I feel my yearning. It's a lot.

"How does it feel, in *your* body," she asks, turning my question back to me, a question she resents. Feeling my tears I tell her that I am flooded with feeling, tingling. And that I am afraid. "Me too," she says. And we hold each other in this new, unfamiliar landscape. Our fears shared. For a moment. For a moment I am the brother this sister needs, she is the sister this brother needs. It makes no sense except the sense of vulnerability opening instead of closing to the sharp test of her pain.

This moment will pass. I know it. We are each of more comfortable in our solitude for this proximity to last more than a few hours or days. I am grateful for this moment, and for my becoming comfortable with its passing. She teaches me to be the guardian of her solitude, protecting and loving this distance rather than wishing it away. My sister, another of my Oracles. This pain and this protected vulnerability, the landscape she walks. The landscape I walk, without knowing, until her fierce words and sharp attitude dissolves my denial.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS 🌀In all this immensity, the one sensation that every human has to discover in order to advance to their full potential is inclusion -- the capacity to perceive the “other” as a part of the ‘self’...

..include everyone and everything in the picture of your “self”; include them as they are -- with all their faults and flaws -- they are just pixels in your total image. They allow your world to be richer in depth and detail with a more compassionate view.(Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur, A Meaning of Inclusion)

🌀The Conscious Warrior is ruthlessly honest with himself while being kind to others. (John Wineland, Precept 1)

🌀The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust....But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky. (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

🌀You're not like that now. (My Beloved as My Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE Three minutes to feel into the truth of your body. Your body is a site for much exploration and allowing. Three minutes is the minimum. Perhaps you will extend this to five or ten or 30 or 90. Guidance in this process can help. Find a coach. There are many. If you can't find one that fits, please book some time with me (as a reader, please use the MYBODYISMYORACLE code for a 50% first-time discount).

Please read through first, then do the following...

• On your own, begin however you are, sitting, standing, lying down, to notice your breath and your weight drawn to the earth. This "magic" is understated. Let it's silence be enough, if that is all you hear. If more than silence, be grateful. Now, set a timer for three minutes.

• Sitting or standing or lying down, let your weight settle. Feel yourself heavy where you are heavy. Feel yourself light where you are light. Breathe into the heaviness, exhale into the lightness.

• Bring your attention to every part of your body, starting at your toes, your arches, your heels. Now your ankles and shins, your calves and knees. Keep the cycle of breath, inhaling into the heavy, exhaling into the lightness of your body.

• Feel the fronts of your thighs, the inside of your thighs, the back of your thighs, the outside of your thighs.

• Feel your buttocks, your anus and perineum, your genitals.

• Feel your hips.

• Feel your pubis and lower belly, then your navel area and solar plexus. Feel your heart from the front. Feel your lower back and up into the middle back, the back of your heart. Continue to breathe slowly and deeply into the weight of your body, exhaling into its lightness.

• Bring your attention to the top of your chest, the top of your back between your shoulder blades, the back of your neck, and now the front of your neck, your throat. Feel the breath moving in through your nose or mouth and into your throat and down into your belly.

• Feel the front of your face, your chin, your lips, the space between your lips and your nostrils. Feel each nostril, left and right as you inhale. Feel your cheeks and eyes. Your brow. The front of your head, your ears, and the back of your head. Feel the top of your head, that spot that once was soft, once was your fontanel.

• Now, lift your attention, as if you're looking down on your body. Become aware of your awareness of your body and allow it to feel everything that you may have felt as you scanned. Your body is both a system that allows you to move and experience this moment, and a transceiver that feels the most subtle of vibrations —others' feelings and words and intentions, the sound of the wind, the breath of the moon, the dog's dreams and the cat's intensity — itself send vibrations both subtle and gross. Allow yourself to relax and feel into whatever is there to be felt. There is no answer, no question, simply a flow of sensation that, with practice and stillness, you are able to know.

• When the timer signals, gently release your body from your attention. Relax your mind. Take a few moments to feel the air around you, the stillness you've created. Trust yourself. You are enough.