Welcome to the science and art of butter meeting heat to guide our own alchemical surrender.
Extend the invitation for anyone in your space to give you some privacy to really honor the opening of this experience.
After years of teaching the arosha movement experience,
Melted butter is one of the easiest ways that I could help people engage and feel into the experience of a thawing of the physical form from the solid into the liquid from the rigid into the fluid from that contained and constricted into the expansive and sprawling.
Less about a collapse or giving up,
It's more about intentionally yielding to gravity to the natural process of becoming what we truly are.
First let's create our melting container.
So we'll find floor space with enough room to fully extend.
Before we begin moving,
Let's take a moment to study butter's wisdom.
Imagining this cold stick,
Structured and solid,
Meeting a warm cast iron pan.
Its edges begin to soften first,
Then the corners round,
The surfaces gleam,
And soon it begins to spread.
The liquid pools begin to form,
And eventually the structure completely surrenders.
Water content begins to separate from the dairy,
Creating bubbles,
Little pups,
Transforms what was solid into this dancing liquid,
And the molecules that were once tightly bound become free-flowing.
So now we're going to embody this precise transformation together.
Begin by standing on the pallet that you made on the floor with our eyes gently closed,
Or at least looking down towards your feet.
Think of your body like the cold stick of butter.
Feel your solid structure and your clear boundaries.
Notice any places that you're holding tightly.
We're scanning,
Noticing the hard edges,
Acknowledging our current form,
Not necessarily needing it to change,
Feeling the weight of our feet on the floor,
And noticing the container of our skin.
Some butter comes inside of a wrapper,
Some comes inside of a container,
Some is frozen or just out of the fridge.
Now we're going to imagine heat being brought to the edges of the pan.
Notice that begin to affect our own edges of our cold butter,
Letting our fingers and our toes begin to soften,
Maybe they actually spread,
Or you just witness and see the outline of the feet on the ground become a little more transparent,
Allowing your skin to be warmed.
Keeping the core structure intact for now,
We're just noticing that slight gleaming,
Allowing this to happen in its own pace.
Without any rush,
Breathing,
Using our imagination fully.
There may be a little wiggle in the shoulders that you might actually be more observing than intending to happen.
Our knees may begin to soften slightly.
Our structure begins to yield as our spine releases one vertebra at a time.
That might look like a little swirl,
A little bit of the belly relaxing,
The shoulders dropping away from the ears,
The jaw unclenching,
Ironing out any wrinkles around us.
Tracking these little subtle shifts with our precise awareness,
And just noticing as if we sense that there is liquid pooling underneath our body,
Almost imagining drips off the fingertips towards the floor.
Maybe your elbows lose their angles and the neck begins to release its hold.
Find where that more immense melting wants to begin inside of your unique shape.
Trusting the wisdom of your own body's natural yielding,
We may gently increase the heat,
The flame underneath the pan for now.
Letting our knees bend more deeply or our spine really allowed to fold or to curve.
Our arms may begin to float downwards or drip or dangle,
And our head may become heavy,
Yielding into gravity.
Notice that your descent to the floor may be inevitable,
Less about falling but truly melting,
Where each part is transforming at its own perfect pace,
Some parts still solid as others purely liquefy.
Moving with exquisite slowness,
Complete presence,
Trusting the process of the transformation as perhaps the knees give out and the hips land,
Really splashing into the puddle of butter.
Perhaps that upper body finds its way to ooze down into a dramatic descent into your pool,
Your puddle,
Your full laying,
A liquid state has emerged.
And as we lay on our back,
Maybe even slightly to the side as we're making our way onto our back eventually,
Where does the energy want to release as you fully escape?
What sounds want to emerge?
And can you start to feel the butter spread out on the pan?
So that's where your form as you found your way to the floor in that puddle begins to spread wide,
Opening the toes,
Stretching the fingertips away from the kneecaps,
The left hip away from the right armpit,
Opening the jaw and see how long and big and wide you can get.
Perhaps we're buttering and lubricating the entire base of our pan.
And here comes that place where we let the bones be heavy,
Let the muscles fully surrender to the support underneath you,
Becoming formless,
Boundless,
Completely liquid.
And here's where that bubbling stage begins.
So as we surrender there,
There's a little tipping point,
A moment where we're in that sprawl,
That surrendering,
And then the popping begins.
What energy begins to want to be released?
What sounds want to emerge?
The little popping of the liquid moving,
The actual water pop pops and it finds little hums and it almost boils.
So what would it look like if your body was boiling?
That little hum of the body,
A little effervescence,
A little ruffle of your body,
A little bit of the knees bending,
Maybe a little sound,
Maybe everything just wiggles and jiggles all at once.
And we're feeling ourselves just that subtle little tipping point at the boiling point.
We get to allow ourselves to completely let go of that,
Which wants to move up and out of us,
Popping,
Sputtering,
Playing,
And then letting that completely relax.
Remaining here in this liquid state,
The sort of sheen across the bottom of the warm pan,
Turning the temperature off,
Filling the residual heat inside of the pan,
And notice that unique melting point that was yours.
Offer permission to our body to be held rather than to always be holding,
To let the edges spill over,
Be messy,
To change states without losing anything,
Taking our time to just enjoy the stillness.
Some parts of you may start to,
At the edges,
Come back into subtle,
Solid state.
Notice what new form may be emerging and remembering that like butter changing states,
Transformation doesn't mean losing ourselves.
It means discovering new expressions of your essence.
What was solid becomes fluid.
What had a tight grip becomes liquefied,
But the essential you remains.
When you're ready,
And only you know when that is,
Take a moment to wiggle the toes,
The fingers,
Shift the hips,
Lengthen one leg,
Then the other.
Take big breaths,
Perhaps rocking slightly towards one side than the other,
Fluttering the eyes back open if they found their closure,
And finding yourself fully back in your state,
Soft and yielding,
Yet still holding form.
You
