Controlling vs. Tending Your Fire
As the moon wanes again, how is your body? The season of fire is in full gear, and I’ve been reflecting on how often we’re taught to fear our inner fire, to dampen and control. Fire can be incredibly disruptive, especially when wielded with skill.
After spending four years living, working and practicing at predominantly white meditation centers, my body was screaming from the forced stillness. Generations of trauma and hope, all settled into my low back and left shoulder. I was so depleted, drained and collapsing in on myself.
Hours of sitting meditation had built up my ability to gather energy and seem calm, but it didn't actually move the traumatic energy embedded in my tissues and bones. I didn't understand it at the time, I just felt stuck, exhausted and just as anxious and depressed as when I came in.
My fire was suffocating and I didn’t even notice it. Colonized healing emphasizes stillness, containing and dampening big energy, and a fear based approach instead of curiosity. I thought I just needed to be more disciplined, when what I needed was to be more connected.
Pilates entered my journey for realigning, preventing injury, and building deep power. I quickly realized it was also essential to collaborating with my energy and emotions– pilates reawakens connection to dormant muscles. This allows us to build the body as an energetic channel, so we can synthesize big energy effectively instead of burning out. Pilates is key to clearing pent up hyperactive/ anxious energy, and resetting my sleep rhythms.
For years I was so caught in meditation practices that were just about gathering and centering energy, and thought transforming it was “not accepting the present.” What a relief to be done with those sanitized, stiff spaces, and to actually work with my energy and body instead of feeling stuck and broken.
But then… I found myself in stiff, predominantly white pilates studios. Spaces where physical strengthening was completely dissociated from emotional/ energy work, and where everyone is quiet and contained. While I have had to travel in these spaces for training, my own practice has been a space of play, exploring the intersections and wild potential of centering what feels good.
Bringing together pilates and voice has been pure magic~ gentle yet powerful, sustaining energy transformation. A playful and generative space, inviting us into intuition and wildness. Truly weird and unpredictable, and I love it. Join us to feel it for yourself, and tend to your fire…
in-person downtown BK Fridays 5:30-6:30pm,
~may we claim our full complex power