What does not want to be whole?

“I don’t know how to let go of that,” she said moments before her cervicals were readjusted, so palpable was her slip that the moment froze and echoed off the walls. Many of us, do not know who we are without being defined by the pain of our previous stories.

Several years ago, I jammed my right ankle on a lava rock, resulting in several years of compensation. Years of limited motion, or days of paying the price after a good hike, limping in pain as swelling from  an overworked subtalar joint and tarsals subsided, easing back into walking upright.

My foot jam occurred on my first summer in Kaua’i, on my birthday, with a slice of birthday cake in hand. A juxtaposition of emotions, no?

Our bones carry our emotional stories: “As a carpenter, I have to lift heavy machinery;”  “As a Mom, my lower back aches from carrying the baby;” “Oh, my hands have never worked right since…”

Our bones can also be road mapped to the store house of emotions: our organs. Inflammations and uneasiness in our body can be created in a multitude of ways; one of which is how we live our bodies; another is how we live in our minds.

Recently, standing up to my ankles in water and mud in a taro patch, I ruminated on this less than perfect ankle of mine. What would it take, I thought, to have this ankle be whole again: surgery? more work? What?

Later on that day, I injured my foot. The ball joints of the big toe were jammed backwards. It hurt. A lot.  I could no longer place any weight on the foot. The pain was not a throbbing or inflammatory; it was a searing snap to attention. The type of pain that the rest of the day’s details fall away and I have nothing to notice but the present moment.

Between myself and a few other hands the joint was reset; the tendons coaxed back to their proper standing, and four days later I was standing in the dry sands of Kona working again, fully standing.

The ankle had full range of motion. The new injury was rectified and so was my elder wound. Why?

I have heard that many of us define ourselves in what we can and cannot do: great gardener, not a woodworker. Great with words, cannot play music. Can go to yoga, not sure on public speaking. I can’t move my neck, my shoulder, my back…a few years ago (fill in life event) and on the story goes. The event happens once. The retelling repatterns muscle memory, a constant instruction to the body self to hold the pattern of pain. Is it that simple?

Yes and no.

Are there severe physical traumas, of course. Am I talking about those, probably not.

Am I talking about assumptions and the conditioning of muscle memory that allows us to taut that we cannot return to a state of fullness and claim ourselves whole and not broken? Yes.

Why would we do that?

Good question.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

- David Whyte

My ankle, you ask? It reset. It moves in circles and straight lines. It carries my weight wholly forward, and I intend to keep it that way.

Click here for a great article by David Whyte

Extreme Care: Flight 1895

            

            “Did you see that?” he umpfs.

            “No. What?” I answer as my foot casually pushes my bag under the seat in front of me.

            “Fallen Solider. Just put on the plane.”

            “Ohhh-“

            “F**king cardboard box.”

            “What?” I swivel.

            “They always say, don’t they, ‘Don’t end up in a cardboard box,’ and that’s what he was in a cardboard box,” he looks right through me, continuing,  “Cardboard, and plywood frame. Not a plywood box, but a frame of wood so I guess he doesn’t roll out, with a stamp that says ‘Extreme Care,’ and a baby blue handle.”

            “To grab –“

            “No, just a trimming, just a bit of trimming. The stewardess says that sometimes the captain of the plane will get out and salute him, but they are tight on time today,” his eyes, still moving, meet mine.

            “That is incredible, I –“

            “You should have seen it. I mean on tv they show you all of what they want you to see, but they don’t want you to see that. No they don’t want you to f**kin’ see that. You would think a family member or someone from the service would – “

            “If the government won’t pay for a box, why would they pay for someone to fly with the body?”

            “You’re right,” he laughs uncomfortably. “Ain’t that the truth. You’re right. What a fool.”

            Forty-five minutes later, I discover the man’s name: Michael. He is a successful lawyer, travels avidly, surrounds himself with fascinating people, enjoys financial freedom, blackjack, boxing, cigars and affairs, living in a loveless marriage of twenty years with a woman he compartmentalizes his respect for as a “phenomenal mother, but not my match as a partner.”

            It’s amazing what we will tell strangers, is it not?

            “Now, I’m not judging, but the affairs, really twelve?”

            “If I’m honest,” he sips his Gatorade, “but the last one is the only one I would have left my wife for.”

            “Huh.”
      

Equilibrium

It's easy to get knocked off balance. Maybe because you left the vacuum out, and you forget as you walk down the hallway too early the next morning. Or maybe because you were really careful about handing over your heart, and you did so much background, that you are blindsided by the foreground and impending heartbreak. Perhaps you are running so quickly to catch the last train, or maybe, you are simply standing still, but the Earth underneath your feet is moving, calling you forward, and as you try to stay still there is a tipping point: forward or downward. Anyway you look at it (Have you looked at it? I mean what really is keeping you erect?), it is quite a miracle to stay in balance.

Balance between head and heart; work and play; action and stillness; good and evil; vanilla and chocolate.

Mary Oliver says, "You do not have to be good."  That can throw you off balance. We are often given a compass of what is right and wrong, and a good deal of it includes not rocking the boat - the waters are choppy, please sit down, stay and "mend my life'" (Oliver).

Some of us do. Some of us can't. Either way we beat our selves up. Hard to stay in balance between the blows.

The initial rise of individuality can be a challenge larger and more demanding than one can possibly imagine - just like childbirth. In fact it is just like child birth, but you are birthing your Self. Mother, father, child: the divine trinity incarnate. To peel away the constraints of "good enough" is a labor of love, but there is no sugar candy mountain on the horizon. In fact, once you stand up in your own reality, the maps drop away; the right and wrongs, drop too; the shoulda coulda's could knock you to your knees, and all you have is the whisper of your own heart that tells you: Further.

It's hard to stay in balance when you can no longer use other's expectations as your coordinate plane, or when you turn and see your herd has stopped to graze and you have a hunger to continue for the insatiable. It's hard to stay in balance when your guidance is yours and yours alone.

Sometimes, the only way to stay in balance is to be still. Let the Earth move, let your heart guide, and keep your ears perked, trusting that things of Great Importance will come to you when you need them.

“One day the hero
sits down,
afraid to take
another step,
and the old interior angel
limps slowly in
with her no-nonsense
compassion
and her old secret
and goes ahead.
‘Namaste’
you say
and follow.”

       -  David Whyte