Wisdom’s door we pay attention to placing oneself in the position of others. (xix)
When leaping, incorporate rather than exceed (be better than and separate from). (4)
Kindness evolves to (becomes) mercy. (4)
Spiritual practices are the flying spirit propelling itself or stimuli. (5)
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These are a few of the insights in the first fifteen or so pages of Stephen Levine’s Animal Sutras: Animal Spirit Stories (2019, Monkfish Book Publishing Co.).
In recent days, I have had reminders of containers, opening, expansion, and the ways that my soul can adapt and does adapt to the stimuli of life. At times, the container feels like a crucible; on other days, it is a jar or a pitcher full of water or some other liquid. A few years ago, during a more tentative time in my life, it felt like my container was a wee teacup sloshing through quakes, waves, whirlpools, and other tremors of tumult that had the insides spilling out and over the rim.
My container is less teacup, and more of a vast expanse. Something that is like an aquarium yet nimble, with tall sides yet accessible, wide and broad. My nephew told me about his first attempts at throwing clay in the past school year, and expanding my container feels like a slower version of throwing. Instead of starting with a new mound of clay, I add another layer of clay on top of what was already there or add spots to touch up.
Wisdom and guidance of how to do so abounds with metaphors outdoors, guidance in books, recipes, food, and in conversations with others. Just last night, I read about the “generosity of the universe,” an obvious statement yet a teaching that does not get mentioned as frequently, or a worldview that is not as pervasive, as scarcity as supposedly shown through Darwin’s theories of evolution and elimination.
The generosity of the universe has me guided by intuition more than ever. With this, verbal communication has taken a back seat to the unexplainable or illogical. Stimuli are sudden and by letting go of the cause, source or motivation, I can accept things just as they are. I spent a lot of energy and time spinning my wheels trying to defy, denounce, and change what was. I
For months, an acute pain has arisen in the fleshy palm of my left hand. The swelling in a capillary bloats stands of tissue that reside beneath my epidermis. Skin over a swollen, small vein is sensitive to touch in a way that other skin is not.
Last month, the shooting, throbbing pain on less than a square inch had company. I noticed tightness in some strands of tissue on my inner bicep. A tightness that I could mistake for muscle tautness, except that there is no similar strand in the bicep of my dominant, right arm. This self-noticing, which was palpable to the touch of my external hand, led me to trace my right hand further over the adjacent muscles of my chest, shoulder, and back that form my physical body. As my fingertips investigated, I noted lines of tightness spewing from my armpit in two directions: across my chest, and a band of muscles down my back.
My intuitive sense revealed that these were interwoven symptoms of muscles beholden to a particular tension. What minutes earlier was only a throb in my palm was showing itself now that I was seeing with the fingers of my right hand and listening with my right hand. This is what sensing looks (feels, tastes and soothes) like in the body.
I sat with the discomfort, which now tasted slightly different thanks to my recent curiosity. I was unsure of what to make of it. I pulled my thumb to “pop” the joint (or pop the knuckle, although I see the uniqueness of the thumb give this joint a different name rather than be one of five knuckles) for momentary relief. “Popping my knuckles” has been a way to realign, reconfigure and redesign the spaces in between my skeleton I learned how to contort my fingers to make an audible adjustment. I pop knuckles considerably less as an adult than I did as a child, though I “pop” or open up space between vertebrae in my lower back, mid-back and neck daily. I open up spaces surrounding my sternum by spreading my shoulders back and apart in such a way on most mornings that I can hear the reconfiguration within my chest.
But this popping of my thumb has been different. The realignment of my joint provides some relief to the tissues that are two inches away. However, after the energy moves, the pain returns soon after.
Then last Monday, I placed my hands underneath my shoulders while laying on my back. Knees bent. Soles of my feet on the floor. A position called wheel pose, when I use my hands and feet to push my body up off of the floor and out. I could stay up briefly. And came crashing town to the ground once or twice.
The sensations of coaxing a throb began soon after. Previously, I had begun and ended multiple yoga classes by rubbing the flesh of my palm or yanking on my left thumb (frantically). This morning was the first time that I could feel the tightness dissipating as blood flowed through my palm, my thumb, my bicep, my armpit, my pectoral and my back.
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One pose stretches my wrist and calls upon the needed force of select muscles to hold my body up in a new and different way. Holding me in a certain position for a matter of seconds, yet rippling throughout my day.
The vein in my left palm palpates now. Rarely it is visible to my eye. Yet, I am learning my own body. Learning how the sorenss of my left thumb cascades up into my chest and back. Similarly, I am learning how new poses and new stretches are like math problems, spelling contests and reading comprehension. New assignments and new challenges are needed in order for me to keep on learning. My body self-organizes the programming of my DNA and the coding of my musculature in this moment-by-moment school of learning.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 