BLOG 96—(present reflections tied to May 2001 journal entries about my healing journey)—Where
does FEAR and TIGHTNESS come from? Why is it that back in 2001, I had so much tightness in my body that I could barely move without great pain? What had paralyzed my legs and the rest of me far beyond the groin-pull injury I had begun with?
As I lay on the floor in a movement and breath workshop I took back in 2001 (an ironic situation since it pained me to move after having injured myself in dance years earlier), I asked myself this very question. I could feel the deep sadness and helplessness I felt of carrying so much pain, and of my deep desire to feel supported yet not feeling supported. My shoulders were all tight, my neck, my jaw, and every part of me wanted so much to ground me from the pain of not being supported.
I saw back then that so much of my tightness came from not only a physical state of not feeling supported but an emotional one as well. How often do we tighten because we are afraid, afraid that if we don’t hold on, if we don’t push forward and remain strong, that there will be no one there to catch us, to hold us? So, we grip tight. We fear. We contract. And the pain worsens. We carry this old belief, as I did, from my childhood, that I was all alone, that I couldn’t afford to let go of the tightness I had built up in body and soul.
Yet, ironically, in order to heal, in order to let God, or that divine energy we call God, move through us, we actually have to let go, to soften our grip, and let life in. That’s when the creative flow and restoration returns. That’s when we feel the divine within us, and it is this very energy that holds us.
Back in 2001, when I took a workshop in Continuum Movement with its founder Emily Conrad (who helped people recover from paralysis), I discovered the amazing truth of this. Emily had told us, “Our organism is not bound by its form. It functions in form but is not bound by it. When our system can reorganize itself, it can remain healthy. Being able to let go and let new forms arise always brings us to a higher form.”
Today, as I look at what I had written down during her workshop, I am amazed at the immense wisdom she shared and how it holds so true during these co-vid days. “All movement is limited by fear,” she said, while making reference to the fact that, when we speed up or are stressed, our molecules have to come together (and inversely, when we slow down, there is space between the molecules that makes room for new things to come in). “You have to trust that the universe is within you,” she added.
How ironic is it that we, as a world, have most recently been asked to slow down, or at least more than ever before? And why? So new life can come in? So God can come in? So we can come into balance after years of being so contracted and not feeling held in our rush to dominate and survive? And what is it that is possible now?
Lately, I’ve been meditating more than ever, and tapping into that abundance of the universe that exists inside and out. I’ve been making more space between the molecules inside me so I can feel life, God, that essence and energy that exist in the spaces between the molecules, between the in and out breath, and inside the empty, still points. It’s where I want to be and stay, because if I don’t, the tightness returns, the constriction blocks my heart from feeling held, and I feel separate from God and this amazing universe. I am no longer able to walk the unique path that I am here to walk.
So, if you find yourself contracting, fearing, separating from the magic of this world during these co-vid days, take a breath, feel that space of God between the molecules, the stars, of your body and soul, and return home. You are held. We are all held by this divine force that knows exactly how to move with ease and grace in the world during this time and at all times.
My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is a story of returning home to the earth inside and all around us (Help me reach a goal of selling 100 books in the month of July!). It’s now available in Spanish as Niña Duende: Un Viaje del Espiritu. The English version can be ordered on this Amazon Page and in Spanish at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997247193 (or visit www.michelleadam.net). My novel will soon be published by the Spanish publisher, Corona Borealis, and the Portuguese publisher, Edições Mahatma. It can be ordered at a local bookstore or directly from me (for those outside of the U.S.) as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video
ecome far too accustomed to.
) die in your arms and to carry her around with you everywhere you go because she has given you life. She is what reminds you everyday to cry, to give reverence for what was and is. She is the one who gives us humanity and allows us to deepen ourselves,” I reflected 20 years ago. “I needed to hear that silence between two breaths to look at her, to feel the sadness of this child, to forgive her for all her attempts at love, all her attempts at greatness, all the running that left her (and me) empty because she only knew how to live one way. Then, I needed to give her back to that place of vitality from which she grew, to give her an honorable death, to let go of these old ways.”
eath—of its weight, its story, its trauma—so we can make room for the next!
der, rose-water musk, on the same area. Then, a group of us called in the directions, sang, and began ceremony.
It helped me intensify my intentions with my healing process, and to do so in a manner supported by community and spirit. Being in ceremony, and healing with nature on the farm, also opened a space for me to be with God and my life’s call, which had followed me since I was eight years old in Spain.
is to be in a culture that dances with fire, that knows and manifests magic and sensuality with ease.”
e house were open fields, high wheat grasses on one end, and a large lawn and soon-to-be-tilled garden on the other.
The weeks to follow were the beginning of magic, though, of discovering what’s possible when we show up with clear prayer and intention, and leave the rest up to God. Jean, who died several years later, would become one of numerous angels offering me retreat from the chains of pain I had carried for far too long.
About a month ago from today, after arriving back to New Mexico from Buenos Aires and our family’s honoring of my recently-deceased father’s life, I met another angel of sorts in man’s clothing. I met an Argentinean man who appeared to me without cigarette in hand :), but with an embracing heart, passion, and laughter. Together we exchanged mystical love poems; shared—with my father’s spirit, it seemed—Argentinean songs he and I both loved; held communion on a moon-filled mesa that whispered of the infinite until early morning; and danced and laughed inside the light-filled rhythm of our newly-discovered bubble.
poor health, I battled this reality of receiving divine grace within the limitations of this earth journey. And while I tried to contemplate, analyze, feel, reflect, and be with the tension that built knots inside my heart and that of this relationship (quite a different energy from the heart-opening magic of weeks prior), it seemed to only create more tension, more struggle.
Michelle Adam 