meditations on "information"

Consider the ways we receive information. Any, all information. Through the five senses, proprioceptively, intuitively, with our cognition, with our being. 

The body is an open sensory unit, constantly absorbing information, relating to and interacting with anything that is outside of it. Take, for example, walking. It’s a relationship with the ground. The moment our heel strikes the ground, we receive information on how hard the ground is, how far away, whether or not it’s level, how much force will be required to propel us for the next stride, etc. We don't have to cognitively interpret all of that information. Our miraculous bodies, our open sensory units, do that automatically for us. These things that carry us around have such intelligence!

And yet, sometimes bodily information is fleeting or misleading. True one moment,  gone the next. A racing heart or tightened jaw or knotted stomach helped us in one former scary situation, but the heart continues to race, the jaw to continues to clench, the stomach continues to knot even though the moment is long gone. We are tasked with the difficult challenge of discernment while navigating this human bodily condition. Bad things happen, we learn how to avoid or prevent them, neuroses develop, only to create more obstacles. The list goes on. As Jeannie Zandi says, “Mercy to the humans.”

Consider what information is. A word about meaning that contains so many facets of meaning. And unfortunately, a word that has become rather crusty at this moment in history, this age of misinformation and disinformation. The word “information” carries with it it’s often problematic sibling, “interpretation.” Interpretation is happening all the time, before we even realize its happening. Note - “information” does not always mean “fact.”

Let’s say you read a politically charged article. There's the content within the article, providing information that may or may not be rooted in fact. Then there’s the information that arises in your own body when you read it - how does it make you feel physiologically? Fearful? Annoyed? How are you reacting? There's also - stay with me here- information carried through the writing than gives a window to the mind/energy/intention/being of the person who wrote it. That’s a lot of information! 

What I’m trying to get at here is that we are saturated with information, all of the time. With our bodies, lots of information is automatically processed and acted upon, some has to be interpreted, some can be passed by, some can float through and maybe some can just be received. 

In the constant flow of information reception-interpretation-expression, there is an emphasis on delaying the time between interpretation and expression, because expression is often the most consequential. We can all think before we speak, think before we act….but can we examine that space of time that occurs after a piece of information is received and before the process of interpretation begins? What would that require of us? What do we have to gain by lengthening that space? It has the possibility to lead us to deeper questions about the very nature of existence.

In-form-ation. To imbue something into form. From an energetic perspective, there is a constant movement and flow of information that brings everything into a physical and material existence. When we are developing embryologically, it is the movement of the fluids within the embryo that eventually individuate and differentiate, bringing structures into form. What directs this intelligent movement of fluid? We could talk about DNA and genetic coding. We could talk about the Breath of Life, if we’re speaking from a biodynamic cranial perspective. From a Source Point Therapy perspective, we would refer to the Blueprint, a body of information which gives rise to, sustains, and nourishes the health of the human being. Any way you slice it, if we peer through an energetic lens, there’s a recognition that there is some intelligence operating underneath and throughout all of existence which directs a specific flow of information to manifest things into form. 

When I say “energy as information,” I am coming from a desire to expand what we consider the body to actually be, and an expansion of the knowledge we draw from when thinking about the body. This expansion applies to the whole spectrum, from the material to the spiritual. Maybe a bit existential, but this is the area of inquiry in which I dwell.

comfort with spaciousness

What is spaciousness to you? It could look like an empty day ahead of you, a wide open field, a question mark, or a certain period of time spent alone, with no one to answer to, but also no one to relate to. It could be a free and mobile hip joint, an unstuck diaphragm and a resulting deep breath. Some days register differently than others. Where are you on this scale today? 

In a lot of somatic inquiry practice and body-based trauma work, we talk about “containers,” about boundary. Life requires certain boundaries for us to feel safe, to feel held, and on a deeper level, to know that we even exist. Now I’m not suggesting we cast ourselves to the wind of non-existence! But this is a space of inquiry in which to practice, to maybe test our edges. Do you feel a mini-surge of panic when you have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to talk to? We can ask ourselves, “How comfortable can I feel with this degree of spaciousness today? Maybe it’s not comfortable, but can I search for just “okay?” Where do I need to feel a boundary, or something to push up against, in order to feel okay?”

Underneath this inquiry is a sense of basic trust. On the surface, the practice is an exploration of our ability to tolerate spaciousness and emptiness. Ok, but why? I would pose that it’s a slow and subtle seeking of feeling a sense of support from Life itself. Again this is a *practice*, not a goal or destination, it’s not about Getting It Right. But feeling loved, wanted, righteous in our very own existence, and dignified by Life itself is the gift, and it belongs to each and every one of us. 

feminization of structures, trust in one’s own experience, finding support there

In the middle of a distance session recently, a client informed me that she was back to working in a restaurant, spending a lot of time standing and walking on concrete floors, and was feeling it in her body. I could sense what she meant; her bones felt as though they had gone a bit rigid, lost their buoyancy.  I was encouraging her to attempt to soften her bones, reminding her that our bones actually have a fluid quality to them, and that we are, after all, fluid beings. Embryologically speaking, we are fluid before our bones ossify. We begin as fluid, we are born of fluid, created from fluid. And furthermore, we forget that our bones are alive! They are full of marrow and produce our red blood cells! They have a spongey, springy, and resilient quality to them. If you cut a bone in half, you would find in it’s cross section a sponge-like matrix. I guess because the only time we see bones is when the body they were in is no longer living, we can get the impression that our skeleton is this inanimate rigid structure that carts us around.

Anyway, I could nerd out all day talking about bones, but that’s not the point of this post. At the end of the session, this client expressed that she was moved by the metaphor of the fluid nature of the bones, drawing a connection between a rigid skeletal structure in the body to the outdated patriarchal systems that are failing us right now. To use her word, she’d been thinking a lot lately about “feminizing” systems. 

I loved this connection. This gorgeous epiphany she was generous enough to share with me struck me on multiple levels. For one, it reminded me, yet again, why I do this work. I never tire of the way the body constantly offers a way to hold and see one’s self in both the macro and the micro - that really they are one and the same. We are able to see ourselves reflected back to us from the world, through our bodies. Our bodies are a portal through which we can begin to understand ourselves as a fixture of and within - not apart from - the world. We are not separate. One obvious way this point is being illustrated right now is with the pandemic, how we get sick because someone else is sick. Our actions and our very existence affect those around us whether we like it or not. 

Secondly, I love how she phrased “feminizing” systems. In the way of our bodies, whether it is softening our bones or being kinder to it and allowing it more rest, food, allowing it to look a way our society tells you it shouldn't look. In the way of witnessing the rapid cultural exposition of the brutalization of patriarchal white supremacy, in the way many of us white folks are seeing through our conditioned whiteness, acknowledging how we benefit from it AND how we suffer from it, how it keeps us small, how we are not really free because everyone is not free. I am thinking about how we could consider the location of the birth of the concept of whiteness to be a white body. And if we are to do the work of decolonizing ourselves in this way, it is critical that we bring in the body, that we start from the body (which, in my opinion, is really the only place to start from, ever?) 

Bruce Tift speaks of embodied immediacy, in his book Already Free.

“What is most reliable? What can we count on? What can we rely on for support? In my experience, what we can most consistently rely on for support in our lives is the the truth of our immediate experience. This doesn’t mean that whatever we experience in the moment is “true”- we can have distorted mistaken perceptions, even hallucinations. It just means that our immediate experience is whats always available; it’s where we begin.

By support, I mean the experience that we’re standing on ground that’s really there, that’s not theoretical, and that we can engage with our life without constantly questioning ourselves. We feel that our experience is reliable, even when different than others’ experiences.”

In my own life, I am acknowledging the subconscious conditioning that’s prevented me from marketing myself more unapologetically as the energy worker that I am. Bodywork is already quite feminine in nature, but the direction I am heading is even more so. More listening, less doing. Energetic work is very experiential, it listens to the subtle truths of the body’s wisdom. We are dealing with direct experience, with truths that hold power and expression regardless of external validation. There’s a feminine quality to trusting what you know to be experientially true, regardless of what outside sources tell you what is or isn’t happening. There is real agency to be had in living directly from one's own knowing. 

Lastly, I am reminded of this Adyashanti quote:

“Each moment is the moment that needs to be happening. Each experience we have is the divine invitation. The texture and flow of our lives, from moment to moment, is itself what reveals freedom. Life itself will reveal to you what it is you need to see through in order to be free.”

This is the feminine quality of life. Life is living and happening through us, delivering unto us the necessary path for our evolution. And life, as we know it, happens through and in our bodies. 

Deepest gratitude to this client and to all my clients. 

Why I do what I do

“Why do you do this?” she asked, lying facedown, her French accent echoing out of the face-cradle. Multi-lingual people can have a way of unknowingly omitting tact when speaking in a secondary language. Blunt, but as result, succinct and brilliant as well.

My work, she meant. This was sometime last year. I do a few different kinds of bodywork, but I was giving her a massage at the time. “What made you want to become a massage therapist?” people often ask, ostensibly confused by my willingness to touch perfect strangers. I'm never able to come up with an answer that I’m satisfied with. But the bluntness of her phrasing cut right to the heart of the matter, and before I could over think it I said, “because when you touch someone, you’re touching their entire life.” 

When I type that out I can see how that might read as intrusive, overly self-important, and frankly, creepy. But when you work with people in this way, you are working with so much more than just a body. You are working with the entirety of a person.  

The body is sacred. It is a living, breathing record of history, a storehouse of every emotion and physical sensation you’ve ever experienced, as well as what you’ve inherited ancestrally and what you might carry with you from previous incarnations. Your body is the location of your entire life. And when you put your hands on someone’s body, you are, in a way, putting your hands on their whole life. You are touching a zygote, who, in it’s infinite wisdom, knew how to implant itself onto a uterine wall. You are touching a head which has emerged from a birth canal. You are touching a body that has survived war, car accidents, unspeakable grief and terror.  You are making contact with skin, blood, lymph, muscle, bone, vasculature, all while making contact with a being that knows the simple satisfaction of swallowing a drink of cold water, of feeling the breeze. You are touching a hand that pet its dog today, an arm that just held its grandchild for the first time. 

This poignant meeting of the opposites, this recognition of the spectrum containing both the mundane and profound, is just one of the many reasons I am drawn this work. In the early days of quarantine I stumbled across this quote while I was seeking comfort in the aptly named book, “Consolations” by David Whyte.

From the chapter Ambition:

"...a true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process, and then humbles, simplifies, and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place. We find that all along, we had what we needed in the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had undertaken the journey.”

As bodyworkers, we are offering whoever’s body is on the table, with all of their enumerative experiences of being here in this particular human form, an invitation of what it is to be here, now, in this body, and reminding them of the inherent health within it. It is a meditation. It is a constant surrendering to a deeper wisdom. It is a bow to each individual’s particular pattern of expression of being. By regularly guiding others to this type of reminding experience, I am putting myself in direct contact with the very same truth. I am reminded of my own inherent health, I am bowing to my own expression, I am acknowledging the entirety of my own being. It is wonderment and it is so very ordinary. It is one fabulous ouroboros of a way of working, relating, existing, and a point from which, through which, and by which my soul feels continually nourished. 

coming out and announcement!

This post is dual-purposed. First, I am coming out of hiding as a closeted energy worker. For a while how I’ve hidden behind massage because it’s widely credible and usually doesn’t elicit skepticism. It’s easy to get people into your office for a massage, because they know what massage is. But here we are, in world that is requiring very different ways of being, and no one is coming into my office. Due to risk and lack of understanding the disease we are currently grappling to contain, I do not foresee myself offering in-person sessions anytime soon. 

The challenges set forth by Covid have pushed so many of us to get creative and put ourselves out there in a different way. The stakes are simultaneously high and low at the same time - risk of health, risk of mental stability, risk of financial loss- all of this is very real.  And at the same time, with the world being so upside-down and lending itself to the necessary crumbling of so many toxic structures - including our own conditioning and ego structures - what have you got to lose by fully being your self? So, hi everyone, my name is Lauren, and I’m an energy worker. 

Now, my second announcement! I am beginning to offer distance sessions. What’s cool about distance work is that you can be literally anywhere! It is super exciting to think about expanding my client base beyond Albuquerque. Sessions will be done over the phone, and I will pull from a few different energetic modalities (Reiki and cranialsacral therapy are a couple that you might recognize). In short, the sessions will seek to reorient the client to the greater health already present within their system, but sessions are always unique to the client. Please feel free to reach out if you want to know more!

A few brief thoughts on “grounding.”

If you’re energetically aware or sensitive, chances are the term “grounding,” isn’t new to you. It’s often instructed as sending your energy into the ground to find more calm, peace, trust that the earth can hold you and support you. There’s this misguided notion that one can just send their energy down into the earth, and Voila! They’re grounded. 

But do you ever feel like your body is a human pinball machine? You’ll attempt to bring your energy into your lower body and let it fall into the floor, only for it to spring right back up? “Grounding” is not always a given. There are tons of different reasons why anyone might feel ungrounded, but sometimes there are very real energetic blockages that keep our energy from even being able to get to the ground. It can make make us feel like we’re “bad” at grounding, when really it’s just not energetically possible at that moment. You can send your energy down, but if there’s any kind of barrier there, the only place it has to go is back up (this could feel like a chest tightened with anxiety or heightened mental energy with racing thoughts, for example.) Various forms of energetic work can tend to those blockages which keep us from allowing our energy flow fluidly towards the ground.

I have to say, for the record, that I don’t really love the term “grounding.” To make it a verb implies that it’s an action, when it’s very much a passive event. To really feel grounded, one must allow the ground to hold them, one must yield into it. When we say “the ground,” we could mean the earth, as in Mother Earth, or we could be thinking more metaphorically as just a sense of basic trust in life - “the ground” of existence from which all things emerge and that which carries us and supports us through life.

Needless to say, this sense of basic Trust in life isn't easy to come by these days. Much of life is a giant question mark surrounded by threatening violence from structures and systems which claim to be in place to support us. Many do not feel, sense, or trust that support. There is a sense of “groundlessness” and people are feeling upended and looking for somewhere to land. So to don’t be hard on yourself if you’re having trouble feeling grounded no matter what you do - there’s nothing wrong with you, you are not “bad” at grounding, and it is perfectly understandable to feel that way right now. You may just need to think about it a different way, or get some help with some energy work.

It is definitely important to have a personal tool belt with techniques we use to help self-regulate, but we can’t do everything alone. And often, our inability to yield into the ground comes from a very real rupture in our ability to trust life because our caregivers didn’t always take care of us. Allowing a skilled, trained, and compassionate practitioner to provide a container and an experience where one CAN yield into the ground, can reintroduce that type of experience and help your system remember what it is to feel grounded. 

practice remains temporarily closed

I hope each of you is healthy and faring as well as you can. If you have been following along with Governor Lujan Grisham’s various phases of re-opening in New Mexico, you would know that she gave the green light for massage services to begin in a limited capacity starting today, June 1st. After much thought, research, and discussion with fellow colleagues, I am choosing to remain closed for all of June, and potentially through August. While our numbers in NM look promising, I feel better about giving more time to see how these phases of reopening go, and to learn more about this disease.

United and cohesive guidance from massage and bodywork boards from both national and state levels has been sorely lacking, leaving these types of decisions to fall primarily on practitioners themselves. At the end of the day, these decisions are deeply personal, and while my choice is made by informing myself as much as possible, I’m primarily making this call from a gut level. I do so without judgement for other folks in the industry who are choosing to re-open. 

There is no risk-free way to practice touch-based work right now. Symptom screening is in no way fool-proof, as studies show vastly varying symptomology, and of course the presence of a significant percentage of folks who are asymptomatic. Even with extensive sanitization protocols and acquisition of proper PPE (which I question the ethics of using when many healthcare facilities in the country are still having trouble sourcing enough, not to mention the amount of waste created) OSHA guidelines are still impossible to adhere to, given the nature of a session. In my case there is of course the impossibility of maintaining six feet, for the duration of 60-90 minutes, compounded by the lack of ventilation provided in my windowless office with an HVAC system that is shared with other practitioners in the office suite. 

I also question the ethics of re-opening when we still know so very little about this disease, and what we do know is changing rapidly. If you are interested in a little physiology, here’s an article with discussion about the coagulopathy factor associated with Covid, and another article considering the possibility that Covid may actually be more of a blood vessel disease than a respiratory one. This is of particular concern because blood clotting is an already existing contraindication for massage.  None of this is intended to create fear, but share the medical information I am using to make my decisions. 

I am also continually brought back to one of the main reasons I do this work to begin with. Beyond manipulating tissue, the point is to help people feel safe in their bodies and down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system. To try and achieve this with so much existing risk and uncertainty feels insurmountable. 

Thank you so much for your time and attention if you’ve read this far! I miss seeing everyone, and I will definitely be in touch if anything changes and when I move closer to opening back up. Please be well and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. 

allowing the chrysalis

I took this photo of a chrysalis about 5 years ago. It was at the Air Bnb I was staying in while I was attending my very first biodynamic craniosacral training. Apt, too, as entering that field of study was ultimately a giant swan dive into the unknown corners of my body and psyche and the onset a deeply transformative process that continues to shift and inform me.

I was struck by the beauty of the thing; the luminous sea green color it took, the incredible line of gold that spun around it and finished at the bottom with two delicate golden specks. It seemed a deliberate work of art. Fragile and resilient, strongly adhered to the branch, keeping company with buds who were generating just enough frustration to burst forth and finally express themselves.

And here we find ourselves, in the midst of the eruption of spring, confined to our homes, grieving the ground and structure that previously upheld our lives. I’m sure this is not the first cocoon/butterfly metaphor you’ve stumbled across during this period of time. Apologies for the cliche. This particular analogy has become cliche, however, because it is such an applicable metaphor to our human experience. This cycle happens over and over again throughout our lives, with varying lengths of butterfly-ness and cocoon-ness. Spiritual teacher and author Matt Kahn says that at any given moment, we find ourselves a cross-section of erosion and renewal. The degree to which we can yield to our experience as it is can affect amount of discomfort we might feel in relation to that ratio of erosion and renewal.

We are undoubtedly in a period of transformation. Just as you would not rip this gorgeous and intelligently made structure from it’s branch, slice it open to figure it out and see what’s inside - try not rob yourself of this sacred opportunity to morph. Try not to prematurely “get it all figured out.” There is no “figuring out” while in the chrysalis. It’s dark in there. It’s supposed to be. It’s uncomfortable. It’s supposed be. The point of the chrysalis is that you cannot know. Allow space to not know, rest in the truth that you do not have to know. Allow the cessation of striving. We are in a constant state of becoming whether or not we are actively striving towards anything. Rest in that truth.

My hope for myself and for the collective is that we don’t try to rush to go “back to the way things were.” It is an impossibility. Yesterday I left my house for the first time in 12 days to go get more groceries. It was a shock to the system. Driving felt eerie. Changing lanes felt aggressive, even when it wasn't. I felt like I was violating some sacred code, just by moving through the world. Like I’d ripped myself out of my own cocoon. I realized that I needed to fully give myself to this period of time, to allow the chrysalis, to yield into the transformation. I am letting myself get gooey in the places that were begging to give way- the needless scaffolding in my life that I thought I needed but really only drained and distracted me. As I come into contact with the new found space in my life that was once occupied by errands and to-do lists, I can see how they acted as a bandaid to my unconscious sense of aimlessness and self-diminishment, how they were snuffing out a more genuine and perhaps scary and ego-threatening expression of my authentic self.

And so here I find myself, publishing this blog as my first uncomfortable gesture towards butterfly-ness. My intention with this virtual space is to offer my current thoughts on my work - how I do it, why I do it, how I think about and relate to it. I will be speaking strictly from my own experience, so if it doesn’t resonate with you - please defer to your own inner knowing and trust your own experience. You are your own authority. I am mostly writing to document my own evolution, to potentially have a dialogue, and to help people understand who I am as a practitioner. If it helps you along your journey, fabulous! Also, if there is something specific you’d like for me to write about, please do let me know!

Thank you for reading. Please take good, sweet care of yourself. Wishing you all gentleness during this deeply unraveling and transformative period.