When I was at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico at a Constellations Intensive this year, one of the practices was about finding a willing teacher in the natural world in our environment (Thank you Francesca Mason-Boring). And I found a Mesa, tabletop mountain. 5 minute exercise and that was the end of that session. And then I cried for about half an hour or more.
The experience was that I got to be held by something bigger than myself, by something soooo much bigger than myself, something wise and unshakable. And I got to be small, in full. In a beautiful way of smallness. Like a small child held by a parent, like someone who just gets to be held and not holding anything/everything myself. And I cried for all the years till that moment into the parts of me where I didn’t get held, where I didn’t get to feel small and supported (and not anyones ‘fault’). Even as I write this, I feel emotional about how beautiful that experience was. My whole being, all my cells got to drink that all in, soak in it, bathe in it.
Two beautiful women from the course came and sat with me while I cried for a bit too (Thank you Karen and Monika). Even though after some time I asked them to let me be with my experience on my own, their care and willing attention was like honey and butter to my soul too.
Clearly the parts of me that have needed to be “big” for so long were so glad to finally get to be “small”. Such a gift that I feel to this day and know it has contributed to the rest of my life.
There is always someone or something available that can offer us that experience, even if needs to be a mountain and not a person. And it’s not about someone being “better”, it’s about them having the extra spaciousness and capacity.
Someone in the book club I’m a part of said (in the context of a bigger discussion): “being held by the one who can hold us”; and it feels so spot on for me.
How many of us didn’t get held ‘enough’? Or in a way that we needed? How many didn’t get to be a child? Feel cared for, feel safe, feel heard, seen?
How many of us do not have a reference for full safety of being self? Do not even know what the feeling of being self is like?
How many of us have bodies and system parts that feel in need of understanding, protection, boundaries, ‘larger’ knowing holding us?..
I also recently got held by a very cosmic woman who could see and hold and work with my cosmic parts as her knowing and capacity of cosmic was ‘larger’ than mine. I haven’t been able to find that in a long time, and for a long time I didn’t even know I needed that, and so it was such a beautiful surprise and experience to be in the ease of being held by her and her inner knowing (Spasibo Katerina). And another moment where a woman who is a mother, sharing a very motherly hug with me which brought me to tears as deep parts of my soul got to receive that ‘honey’ (Spasibo Marina).
Again if felt like these parts of me were waiting and looking for the right person to come, and with openness to receive it all, I simple melted. (I have been thinking about making a t-shirt that says “Pro meltdowns” :P)
It also hasn’t always been easy to trust to receive in this way. Sitting with the mountain was a part of my rebuilding of that trust.
Similar “holding” often happens in Constellations work, someone finally gets to be seen, someone finally gets to be held, someone finally gets to be heard, someone finally gets to experience what it’s like to feel the flow of love. And, importantly, there’s space to have that holding happen.
As I dive deeper into Closing the Bones ceremony, I am sitting with how this “deep holding” has always been the essence of my work with people over the years and now the ceremony container allows for the multi-layer, multi-hour, multi-dimensional experiencing of this for the person’s system and parts of them. I have so much gratitude to the mountain and to others in my life who held me so I can hold others.
Come and be held. Come and (re)build the trust to the good in the world. Trust into your own self. Come and meet parts of yourself. Come and be.
