Solstice Solitude

My week of solitude in the Palouse comes to a close. It’s been a blessing to have this complete freedom to sink into my rhythms. I feel like a river in Spring flood splashing through the valley. I’m finding delicious depths of dimension in the arising forms of my practice. The bliss of being keeps expanding; tone ripples through Silence, a gentle pulse nesting a soft wetness of life within a blue field of fire rising as a column of knowing at an edge of complexity. I am inspired and awakened in an embodied integration of motion and soul and light. I am joy, alert and expectant, deliciously free.

The telling begins in dreamtime on the solstice. I am in a lodge/gymnasium to perform at a ritual event. Something doesn't feel quite right to me, so I decide to watch instead of participate. I sit on the wood floor, front and center. I lean back so I'm resting on my elbows. A small group of celebrants enter. A man comes to the front and unfurls a rug, placing it about seven feet in front of me so that its length mirrors the extension of my legs. I notice that the rug is a bit crooked. This bothers me. I decide the sloppiness of the unfurling justifies my decision not to take part on stage.

A man in the audience, behind me off to my left is walking towards the stage area. He is agile and lovely with dark hair and light brown skin. I imagine he is from South America, but there's a wavering quality to his being that makes him a little hard to see. Different parts of his body seem to be at different distances from me. Not sure how old he is; I guess he's in his 40's but he might be 60. He walks directly to the rug and with a fluid movement picks it up with a subtle shake, waving the rug back onto the floor in a beautiful shaping. This is intensely satisfying. I am fascinated and moved by his action.

He walks to me and lies down next to my left side, very close. We rest silently for a while. I sit up with a compelling inspiration to touch him. I press gently into various places on his chest and ribs, hold the pressure for a breath then release slowly as he inhales. I do this for a while, enjoying the full expansions of his breath and the supple springiness of his body. I place my right hand at the top of his belly between his ribs. It's like reaching into a dense fog filled with a gentle buzzing charge. The sensation reminds me of playing on the edge of a magnetic field. The space of his core keeps opening in an endless flow of connection. My boundaries dissolve. Feelings of gratitude and awe form little knots of light in the boundless beyond, guiding me slowly back to my body by his side.

He reaches out and gives my ribs a little tickle. For a long while we lay on the floor laughing. We are loving presence.


Into a new year.

space embraced,
thomas