To My Body.

Because regardless of all the overstories, there is always one underneath to listen to.

I’ve been unsure what to do with substack lately. I’ve never consented to or practiced social media (Mark Zuckerberg has always been a royal asshole), but suddenly, find myself inside it here. I don’t love it. I am often overwhelmed by all the things to read, albeit mostly lovely, and my eyes are beginning to deeply resist the blue light of my screen (yes, I have the glasses. no, they do not solve the problem.) I’ve written many drafts to share, but the proverbial ‘room’ is already so full of voices.

For me, this season is called Listen, and its the quiet shifting of the seeds deep within that I most want to hear. I was recently told a story about how some scientists were looking for a tagged bear to check on in the snowy wilds of Maine, and after hours of searching with their radars, found her by hearing the suckling sounds of cubs nursing, directly underneath them, buried in the snow.

The cacophony of voices speaking to politics and rematriation and injustice and cultural commentary and art and violence and on and on just sounds like noise above the snow right now. The earth is rebirthing, is there any way for that to be the most important story unfolding?

I recently spent several days in a fever stupor, shedding my first skin of the year in illness. I couldn’t look, listen, think, or speak, but I could dream. On the eve of my final fever breaking, I dreamt of learning how to ski on the backs of hundreds of great sharks swimming just under the surface. It was joyous, and when I woke I knew I’d come through the worst of this yin-depleting sickness. Sharks represent Big Yin, and here I was re-learning to surf on top of them. Still half asleep, I wrote out this ode to my body. I share it with you here as gratitude for my personal bit of Earth; maybe it inspires you to land or listen more deeply into your own. Because regardless of all the overstories, there is always one underneath to listen to.

To my body.

You are such a sound vessel,

breathing and beating without complaint

keeping time

all these decades long.

Thank you, body, for your simple wisdom

And gentle advice: eat, sleep, play, work, and digest

in rhythm.

Thank you for my life.

Thank you for my children.

Thank you for your self-preservation instinct.

Thank you for saying no when I wanted

more (children)

than you could easily grow.

Thank you for metabolizing all

The strange things I’ve handed you –

Micro-plastics and foods with no known origin,

Bits of trauma and hardship that seeped through your permeable layers.

And thank you for your soft, strong permeable layer.

Thank you for your carriage, your ease at physical function.

Thank you for your resiliency and clear calls for attention when needed.

Thank you for knowing what to do with illness – for the burning up, the puking out, the hacking that excavates your lungs, my breath.

Thank you for loving me when I haven’t loved you back.

(I know I speak as if separate.

Sometimes wholeness is impossible,

some parts fragment with the waning moon.

A half moon is still a moon, right?

Besides, it’s easier to

write thank you than

thank me.)

Thank you body for

hearing,

seeing,

tasting

remembering smells from moments otherwise lost.

Thank you for letting some memories go – I trust your choosing.

I trust you in fact, more than anything.

Your actions are always sound.

Sense making.

You let the trees into each breath.

You taste the subtle difference of spring water.

You navigate and wander with easy pleasure.

You are always moving toward life.

You grow wider as the kids stretch in all directions,

ready to split open again if you have to,

to birth them back from any dark place they might find.

Thank you for being both sturdy and fragile, reminding me to aim for balance.

Thank you for knowing deeply about pleasure without relying on it.

Thank you body for understanding that pain and misery

is nothing personal.

That suffering is part of wholeness, and something to notice

without drama.

Thank you for being round, with a bit extra in the hips -

For not resisting gravity or beauty.

Thank you for being unafraid to fall.

Thank you for not being allergic to my cat

who purrs against the rhythm of my breath

curled into my ribs as I write.

Thank you for circulating

all our fluids and feelings,

constantly reminding me to movement.

Thank you for continuing.

We are continuing.

I am continuing.

Just one thing I would ask:

If we ever do this again, you and I,

can we come with fur next time?