The Heat You Keep Down: Anger With Nowhere To Go

A shadow work meditation about the anger you have nowhere to put, and the years you have spent calling it your temper and working on it. It goes down to the base of you, where the ground has been warm as long as you can remember, and it stays there. Spare and slow, with a long silence at its center.

For anyone drawn to depth psychology, Jungian work, and owning the disowned.

Transcript

Bring your attention around behind you. The low back. Under the last ribs. Where the body goes on without you looking at it. Close your eyes on it. Now find the temperature. Not the ache. If there is an ache. The temperature. It is warm back there. Take a breath. And let it out with nothing pushing it. Again. It has been warm a long time. As long as you have had a back. And you have never questioned it. Because a body is warm. And this is your body. And this is what yours is like. Go under it now. Down under the warm place to the base of you. The lowest floor. The part that holds and does not move. Rest there. Dense and quiet. It bears everything above it. And feel down through it. There is heat under the floor. It is coming up from underneath. Through the whole base of you. The way heat comes up through a stone that's had a fire under it a long time. Something is burning down there. It has been for years. Come up off the base. Into low belly. There is water in here. And it is warm too. Nothing appears making heat. That's the fire, Reaching this far. Feel where it goes. And moves out. Sideways. Wide. Through the whole floor of you. Back into the low place where you started. It runs along whatever it can get to. Follow it out. As far as it goes. The hip joints. Inside of the thighs the place you sit on. It got there a long time ago. Something is over it. Keep coming up. Into the middle of you. Under the breastbone. Where the ribs part. This is the place you know about. Here's where it comes nearest, The circus. Where you feel it when somebody says the wrong thing and your face goes hot before you have decided anything at all. You have had a name for it a long time. Your temper. Your problem. The thing you are working on. Feel it now. Right there under the bone. As hard as it gets in you. And it isn't the source. It is under the whole floor of you. All of it. That is what you are standing on. Now up to where the ribs end. There is a floor across you there. Under the lungs. Over the belly. A wide flat sheet of muscle. And it is yours. And you have never once looked at it. Find it. The breath comes in. And it draws down. The breath goes out. And it lifts. Feel it work. Now feel what it does besides breathing. It holds. This is good work. Something in you built it young. And built it well. And has not given way once. Stay with it. You are not going to move it. One question. And put it down under the shelf. Into the dark where the fire is. Ask it once, And don't answer it twice. What did you decide it would burn? Do not reach for it. Reaching goes up. And nothing up here knows. Come up through the shelf. Just you. Into the chest. It is cool in here. Wide and dry. And nothing has never burned it in. This is the part of you people find easy. People are safe with you up here. It has never smelled smoke. It is the top floor. Up out of the chest into the throat. Everything you have ever said came through here. All of it from above the shelf. Cool air. In words that have already cooled. Feel how narrow it goes. A fine channel. About the width of a voice. Higher. Behind the eyes. Than the top of your head. And then passed it. The air above you is ordinary. Cool and moving. It knows nothing about you. You have come the whole way up. Everything that could come, Came. And it is still down there. Burning under the base. As Haru. It was when you started. Nothing came up with you. The heat does not go anywhere. And the clothes does not lift. The room comes back by temperature. And the eyes open onto it. Stay a moment with the whole length of you. Warm at the bottom. Cool at the top. The shelf between them, Holding. It is all where it was. The heat is still under you. It was under you when you lay down and you did not know. It will be under you when you get up. Some ground never goes cold. Rain doesn't cool it. Nothing settles on it. You have stood on that your whole life and called it your temperature. Now, Let the room come back. The air on your face. Cooler than you are. The floor under you. The small sounds the place keeps making. And the low back again. Under the last ribs. Where you started. Warm. When you are ready. And not before. Let your eyes open. You will feel it after.