the void (or belly chest exhale 3)

I think I left my body last night which was kind of a first. Flew. Soared. Remained stiller than I ever had in all of my almost 14,600 days on earth.

My intention and word de jour is freedom. Freedom from limiting beliefs. Freedom from old patterns of co-dependency that have long had me place the needs of others before the needs of myself. Freedom from attachments of how I think it or I or you or god should be. Freedom from my disappointment in how things didn’t turn out, or how they did. Freedom from needing people to need me. From desperately wanting people to love me so that I could know I was loved.

I felt my back flat on the floor and rooted myself deep into the earth as my teacher instructed. I imagined my body growing roots like the trees I have recently planted in my yard. I imagined myself unfurling into this giant rock and I imagined the rock opening itself to welcome me, to hold me, to support me. I imagined my chest plate coming off next, exposing my red and white light filled beating heart. I saw my heart, exposed, beating. It shook a little at the exposition not used to being so prominently displayed. It’s ok, I told it, we are safe here, we are loved.

My roots, my heart and I were all prepared, we knew this terrain, we had been doing it for quite some time now. We expected dry mouth, we expected dizzy, we expected tears. We never knew what would happen but 90% of the time, all those things did. The great wondrous release that happens when my New York City analytic brain can no longer outrun the emotion I have been side stepping for almost all of my almost 14,600 days on earth. The crying through things I had never cried myself to the other side of. The things that I can’t control how many tears it will take to get to the other side of. (which is in fact anything and everything)

My roots, my heart and I were ready. Bring it on we said thinking of our favorite color (purple), our favorite food (tortellini with sage butter), our favorite texture (my cat’s furry head), our favorite sound (my cat’s purr) and our favorite smell (rosemary.) “And when the music begins, let’s breathe. Have fun.” my teacher's voice said before ushering in the subtle tones of a song I have long loved. A song that takes center stage in the second feature script I ever wrote.

And I belly, chest, exhaled as I do, as I have been doing, belly, chest, exhale, belly, chest, exhale. The beatles morphed into something else and something else morphed into something else and my belly and my chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell and then…..

………........................                              ........................……...

I spent much of last night in a void, on an open road with the top down. I found myself unattached to almost everything which was new. Memories would come and then go. People would come and then go. There was no time for emotion. If there was it was only fleeting lovely gratitude, then back to the void, back to the open road. I knew I was held by god and that god was experiencing itself through me.

I felt myself fearless. I felt myself doing things without second guessing. Finishing books, reaching out to men i find intimidating, singing out loud, standing on stage.... I saw anything is possible in this space and felt myself as grounded in my own loving and awesomeness as I have ever been. I knew in that spacelessness in that timelessness the world was indeed my oyster, my stage and mine for the taking or rather mine for the living.

The living. Mine to be lived. Lived.

Not thought about, not imagined (though imagination is key for living let’s not forget that), not wistfully dreamed about. L I V E D. The book is mine to write. The call is mine to make. The intimidation is mine to feel, there is something in it for me or i would not be feeling it. And the choice to move forward in engaging with the man is mine to make, it’s my experience to have, and he get’s to be a player on my stage. The stage which is mine to sing on. The stage which is mine to own.

I found myself free. Free of all those things I listed above. I felt the tingles this suit I call body was feeling, I felt the energy working it’s way through me but I, I was free. I was flying, I was soaring, I was still. I was the spark, the buzz of electricity that travels back and forth in the light bulb of life. The lightbulb of my life. I could feel myself brightening and dimming as needed.

I was nowhere and everywhere. I was nothing and everything.

It was harder to come back last night than ever before. I wanted to stay in that space. I wanted to stay in the space where anything is possible and have the grounded confidence to do all those things with or even without the fear or attachment I may have to outcome. I wanted to do all these things free in my own loving.

I stood up wide eyed and shaky. I drank some water. I had a lovely dinner with a lovely friend and I went to sleep. I woke up and drove to get coffee. On my drive back I saw a man. He was homeless, or at the very least unbalanced. His teal socks hit the road as his skinny and blanket wrapped bottom hit the sidewalk. I drove by as he was inhaling on a cigarette. I remembered that feeling from my 2,900 days on this earth as a smoker. I remember that drag when there’s nothing you need more than one...more...puff.

He was pulling on that cigarette searching for the meaning of life, asking the deepest questions he could ever ask and upon getting it, could finally exhale. Everything is in that drag, answers, love, space, freedom, calm, time, life, death, everything. I watched him and felt my chest plate drop, and though i was not on a floor in Santa Monica, I felt my roots dig into the earth rock too. I sensed all my favorite things and I too inhaled with the man. I needed no cigarette though. I realized in that moment, I needed nothing.

I needed to inhale, belly, chest, exhale. I pulled over, I put my top down, I smiled. I looked around at the greens and blues and reds and yellows of this world. At the greys and pinks, at the dense spaciousness. My eyes filled with water and I sneezed. I turned up my music and let the warm almond latte of my morning work its way down my throat. I put my foot on the gas and became fully and wholly aware of myself in the void despite the fact I was nowhere near it and fully encompassed by it.

In my almost 14,600 days on earth I can not even say I have come close to figuring out the infinite amount of paradoxes and possibilities that exist. But in my almost 14,600 days on earth I can say that I have tasted freedom. I have flown, I have soared, I have listened, I have cried, I have laughed, I have loved, I have learned and I have lived. And I will forget this, over and over and I will choose to use everything to help me remember, over and over.  I have tasted the colors of life and I will keep opening, keep soaring, listening, crying, laughing, loving, learning.

And I will keep living, with roots held by this rock supporting me in knowing myself for who I truly am, with a heart open, exposed, beating, vulnerable, real showing herself as who she truly is.

Love. Free. Love.

An unstoppable force of free expressed, sourced, living love. Existing in this place, of this place, for this place and always aware of the expansive void. The void of love. Free, infinite, unwavering, compassionate love.