expand contract integrate

Expand, Contract, Integrate

Last weekend I facilitated a workshop, a three day in person dance and energy work intensive, here in Portland. This was an event that I was so excited about for a long time.

Beforehand I sent an email to the participants, reminding them that we will be moving a lot of energy and they may feel some kind of way afterwards! To give themselves time, hydration, and compassion in the days following the experience.

We teach what we need to know.

I woke up Monday like an overtired toddler who had to leave the birthday party. I felt both wired and exhausted, difficult, ornery, grateful, sad, relieved, and re-arranged, all at the same time. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I went for a long vigorous walk bursting with energy, and halfway through I got so tired I had to drag myself back. I had fortunately also scheduled a massage and while I was on the table reflecting and talking to the bodyworker I had a realization…

See, I have always struggled with the integration phase. I am uncomfortable in the pause, the rest, the deep and quiet return- because every integration signifies an ending. It acknowledges some kind of death, a completion- big or small, literal or metaphorical. There is a release and a closure to bow to. 

For me this fall has been particularly punctuated by a series of endings, and from talking with others it seems this is happening with a lot of you right now. 

What happens in that quiet space of pause?

In the earth phase of our Instrument of the Infinite work we acknowledge the place where energy has crystallized into form has now shifted. As soon as something is born into physical form it is already on its way to release. Entropy has occurred and what once flourished or at least functioned has now become disjointed. 

The life force in all things is nudging us, whispering words of “shed, release and let go. Let me return to the center to rest and be reborn.” It seems to ask- “clear the pathway of the things that have already died, shed the snakeskin and sweep away the debris- my current wants the ease of movement.”

And I whisper in my simple humanness- “ahh but I am afraid to let go, ahh i loved that phase, or at least it is known”… and the energy whispers back- “you can never hang on to what has already died, is already happening…trust this process”




More writing on this see: SNAKESKIN and THIS FINAL ENDLESS MOMENT

photo of Altar detail created by workshop participants
Massage therapist in the story: Luke Gutsgell