lightness

i was born with trust. nothing would hurt me when i fell. no one would ridicule me or harm me. i could move through space trusting that i would not feel any pokes or pinches or pain.

when i discovered that this was not the case, i felt betrayed. i screamed in anger and shock. this was not the way the world was supposed to work. i expected to be protected. i cried in surprise and protest.

as i grew older, i learned not to trust the world. it was not as i had expected. i learned to develop a thicker skin, a harder shell. i learned to pull my shoulders forward and my stomach tight. i learned to be less ready to laugh, heavier and smaller.

but now i am seeing that my soul is light. my soul is connected to a long puppet-string of light; it inhabits my body with buoyancy and tentativeness. it is not my body. it cannot be harmed. when the body feels pain, i can witness it from my levitating soul. i can feel it; i can bear it. but i am not it. this soul hovers just at the top of my head, sending energy downward into the body as the body takes energy up from the earth.

imagining it this way gives me more energy. it makes me feel lighter; as though i were suspended from hooks from the sky and gravity was the only, nearly-inadequate force keeping my feet on the ground.

and it allows me to trust. i can move forward in the world again in trust. i am trying to cultivate the same unconscious conviction that i had as a child: i belong, i am okay, the world is working the way it should be working.

in order to develop it consciously, however, i have to also trust my way through the hurts, the accidents, the mistakes, the limitations. i see that not only does trust, or love, involve the safe and comfortable; it also involves the risks and the terrible. trust, or love, does not result in only connection and fulfillment but also separation and aloneness.

my spirit rides around in my body and trusts implicitly. my ego confuses my spirit with my body and thinks that what happens to my body happens to ME. OH NO.

but what is "me"? am "i" a series of chemical reactions and biofeedback loops? am "i" a wonderfully complicated brain and beautifully intricate musculo-skeletal system, born into flesh in 1977 to perish and decompose sometime in the 21st century?

for right now, i think the answer is: yes and no. depends on whether you're talking about my ego or about this light-puppet in my head (also feel it in the backs of my arms, my upper back, and the backs of my legs).