Please note that these monthly experiences are created for you to indulge in with full presence. They are meant to be consumed through audio but I’ve kept the written version for your convenience.
This month’s morsel is best experienced lying down on a yoga mat or in bed with your earphones.
We all crave it. That feeling of peace. Of connection. Of magic.
That feeling you get in savasana.
That feeling you get after some really great sex.
That feeling you get when you’re barefoot on warm sand listening to waves wash on to the shore.
For each of us it’s a bit different. For my man, it’s when his cat is on his chest purring and nuzzling his face. For me, it’s when I’ve had a beautiful release at the end of a fully-embodied dance. For you, it might be something else…
But the feeling we are experiencing is the same… the place we are trying to reach is the same.
It’s the eternal & infinite and it’s the minute and molecular.
It is silence and the most beautiful opera you’ve ever heard.
It tastes like chocolate and vanilla at the same time.
It feels like you are floating in your mother’s womb and it’s what I imagine it feels like to leave your human body.
But it’s a feeling you can get here today, now.
It’s what you may or may not call spirituality, connection, magic, peace, love, God, the divine, your bliss, heaven.
In some shape or form, we are all searching, craving, desiring, wanting and needing that feeling, that experience, that bliss.
It is why people create businesses, build empires, fall in love, form families, go to yoga even though they hate downward dog more thant anything else. This is why people go to war, buy Prada outfits, hike Machu Picchu, get into kinky fetish sex, train for marathons and swim with dolphins. This is why we hire coaches, fetishize celebrities and search for gurus to show us the way.
The paradox is that you need to do none of these things to actually find that place of peace.
Let me tell you a story. When I was living in Medellin, Colombia for awhile, a friend told us of an epic waterfall in the mountains that was gorgeous and a must-see. You know the type where you have to hike through tons of rainforest and then suddenly off the path, you reach a Narnia-style hidden waterfall. It was supposed to be an easy hike… 30 minutes or so once we got to the forest.
My partner and I accepted the challenge and as we drove through the slums of Medellin, got stuck under rain, lost our path, nearly killed ourselves trying to cross a river and encountered all sorts of creatures, I kept thinking… “The waterfall. We must make it to the divine waterfall.” I finally called it three hours in when I ran into a giant bug with one too many legs for my New Yorker brain to accept.
I tell you this story not because I’m proud that I turn into a panicked 5-year old when I’m faced with a colorful South American bug but because we all have our own version of a watefall that we are trying to get to. And our own version of an orange crawler that scares the bejeezus out of us.
What we don’t realize is that the waterfall is available to us at all times everywhere.
The first time we want to access this waterfall, we may fail, call it quits, decide it’s not for us… but overtime the more you tread that path, the easier it is to find your way and you soon realize the orange bugs aren’t even poisonous and the right shoes will stop you from sliding on mossy river stones. And you realize that getting to the waterfall really only takes 30 minutes, not 3 hours. Suddenly, you make hiking to the waterfall your weekend routine.
We all crave it. That feeling of peace. Of connection. Of magic.
At first it may seem like the longest trip in the world to get there but once you hike the same path over and over again, you create a path.
This is what happens when you build your sensual muscle. You start to pave a path in your somatic consciousness, in your muscle memory where you can get to YOUR experience of the sensual waterfall in minutes and then seconds and then stay for hours.
But getting TO the waterfall isn’t the actual journey, that’s just the incentive. The journey, the practice is keeping the path paved with your continuous treading. It’s about devotion to your senses and trust in your body. It’s about sinking in a little deeper each time and dedicating yourself even when you’ve scraped your knees or haven’t gone in a month.
Whether your practice is moving meditations from the Embodiment Starter Kit, going to yoga or 5 rhythms or whether it’s something completely different, the feeling is closer than you think.
It could be one whiff of perfume away. One hug away. One song away.
It could be one yoga class a way. One breath away or One hip circle away.
So start small. Start with a luscious hip circle, give your body a little secret she can hold throughout the day. Start with buying your favorite perfume even though you think you should spend that money on your kid’s toys. Start with a breath, give your body permission to take up space.
Only you can breathe in That feeling of peace. Of connection. It’s up to you, dear, the creator of magic.