Release, the evidence

In early April, I went to Chicago for the first three of ten Integral Bodywork sessions with Everett Ogawa.

In a previous post, I’ve relayed the connection I’m discovering between hara (the body’s center) and grounding. Between grounding and release, both physical and emotional. (Note to self: release might imply forgiveness somewhere along the line.)

So what’s the evidence, the take-home, for the release I experienced? I’ll tell you some highlights:

Best-Buddy, kind soul, picked me up at the airport on my return. Now he says: “Ever since you’re back from Chicago, there’s a new light in your eyes.”

There’s new depth to our relationship too, even greater openness and intimacy, luscious new dimensions of delight as our bodies share breath and space and touch.

What do women want? Speaking for myself, that’s what I want. That’s more than I ever imagined possible.

(I’m not going to tell the juicy details, no. Come to the Sex & the Sacred Girl retreat I’m leading this summer and get your own!)

That alone was well worth the time on Everett’s bodywork table, believe me. Still, there’s more:

A week later, I went to a women’s movement improv group. Sajit Greene, a gifted dance and expressive arts therapist, noticed the new openness across my upper chest, saying: “I have shoulder-girdle-envy!”

Myself, I feel my ribs allowing more breath to fill my body, expanding and contracting like an accordion between my shoulders and my waist. In fact, I’m more aware that I have ribs. Before Chicago, the image of what, if anything, was happening between shoulders and waist was pretty vague.

Still, there’s more. There’s the value I derive from the release I experienced in session two when I suddenly sensed a baby lost inside me. A baby that I can’t push down and out. A baby that I can’t bring up and out. A baby that, lost inside me, will kill me.

In the days since returning from Chicago, I’ve considered these words from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

I’ve considered these words in relation both to lost babies and to the food intolerance I’ve experienced, an intolerance to — guess what? — eggs.

Eggs carry the energy of babies, of new life, life that wants to break open, hatch, spring forth.

If you want to make an omelette, you’ve got to break some eggs
Egg on your face
What comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Egg them on
Lay an egg
Nest egg
Be an egghead
Be a good egg
Walk on eggs
Put all your eggs in one basket
The Easter Bunny’s basket of eggs

Eggs-tra, eggs-tra, read all about it!

For years I’ve attempted to trace this egg intolerance to its origin. I’ve journaled. I’ve meditated. I’ve sought healing through treatments, consultations, and readings of various kinds. I’ve researched egg-laying and egg-hatching. Did you know that a chick comes equipped with an “egg tooth” to use in pecking its way through eggshell?

Serendipity has had its way with me. Out of the blue, people have given me gifts of sculpted or carved or painted eggs.

Eggs have surprised me as I’ve researched the Sacred Feminine. In Piero della Francesca’s Madonna and Child with Saints (1472-1474), for example, an egg hangs over Mary’s head as her son lounges on her lap.

A pair of mourning doves used to build their nest in a narrow crook of drainpipe outside my window. I’d cheer the female on as she sat the nest. Her two eggs would hatch mid-spring; tiny broken eggshells would appear on my deck and tiny feathery creatures would appear in the nest. I banned the pair when I discovered one of their young splatted dead upon my deck. The birds deserve a safer nesting site.

Just a few days ago, walking on a path through the woods on Easter Sunday, I stumbled upon a pink plastic egg filled with colored candy treats.

The subject of eggs is a large one. The relationship between my intolerance to eggs and the sense of a baby lost inside me, signaling my impending death, remains a mystery.

Whatever that relationship might be, the deep release I experienced on Everett Ogawa’s bodywork table is valuable, right here and right now. Its real-time value is the imperative to express myself  — creatively, truthfully, authentically, fearlessly.

Now what does release have to do with forgiveness?

What does release have to do with healing?