"In those moments when we are held, our nervous systems down-regulate, our minds soften, our hearts open, and we come into an ancient sort of rest. That rest that we've been longing for....
While our true nature as open, luminous awareness is the ultimate holding environment, as tender human beings we are wired to rest within a relational matrix. To enter into this field with another... is one of the great mysteries of the embodied world. Held by another, held within by our own hearts, or held by a star - despite the pain and confusion and hopelessness and doubt - somehow we are already held. It's not something we must earn or deserve or frantically search for. Held by the morning light as it comes into a room, by the song of the birds, by the imaginal world. Somehow. Already held." [this comes from here] I recognise this value in being held - it is perhaps the soothing that we seek to replace with self-soothing when the relational soothing is unavailable or unacceptable. I recognise a desire for this being held. And I am wondering what happens to desire when we are held. At first sight it subsides. But maybe it is only objectified desire (the desire for things and experiences) that subsides. Maybe the desire for life can then expand to fill the space. I am touched by finding how ‘opening’ is really both noun and verb.
Perhaps icing is, or yearning. But an opening seems such a stable thing. It can be an opening in a thousand-year-old castle wall. Or an opening in a ten thousand-year-old rock face. Or a fleshier, but still lifelong, way into, or out of, the human body. Or, with more movement, it can be a centuries-old way to start a game of chess or a conversation with a stranger. Or it can become the widening apart of lips, of arms, of eyes. So that, with the addition only of movement, the merest slit or gap or finger hold or hollow can become the very act itself of disclosing, inviting, revealing, waking, communicating, displaying, smiling, embracing, releasing, relinquishing or dying. What emerges through a slight opening?
Blood. Water. A mucus liquid. Bullets. Arrows. Compassion. The Unknown. The Unbearable. Light. Darkness. Something terrifying. Love. The abject. Something putrefying. Desire. The stench of death. The scent of roses. A squirrel. The memory of something dreadful. An inquisitive goldfish. Or perhaps a stickleback from my youth. The curious and relentless tendril of a vine. What seeks to enter into a slight opening? Fingertips. A tongue. An iron bar. A flame. The mass of water in a reservoir seeking to escape. A snake. A tongue (again). A shaft of light. The possibility of something. Anything. Knowing. Learning. Fertilisation. A desire for widening. A small bird looking to build a nest in early spring. Sorrow. Grief. The curious and relentless tendril of a vine. |