I took to the mountain for a hike. Enjoying the beautiful Autumn warmth and colours in the Pacific Northwest I could feel the tensions of my week fall from my shoulders and melt away as the rustle of the leaves were disturbed beneath my wandering feet. The real draw of this particular mountain is the stunning views of the horizon that are revealed at her peak. With a slight exhaust I sat and began to gaze at the horizon line to the west of me, the light pink color of the skyline meeting the distant alpine ridges quickly had me in a meditative space. My sensory system was bathed in the surroundings of rich colours of blue and green mixed with the golden yellow of the leaves, and the distant shimmering ocean of the bay below me. I softened into silence. Mission accomplished. Or so I believed..
Abruptly, the inner and outer silence was broken by the sound of voices in the background. The fellow hikers' conversation was unavoidable in close proximity. “It is so sad that they took down the Cross" (referencing a Christian cross placed to mark the summit of the mountain which had been dismantled recently) said one of the hikers.
The reply from the other hiker, in a surprisingly stern and judging tone, responded “No it's not, do you know what it stands for”. This was then quickly followed by the latter hiker continuing “I don’t want to hang around here, I have Netflix shows to watch. lets go”. The two hikers turned and carried on their way.
The passing hikers' visit, although brief, left an imprint on me. In a split second my system was flooded with chemicals associated with reaction. That is how judgement works. It will fill you instantaneously. As I lay there a feeling of heat filled me as judgement sang it's dark and edgy song throughout my veins. Thoughts instantaneously followed suit as a part of me was quick to push this hiker's voice down “ that’s what you think” I thought… “What do you know?…, privileged, no good waster?” My "critical me" immediately put myself in a position of superiority, conjugating counter arguments to my mind's distortions of the hikers' opinions on religious and philosophical matters.
…An inner fire ensued, she rose, and rose, dropped and swirled, as I eased into the feelings, allowing the inner feelings to have a chance to move throughout me without interrupting ... A different perspective came online... What did I know about this hiker's life? What is their worldview I wondered as a subtle sense of curiosity became of me. Where has their life-walk taken them? What streets have they inhabited and what experiences construed their belief systems and their conditioning. How has their evening, their night or morning impacted them? The exhaustive amount of variables that formulated their moment to moment existence., which for a mere 30 seconds crossed paths with my own.
And then, I wondered what about me? What of my own process? What life path have I walked, what life experiences or lack of experiences have sculpted my moment to moment existence? Where am I on my Life-walk. What and who have sculpted my views and biases. What gifts did my ancestors pass down to me to pass or deny judgement on another.
In a moment what I had come to realise is that this anger or judgemental experience does not belong to anyone else but me. Not the hiker or anyone else for that matter. How should I dare even consider or even want to consider putting my experience onto anyone else, blame anyone else.
This is my experience of anger, and a space where my true inner power can really take form. How? This power elicits from the choice I now have on how I am going to act with my anger.
I breathe a little deeper as a welcoming experience of judgement takes place, as if to say welcome Home, you may be here and sit with me all day. My whole body begins to percolate with sensations, as the residual neurophysiological patterns push and pull finding a way to unwind throughout my Being, ... then Stillness.
In the Lineage of Visionary Craniosacral Work we say that you cannot rebalance the brain until you open the Heart, and you cannot balance the Heart until you open the Sacrum. Ida Rolf the Grandmother of fascial structural Integration quotes “ that problems within the body can only be solved by dealing with the body". In this case, anger and judgement are the body, an experience that we must not deny. She is here to be felt and listened to, to hear her sweet whisperings, hear the inner cries and despairs, until the time arrives for her to return home to Stillness within again.
That stillness is the Ground. Here the Heart opens like a lotus receiving the nourishment of her wisdom. The Heart in His wise old way may move this wisdom through the hands and fingers to create beautiful art or music or perhaps through the throat as a gift of skilled speech or song.
Or maybe to be held and cherished inside, in Silence.
David is a registered Physiotherapist in British Columbia (CPTBC) and Ireland (MISCP). He holds a Diploma in Visionary Craniosacral Work ® and is a teacher for Milne Institute studies in VCSW ®. He is a visiting Healer at Hacienda Del Sol center, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. He has a keen interest in longstanding and complex pain and metaphysical aspects of pathology. Currently David works with people in person and online around the world. To book please follow this link for his services.
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