Underwater Garden 34628416992_f03d5bba42_n

Unclench Yourself: Guided Meditation

Listen to this gift from Marge Piercy. Find the rhythm in your breathing as you take in the essence of her words. Let feelings rise as they will.

Unclench yourself

Open, love, open.
I tell you we are able
I tell you we are able
now and then gently
with hands and feet
cold even as fish
to curl into a tangle
and grow a single hide,
slowly to unknit all other skin
and rest in flesh
and rest in flesh entire

Come all the way in, love,
it is a river
with a strong current
but its brown waters
will not drown you.

Let go.
Do not hold out your head.
The current knows the bottom
better than your feet can.
You will find
that in this river
we can breathe
we can breathe
and under water see
small gardens and bright fish
too tender
too tender
for the air.

Marge Piercy

Meditation

You are content to lie on the surface of the cobalt Maui ocean, cocooned in the embrace of warm trade winds, buoyant and safe. Relax and enjoy the carefree feeling of being carried aloft. Continue to synchronize your breathing with winds and waves. In out in out. Feel the warmth of the sun kiss your skin. Breathe in out in out.

Now let your mind wander to regions below the ocean’s surface, to places less placid where fear warns you away. Take some time now to explore those fears which threaten to take your breath away. Name each one as you breathe in and let out the fear on the wave of your breath. In out in out.

You have now dared to leave the surface. How is it for you down there? What small gardens and bright fish do you see? Your breathing becomes deeper and flows evenly throughout every cell of your body. You are the ocean. As the fish is in the sea and the sea is in the fish, you are in the ocean and the ocean is in you.

Ever so gently now, let your body slowly float up to the surface as you continue to breathe. Breathing in I am whole. Breathing out I release all fear. Breathing in I am peace. Breathing out I offer peace.

May it be so.

Sit back and listen to the meditation here:

Photo credit: Marine Explorer <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/71925535@N03/34628416992″>Red sea fan #marineexplorer</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>

I have banished pieces of my soul
To distant places in the desert of my life,
Where no predator can sniff the scent of shame.
Parched, pale remnants of miscarried experiences,
Are separated, not cut away
As Tibetan Buddhists
Dismember their dead to honor life.
These are abandoned out of fear of life.

The Seer inside weeps for the missing pieces
Until the time for action replaces grief.
She lifts up her mighty frame, and swaying across the desert,
She swoops up the cast-off pieces
And with one sound kiss, redeems them
With her love.

What was separated is seamed.
Pieces to Peace.

c. rita h kowats 2013

Published in presence, An International Journal of Spiritual Direction: Vol. 20, NO.1. March 2014

Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ story about La Huesera, The Bone Woman, has walked with me in this meditation. A Jungian psychotherapist and a keeper of the stories, Dr. Estes is a read you will not easily forget (http://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com/index.htm) . The Bone Woman, as the legend goes, lives in our souls and does the work of collecting bones from the desert so that she can sing life back into them.

THE PIECES

Walk with me in meditation for a time. What experiences have you hidden away out of shame or anger or disappointment or revenge? If your experience could talk to you, what might it say? What do you want to say to it?

SENDING FORTH

Look deeply into your soul. What do you see? Can you find the Bone Woman? What form does she take in you? What qualities does she have- courage? intuition? “holy audacity?” forgiveness? perseverance? Do you have faith that she can redeem your lost pieces? Is it time? Which particular pieces can she bring back to you at this time? Which ones need to stay in the desert until you are able to make a home for them? Can you release Bone Woman to do her work? Do you need help? Who would you ask to help you?

HOMECOMING

How can you ritualize homecoming- a feast, with a friend, perhaps a reconciliation? (“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” Lk, 15:24.) Make a welcome- home card and keep it in your journal. Write a dialogue with your soul-piece, forgiving it and asking its forgiveness for abandoning it. If you are a painter, paint the return! Just do something to mark it.

PRAY

In the presence of the Holy, I shed the shroud of shame and fear. I commit myself to live in one peace. Amen.