Last week I wrote about giving myself the permission to be uncomfortable.  As I’ve stayed present with discomfort I’ve been astounded by the pleasure that occasionally comes through it.  Crying in states of emotional agony I have simultaneously noticed the ecstatic stirring of energy coming up into my heart.  Deepening in and letting go of my hold to suffering—even as I simultaneously experience it—I have at times found the bliss of being arising in me.  My heart is both broken and broken open.  It happens mostly as glimpses I catch…subtle yet distinct.

So today I offer myself permission to feel pleasure and bliss.  I have often been ashamed of pleasure, a shame I carry in my body and actions while trying to logic it away.  I have complained a lot about my suffering, so perhaps I’m trying to stay consistent.  What a price to pay!  

To feel the heart is an embodied art.  Poets have written about the bliss of a heart-broken-open for eons.  Rumi says “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”  What I’m writing is not original material, and yet each time I feel my heart I sense something authentic originates.  I am sharing my experience with you as a call in the woods; a way to stay connected on our paths.  We are both individuals and communal beings.  Perhaps my experience gives you permission to feel what’s coming through you.  I want to offer gratitude to my teacher Ann Marie Chiasson for initiating me in Heart Centered Meditation.  The practice is growing me.  I am also hugely grateful for 25 years of studying dance and embodiment to know the magic of living art.  The influences are integrating in me.

I am devoting myself to BraveSpace® without compromise this year.  I have seen so much develop in my community bringing our hearts and bodies together in motion.  Through somatic consent and consensus BraveSpace® provides the conditions within which we are safe enough to be vulnerable with each other in our bodies.  These past few years have made clear that even just being in space together carries risk.  For me it’s risk worth taking.

I have shifted the dates for the next BraveSpace retreat to February 25^th – 27^th so that we might get to know each other a bit better first.  I would like to offer what I can of BraveSpace® online via zoom, using the things zoom does well.  We can meditate together, move, witness, and speak with each other.  Touching on zoom is iffy.  I’ll reach out soon with more details.

Drawing by Genevieve Emerson