Welcome back to 30 Days of Soul Curriculum for your life,
For your transformations seen through the eye of my own soul art journey.
Yesterday,
We talked about the sun and that embodiment from my soul art journey.
I mentioned in that how that sun opened up my ability to embody the cherry blossoms that are all behind this spiral and behind the profile.
I'm gonna talk a bit about cherry blossoms.
And for me,
Cherry blossoms have always been a place of grief.
And I'm going to talk about my history with it.
And then I'm going to talk about how sometimes we hold things,
We hold wounds,
We hold these things within us that have been really hard.
Maybe we've transformed through them,
But we haven't necessarily worn them on our skin,
Right,
For others.
We're going to talk about how do we take something that's from within us,
Like we had a transformation,
We had a wound,
We had something we worked on,
Right?
Very,
Very deep layers of grief.
It's a private thing,
Right?
But when does it come to the point and how do we get to the point where we begin to feel the beauty of our story,
Right?
Where we begin to feel and wear that beauty of the story.
So let's just start by just closing your eyes and taking a breath.
Just take a nice breath.
Inhaling through the nose exhaling through your mouth Inhaling through your nose.
Maybe even lift your shoulders and then exhaling through your mouth.
And just arriving in the present moment.
Just beginning to.
.
.
Bring your awareness to your body.
Maybe you can feel the felt sense in your body,
On your skin.
You can feel your breath.
Maybe you feel the temperature of air.
I know where I am.
It's rainy and cool,
And I can feel that on my skin.
Yeah.
Just allowing yourself to be in the present moment.
And for a minute,
Feel into an old wound,
Right?
Old symbol from the past that was meaningful to you.
Search around,
See if you can find that.
To hold on to that while we talk.
So for me,
It is grief.
And that symbol is the cherry blossom.
For you,
It might be another thing.
It might not be grief,
But it might be maybe a piece of your grief.
Or it might be a wound that was connected with anger or whatever it be,
Right?
Just get a sense for yourself of what that is,
That old symbol.
That old wound that you carry.
And I'm going to start talking about my process,
And then we'll go into a visualization.
When I started this soul art journey,
The second time I put paint on,
I put a huge cherry blossom branch.
And it's interesting because cherry blossoms hadn't come into my life for quite some time.
But cherry blossoms,
When I was in my 20s,
Were my symbol for all of the people that had that cherry blossom branch here.
I have one on my back.
It goes across the middle of my back.
Now,
I put these tattoos on my body of cherry blossoms,
Probably I would say in my 20s,
Maybe late teens,
Where every flower was meaningful to a friend I had lost.
And I had nine blossoms and they all kind of disappeared.
But I kept adding them as I needed them.
And then the last one I put on was my son who I lost.
So I have all of these cherry blossoms.
They're all,
They're down here.
There's these,
They've all kind of faded.
And I hadn't touched cherry blossoms in quite some time.
So it was really surprising for me in my soul art journey,
Which is I am showing up for myself.
Right.
I am showing up for myself for me to all of a sudden have a cherry blossom branch come out.
I have not painted cherry blossom branches in years,
Years.
I haven't touched that symbol in years,
But I have been in grief since my parents died in 2021 when they died seven days apart.
Grief has been my journey,
But I hadn't looked at the cherry blossoms.
It was really interesting for me to see that.
And I decided to just continue painting,
Continue painting.
I put things over it,
All of this stuff.
Embodiment.
I embodied the sun and I got that like wild energy,
Sun energy that we talked about yesterday.
And that opened up the door for me to be like,
Maybe I need to embody the cherry blossoms.
Maybe I need to embody that piece of my grief.
Maybe that's part,
It's the whole background,
The whole foundation.
Okay,
So this is some of the pictures of how I embodied the cherry blossom.
I put them on my face of all things,
Of all things.
And you can actually see in this one,
The other cherry blossom,
And I'm looking down toward it.
And I took myself out in nature and I took myself out in the sun.
And I was eventually bringing myself back to my soul art where the cherry blossoms are here behind,
Right?
And I was just being with my grief.
I had a lot of,
I cried a lot during this embodiment.
Yeah,
I also felt into just the exposure of my grief,
The exposure of putting this on my face,
Of wearing this on my face.
I felt into what it felt like to be,
Look in a mirror and not hide from it,
Right?
Because I can hide my tattoos,
Right?
So that's part of,
And then eventually I ended up putting some on my arms on my body.
This was the embodiment.
And it was a peaceful embodiment.
I cried because it's like,
Oh my gosh,
This is what I've been through.
This is my story.
This is showing up for myself.
I am not hiding from it.
And this has been a journey in my life through grief.
I've had a lot of grief.
And so just being able to see myself and let the sun,
The wild sun come down and be there with me.
Of my embodiment of the cherry blossoms.
And what it felt like to me was being able to actually see it,
Be visible,
Find the beauty in it,
To be with those cherry blossoms.
And showing up for myself is allowing it to be a part of my story in a beautiful way,
Even though there's so much wound,
There's so much sadness,
There's so much anger that has been in my process of grief.
So from decades,
I carried this very privately.
And this was the first time that I literally painted my body with it.
And I looked in the mirror and I was like.
This is my story.
So I want to give this piece to you.
What stories are in you?
What symbols?
For me,
It was cherry blossom and grief.
That has always been.
It was so much so that I tattooed across my body.
And I want to know what your symbol is for your wound.
What is that wound that you carry privately that might be your superpower,
That might just be the superpower in your life,
That you haven't seen it,
That you haven't found the beauty,
That you haven't witnessed yourself visible in that story?
Just close your eyes,
Take a breath.
Just allow your inhale and exhale to be present with you.
Allow your awareness to travel around your body looking for the story,
The wound.
Right.
Looking for the grief.
Where does it feel that you're holding that grief?
So just allowing your body and your awareness to scan through your body.
And gently maybe through the head.
Scan by the eyes.
The muscle of the mind.
The cheeks,
The mouth.
The back of the neck.
The shoulders.
Scan all the way down the spine from the top where the spine meets the skull all the way down to the bottom where the tailbone is.
Your shoulders,
Your arms,
Your fingertips.
Where do you feel you're carrying?
Your own grief,
Your own wound,
Your own story.
In your body.
Scan your hips.
Your size.
Knees.
Calves,
The bottom of your feet.
The toes.
Just allow your awareness to scan from top to bottom with the question,
Where am I holding this wound?
Where am I holding this grief?
Might be your throat.
I think a lot of us hold a lot in our throat.
Especially when it comes to speaking our story.
And just trust your instinct on where it lands.
Where does your awareness land?
I want you to begin to breathe into that,
Inhaling into it.
Expanding it.
And exhaling and contracting it to the center point.
Inhaling,
Expanding that place in your body.
That's holding that wound,
That symbol.
And exhaling and contracting.
And feel into that place.
What's living there?
Is there a symbol?
What old story?
Has made its home in your tissues,
Your bones,
Your muscles.
And don't try to fix it.
Just be with it.
Just be with this story,
This wound,
This symbol.
Just breathe into it.
And allow the breath to touch that space.
That place in your body.
All the cells,
All the mitochondria there at that place.
Inhaling and expanding.
Exhaling and contracting.
And just for a minute,
You might place your hand on that place.
I want you to work with an intention here.
You might say it to yourself,
I.
.
.
And ready for new meaning.
I am ready for new meaning.
Saying it silently to yourself with your hand on this place of your body.
I am ready.
For new meaning.
Breathe that in.
I am ready for new meaning.
Feel that intention moving through that place in your body.
That place of that wound,
That place of that symbol.
And now imagine that same symbol,
That same experience rising through your body,
Almost like sap rises through a tree,
Right?
Almost like that energy that rises through a tree from the roots all the way down deep in Mother Earth.
Imagine that experience rising through that trunk of that tree,
Through that body part,
All the way through your body.
But as it moves from the hidden place,
From deep in the bones,
Deep in the muscles,
Deep in the tissues,
It begins to move outward toward your skin.
Begins to move outward toward visibility.
Maybe you notice colors.
Maybe you notice textures.
Maybe you noticed What maybe was compact and heavy becomes lighter.
It dissipates a little.
What does it feel like to you?
Is it more alive?
Is it warmer?
Is it cooler?
As it moves like the sap of a tree right to the edge of the skin.
Toward visibility.
And you can imagine this.
This story,
Right,
This wound as it comes to the skin.
That And it reaches the surface.
It might be written across your face,
Written across your hands,
Written across your chest.
Maybe you notice a word.
Bring your awareness to that felt sense.
Within you.
There's no need to hide from it.
You can wear it.
You can embody it.
Other people might need that story,
Might need to see the beauty in your story.
This isn't like that wound.
This isn't that old grief,
That old story anymore as it comes out toward your skin.
It becomes the beauty of breaking open.
So for a second,
Just feel yourself as that person wearing your wound,
Your story.
You're not hiding the hard parts.
You're not.
.
.
Keeping it to yourself.
You just take a nice breath in.
Exhale out.
Give it some sound.
Inhaling in Exhaling out.
Shake your hands out a little bit.
Maybe you move your head around your shoulders.
Maybe your shoulders want to move.
Maybe your spine wants to.
.
.
Wiggle a little.
I'm gonna give you some questions.
And just trust what's emerging.
What's in your body that's shifted from hidden to visible?
What old story is ready to be worn?
As beauty.
Instead of carried as a burden.
If your transformed grief,
Your transformed wound could speak,
What would it want you to know?
How does it feel in your body when pain becomes wisdom that can be embodied?
There are people that need your medicine.
There are people that need your story.
Go ahead and.
.
.
Open your eyes if they're not already open.
You can let those questions.
Move through you.
Throughout the day.
You might bring awareness to how you wear that wound.
All the medicine that you have for others.
So thank you so much for coming along today.
I hope you have a beautiful,
Wonderful rest of your day.
And I will see you next time,
My friends.
Namaste.
