A walk in vulnerability

Today I was feeling uneasy.

All signs were telling me to go for a walk in vulnerability instead of medicating with run as a dopamine hit.

So I did. Much to the frustration of my running body that desperately wanted to escape the difficult feelings that had no words.

I walked my standard quick run route. Took time to walk through gates instead of cockily leaping over. Thought about the Gates of Inanna as I passed through each boundary into the valley as the land changed from one side to the other.

Each enclosure another world. Each gate and style another portal to another story of what lies enmeshed between human and the land.

Hours passed and every time I found myself trying to outthink my situation, to strategise my way through the current block, I checked myself. Just about holding back from completely chastising myself for giving in to my need to control. And bringing myself back to the moment.

I found a place to sit. And in silence I felt safe in the womb-like shelter built of wood and earth.

The world could not see me but I could see the world.

The deer that darted through the young trees.

The lone cyclists. A couple of dog walkers.

The Kestrel moving at a still-point, its eyes focused on its target as my eyes focused on it.

Then I realised that my running body had quietly surrendered.

It had found a still-point.

I started to move intuitively in the dark. To dance.

When it felt right I emerged into the sun. Fluidly. Without expectation. Without control.

Just surrender.

The urge to escape had gone.

Transmuted into a new energy that had no words.

I went back on the path. No change other than a lighter perspective. The strategising chatter silenced.

I felt called to pick some aggressive thorns from the majestic wild roses on the trainline.

I carried them in my hand until I got to the last stone style at the boundary of my village, putting them down to take a picture without thinking.

I thought of the thorned statuettes and vases I’d created created over the last year.

The armored, limbless, monstrous women.

Les Dames Sans Merci.

And then I saw the little creature emerge from stage right. A curious little envoy weaving through the thorns.

Enki’s little creature of empathy.

It whispered “It’s okay to put your armour down, once in a while.”

I picked up the fragments of wild rose and crossed the threshold back into the village.

Not knowing what I’d left behind.

But knowing nonetheless.