Braced

Some bodies are always ready for the blow. The shoulders set. The soft middle turned away. You lead with your hard side and keep the front of you back, and you've done it so long it stopped feeling like a choice. This is a chakra balancing for that body. We go down into a dark, deep enough that nothing in it can see you. In that safety, one center at a time, you let the front come open. Base to crown. Far enough to stop bracing.

One question waits at the center, and a long silence to hold it in.

For the new moon in Cancer, and for anyone who has guarded the soft part of themselves a long time.

Transcript

Let your eyes close. With the dark behind them come up. But it keep coming. Past the dark you usually stop at. The Busy Dark. The one with the day still flickering in it. Let it go further down than that until it's whole. No shapes. No edges. Nowhere it thins out. In the dark, This complete does one thing for you. Nothing in it can see you. No one is watching. Nothing in here has turned your way. Reading your face waiting to see what you will do. You are not being looked at. For as long as this lasts. You are entirely unseen. Feel what that does. The part of you that is always tracking how you come across. Has nothing to track. No one here to manage. Let it set the work down. It could pick it back up later. Not here. Let a slow breath go into the front of you. Is soft metal. The belly. The chest. The part you almost never breathe into on purpose. And let it out long. Again into the front. And out. Once more, Slower. All the way in. And all the way out. There is a way you move through the world. You may never have watched yourself do it. You don't go at things straight. You come at them from the side. A room. A person. A hard conversation. A thing you want. You approach it on a slant. With part of yourself turned away. You lead with your harder edge. The soft front you keep back. You have done it so long it isn't a choice anymore. It is just your gait. The way you are built to move now. It began somewhere. The front got turned away after something. You do not have to find one. Just feel that it is true. There is in front of you. Soft metal. And you have spent years keeping it from facing anything. Head on. In a dark like this. Nothing can reach it. There is nothing here to lead the hard side towards. And nothing the soft side has to be kept back from. So we are going to do the undefended things slowly. We are going to let the soft front come open to the dark. Where it is safe. One place at a time. From the base of you to the top. Start at the base. The lowest part of you. Where you meet the ground. This is where the gate begins. The oldest brace. Everything you carry bears down to here and is held. Feel how much holding lifts this low. How long it's been at it. How it never quite lets go. Let it come open to the dark. Not by doing. By stopping. That the part of you that's been bracing the ground all this time ease its grip. And the soft of it come open. The dark only rests there. Now the low belly. The soft bowl below the navel. This is the softest you have. The first place you cover when you flinch. When something comes at you fast. The body folds around it. You have spent your life keeping it turned away. Let it come open now. Uncovered. There is nothing coming. Nothing to fold around. Just the soft bowl of you and the dark. Up to the middle. Above the navel. Under the ribs. A hard nod of you. Feel how clenched it is. It has been clenched so long it stopped registering as clenching. It just became the shape you hold in the middle. The set jaw of the body. Slow down. Where no one sees it. But it unclenched into the dark. The knot doesn't have to hold the middle of you up. Let the soft come back into it. And now the chest. The center of it. This is the front you have kept turned away the longest. The one the whole sideways walk was built to protect. Would ever turn the front away in the first place. It was aiming here. You don't have to open it like a door. Just let the chest stop racing. For the blow. And let the soft front of it come open. Open to the dark. The most undefended you have been in a long time. Still braced, That's alright. Let it come up and burst. And the throat. A neck, This is where the turning happens. The head turned on the neck. The face swung off to the side. The swallow that goes with it. Every time you took the soft front off something, The turn was yours. This is the muscle of the gait. And it has spent a lifetime swiveling you away from whatever stood in front of you. Let it come to rest. Let the neck stop turning. And the head sits straight on it. The face unturned. And the face. Rise to the face now. The front of you. That actually faces or doesn't face. The eyes behind their lids that had looked at so much from the side. Let the face come around to the dark, Full on. Not turned. Not angled. Facing. And the top of you. The crown. The whole front of you open now. Space to tap. Open to the dark for the first time in a long time. Stay just like this. The whole soft front open. In the dark. Where it is safe. You have come near this a hundred times. Always from the side. And turned away before you reached it. There is nothing here to turn from now. One thing to ask. The dark is the only place you could. Ask it once and don't turn to answer it. What have you never turned to face? You asked. With your whole front opened and still braced. And nothing came for it. The below you turned away from for so long. And here. It doesn't land. Nothing in this dark strikes a soft front. There was never anything here that could. Feel the dark resting on the front of you. The way air rests on skin. And now the back of you. The shoulders. The whole hard side. Set against the blow this entire time. But it's stand down. The muscle that was ready. All this while. Let it stop being ready. You will get up and go back in a while. Not yet. When you do. Something will be different in how you move. You will carry the front open. The hard side is still there. At your back. Where it belongs. For the times you will truly need it. But it is not what goes first anymore. But the dark began to thin toward the ordinary light. Of the place you are in. Let it come back the slow way. The way the eyes take their time. The front stays open as it does. That's the whole of it. When it can stay open in the light too. And not before. Let your eyes open. And when you rise. Rise front first. Go forward from here.