One year ago, me and mine lives took a turn
It was a huge turn
It was an unexpected turn
In the days that followed my physical body bore the blunt of it
My body was disintegrating before my eyes
When my body dragged itself up
My mind took over the spiraling
I have been learning how to breath.
I can hear some chuckling, that was me a few months ago as well.
“But I have been breathing since I was born,” I said when I heard about breathing classes.
Air.
The very breath that we breath.
Yet, not so many of us ever stop to consciously breath.
To savor the inhaling, the exhaling.
To feel the air saturate your lungs and permeate every part of your being.
To feel the air move around and then out of your body.
To be one with your breath and let it carry you into the inner spaced of your being.
To commune with your breath ad become one with it.
To be attuned to your inhaling and exhaling and everything else in between.
I have found that conscious breathing calms me down.
Being attuned to the inhales and exhales is such a beautiful awareness dance.
It is a motion unlike another because the air flows in different part of my body as they are.
The tight spaces, the free space, the closed spaces, the open spaces.
It is a conversation with myself guided by my breath on how I am being from the inside out.
Breathing.
So natural, yet so unnatural.
To be one with our breath, is such a gift to our self.
A healing gift.
A cleaning gift.
A gift of acceptance.
A gift of self awareness.
A gift of connection with the past, present and future.
I am seen
I am heard
I am known
I am loved
No need to defend/explain/justify my existence
I am
I live
I breathe
I exhale
I rest
it is not that i don’t want to live,
i do,
it is that i no longer know how to
it is not that i don’t love life,
i do,
it is that i no longer feel its love
it is not that i am weak,
i am not,
it is that i am exhausted
it is not that i am ungrateful,
i am not,
it is that i have reached my end
more grease to you elbows
more strength to your knees
more clarity to your mind
more wisdom to your ears
more vision to your eyes
more grace to your tongue
more firmness to your back
Aṣẹ
LEARN| UNLEARN| RELEARN
i don’t know
i know that i don’t know
so i seek to know
this way i will know
SEE| UNSEE| RESEE
i don’t see
i know that i don’t see
so i seek to learn to see
this way i will see
LOVE| UNLOVE| RELOVE
i don’t love
i know that i don’t love
so i seek to learn love
this way i will love
i call
but silence engulfs me
i look
but you are nowhere to be found
i reach out
but fall into emptiness
did you really speak
or did i hear my own things
were you here
or did i conjure you up
where are you?
to know myself as i am fully known
to see myself as i am fully seen
to love myself as i am fully loved
to know humans and nature as they are/it is fully known
to see humans and nature as they are/it is fully seen
to love humans and nature as they are/it is fully loved
that is my life quest
to walk in the foot steps of Jesus the man from Nazareth
his longing.
his daughter’s song
in recent days memories of a friend who committed suicide a year ago have been with me . . .
the liminal time
mostly confused
the one between “if you were . . .” and “i know that you are . . .”
tension that had her looking up to her crucified son
a place of bursting out
a place of reckoning
stay with me through the unravelling
be with me
Disembody.
Fragment.
Break.
Divide.
Dismember.
i have been thinking about these words the last couple of hours and two Bible women have been on my mind:
1. The concubine of Judges 19-21
2. The women caught in adultery in John 7:53 – 8:11
the account of the concubine has to be one of the goriest accounts in the Hebrew Bible. it makes me shiver every damn time! my entire body gets swallowed in the pain of this unnamed woman. how the men failed her, including her husband who just shoved her out to the ‘wolves’ as it were. as if that is not enough guy cuts up her dead body into twelve pieces to make a point. a point i am certain would not have needed making if he had stood up to those whose intention was destruction of his concubine.
then the account of the woman caught in adultery. hurled at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth. i am certain she was half dressed if not almost naked. adultery is at least a two human tango but for some reason the men that brought this woman to Jesus only brought one party. Jesus of Nazareth saw right through them and chose not to entangle himself in their shenanigans. in the end this woman is left alone with Jesus who sees her and loves on her.
. . .
the casual fragmenting of women’s bodies in the Bible and in life is numbing. . .
women within the Christian faith continue to be on the receiving end of evil and wickedness all in God’s name . . .
men within the Christian faith continue to ‘thrive’ on the backs of bleeding women and children . . .
reminds me of Jesus of Nazareth . . .
the man whose body was fragmented . . .
the man who bleeding body was unjustly nailed on a cross . . .
the man on whose back, on whose life, on whose words the bodies of women in the the past and present have been and continue to be fragmented . . .
. . .
i have been writing a book on women of/in the Bible for the longest . i hope to actually do it sometime. sometime soon.