2012 has been a time
for falling.
After Hiruy broke open the new year when, at 1am, he dropped a primal Dun Dun rhythm open that was so driving I was forced to pound my earth-bound feet into the wood floor below and, then, when the sun had finally risen and Gina, who had been left to entertain the random few who kept the all-night beat going on into an early morning drum circle, had, at last, given in to the body's call for rest, I wandered out into a silent and still Hive. With my journal in one hand and a cup o' joe in the other, I brazenly climbed out the window. My BodyMind recognized the risk I was taking, still I took the chance. Placing a bare foot on the 4" wide, metal bar that led down to the rooftop below, I did not, however, factor the early morning precipitation that the late night fog had left behind. Upon placement of the weight of both of my legs in a forward direction, my front foot immediately slipped on the slick metal. My feet came up and off the bar as my body, momentarily, hovered above it horizontally. The journal and cup went flying off in opposite directions as I landed on my left, upper thigh and tri-cep - hard. I then rolled the 4' down to the rooftop floor below. "Ouch. That hurt." I took a few moments to rubb myself, and lick my wounds before climbing back up and into the safe space of the Hive. (It took a month and a half before I allowed myself to climb back out onto the roof.)
Two days later, while ice skating on a southern California beach, I teased my date that he and I should attempt a contest at "who can have the best fall." I then, unintentionally, proceeded to bowl into a group of pre-teenaged girls. Standing in a circle on the ice skating rink, preening like cawing roosters, I knocked them over as though they were, instead, a set of bowling pins. One girl-child conveyed to her deeply upset mother just how physically hurt she had been during the experience. "Ai!" Like a valiant knight, I allowed my date to tend to the mess of a pissed-off mama bear as I continued to skate slower laps on the melting ice.
Two and a half months later, the Prosperity Hive is dead and I am in transition.
Today, I shared with a community member about the trust I am currently having a hard time deepening into as I teeter on a very obvious precipice. "What's the worst that could happen?" he asked. "I'll fall," I respond. "I already have, though - physically and emotionally." Moments later, while on the dance floor and when a group of six of us began lightly engaging in soft sensuality and connective contact, I decided to take yet another risk. With Nancy and John below me to my left, I attempted one of my signature standing turns which is a pivot around my right shoulder in which I sweep my right leg up behind me and land back on it to what was the left side of my body. I didn't anticipate that my foot would land on part of John's lower leg, however. Upon feeling his body below my foot, I immediately shifted my weight so that I would not create a heavy impact on his body. Unfortunately, my shift came at a precarious moment in time when I didn't have the balance to support it. Instead, I swept both off my feet out from under my own self and flew forward. From vertical to horizontal I went in less than two seconds. Fortunately John's arm was bent at the elbow and positioned on the floor at the exact place where it broke the fall of my head on the hard, vinyl surface.
"Ouch." I'm still feeling the aftershocks from this fall, even as I type this, which is - truth be told - why I feel so compelled to share it. Instead of softening into my vulnerability and honestly revealing to John just how much I had hurt my body in that moment, I laughed obnoxiously loud, trying to play tough instead of just bee-ing exactly where I was - hurt, in pain, needing to cry and bee held. Rather, I rationally jumped to the explanation that the experience was karmic because I had just, moments before, judged someone else for demonstrating "dangerous" behavior. "Ha!"
Tonight, D wanted me to look at my judgment of another as the lesson here. However, I want to bee-lieve that the opportunity I really missed was how I could have allowed my brother to hold me in my pain. I could have honestly shared with him how hurt I was as well as the full extent of the trauma of feeling my neck snap against the cushion of his most welcome arm.
Next time.
I promise.
