Just to be a Creature

by Jennifer on October 1, 2018

Monday, September 10th, 2018

For Gibson

I used to burn sage.

Now I ask people, kindly, if they would mind putting it out…so I can breathe.  So I don’t have the leave the space we are in together…

I think about the elegance of it all.  The perfection of my grand sensitivity, masquerading as weakness, and even experienced sometimes that way.  I think about the way I have spent my life getting to this point of extreme beauty through what looks like extreme limitation.

I literally require the purest air, food, water and other kind of inputs at the moment to maintain equilibrium, and my resilience waxes and wanes like the moon, invisible sometimes in a blackened sky.  No slender shimmer to be found.  But that is the place of all potential, that darkness…that new moon.  And there is a force behind it beyond all possible comprehension.  That is what I have done on this journey…I have climbed behind the moon to the place of all darkness, and all possibility.

I have crawled into the earth so deeply I entered the underworld, and I have spent years there.  I can breathe underwater now…even if sage smoke and wildfires make me sick.  That reaction to smoke isn’t permanent, but what I have gained from experiencing illness and trauma is irreversible…for they have transformed me even further into my most true self.  They have made me what I most wished to be on this earth: more fully a creature.

I know the aim for our time here is usually something more like experiencing the divine…becoming a goddess.  But, like the rest of us, I came here already fully divine, and once you know that, there is nothing more beautiful than bringing it into your deepest embodiment: fully being the creature that you are is being the divine.

You see, because I remember what it is to be fully conscious…because I remember and know what it is to be in “the heavens” and have awareness of the entire cosmos, I am intimately and preciously aware of the fact that we come here to be in a body, and it is one of the most beautiful blessings of all.  That means I already know I am a goddess, and what I would like to do is be more like my cat.  Pure instinct and connection.  Every harmonious ancient tradition in the world revered animals for this very reason.  We come here to remember how to be like them.  We are them.

It would have been very easy for me not to completely become the animal that I am.  Almost especially because I have always had such tremendous spiritual resources and such an unspeakably close connection with my body.  Yes, I know that doesn’t seem to make the slightest bit of sense at first.  But I could easily have made do with all of that and never reached these deeper levels if I hadn’t been pressed to the dirt until it became my skin…if I hadn’t experienced such phenomenal levels of helplessness so repeatedly that I had to let my body lead in every…single…way.  Not just most the time, and not even 99% of the time.  All of the time.

I am not suggesting that we need to learn the way I did (thank goodness) or that we need to reach some ridiculous idea of 100% (yes I just called something I only just said ridiculous).  I am saying this:

You are a beautiful animal.  Your body contains all the heavens.  If you hurt, it is teaching you to be a master, even if you feel anything but that.  If you are hurting you are brave.  You contain all the wisdom that has ever existed in your bones, in your cells, in your blood…and you will never be alone on your journey on this earth for many reasons, but especially because you have your body with you.

Our entire earthly religion used to be the celebration of the body.  Our bodies and the body of the earth.  It was only natural.

I know it might be scary to start to listen to your body.  At first you might only hear the pain.  And even when you feel the guidance it might lead you to do uncomfortable things…like ask people if they would mind putting out the sage…and about a billion other things that might push you in directions you wouldn’t go and yet directions which lead you most precisely and unswervingly in the path of your deepest dreams and desires in this life.

Some of you are perhaps thinking…”Yes, yes Jennifer I am more than on the same page and aware of the beauty of the guidance of my body…but I need to know more about how!  I try and I try but I keep losing the message, or reading it wrong, or doubting myself…”

As far as I am concerned there is really just one place to start…no matter how far along you are on the journey if you want to go deeper with communing with the purest wisdom, insight and instinct of your body.  Nourish yourself.

Find out what your body needs and do anything and everything in your power…short of feeling like you have to stress and push yourself which would be counterproductive…to give it to yourself.  Your animal body may need nothing more powerfully than it needs to curl up in a ball and rest.  And it may need that a hundred times.  It may need moonlight, or good food, or music.  It may need laughter or hot water or lots, and lots of tears.  You may not be able to give it what it needs most right now…and that may be painful…but you can at least begin to hear it.

You may not be able to rest…because you can’t sleep, or because you have work, or because the kids need to get to school.  But when you have even five minutes you can climb into the pillows of your bed, or the awkward seat in a public space if needed, and say, “now baby”…”now you can let go for a little while.”

Yes, we are talking about practicing unabashedly a profound level of self-love.  And if that sounds too massive to accomplish, remember that it will grow as you give yourself and your body what it needs…one micro-step, one moment, at a time.

Illness and trauma formed the cocoon that allowed me to become a butterfly.  And to embrace the beauty of the caterpillar.  They ensured for me that I would disintegrate…all the way into a formless goo.  It had to be all the way for me.  Yes, it didn’t look pretty and sometimes still doesn’t.  But it has the power of a million suns, and I am much more interested in that than in whether it looks pretty.  I am interested in real beauty.  And sometimes real beauty comes from immense suffering, and real freedom comes from having known very heavy chains.

I have said before that, “I am not interested in being enlightened.  I have been there before.  I am interested in becoming better at being human.”  And so today, I want to celebrate with you all…that I have indeed become better at being human, which means better at being a human animal, which means better at being an animal.  I am more proud of that than I can possibly say, and it has opened doors of understanding for me that would never have otherwise been available to me.

I have suffered mightily.  Much more than I ever thought I possibly could.  But I am a butterfly now…I am made of rainbow in a deeper way than ever now…and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.  Yes, a combination of Lyme Disease and toxicity, placed on top of a foundation weakened early on by developmental trauma, eventually toppled my entire structure and tested my very life.  Yes, some recent setbacks slowed the great progress I had been making…but how long does it take to make a star?  How long does it take for an ancient tree to grow its rings or a diamond to be formed from coal?  How long does it take for a pearl to grow from an irritation…how long did it take for the moon to learn how to glow?

It takes a little while.  And I can’t think of a more worthwhile thing to do with my time on this earth than to become better at loving, and better at being a creature.  And, with the patience of night, I am daily and diligently doing both…every single day of my life.

My dream is that my words inspire you…to not be as afraid or ashamed of your darkness (there is so much gold there) or your fiery, brilliant light.  I hope you won’t spend your life thinking that being spiritual looks like you are always ready to break out in an “OM” rather than howl at the moon.  Both are beautiful.  I hope you feel like it is okay to ask them to put out the sage if it is making you sick, and that you become more and more comfortable asking for a million other things you need, saying no when you want to say no, saying yes when you want to say yes, and saying nothing when you don’t want to speak.  I hope you get more comfortable with the “ugly”, and the grit, and the things that don’t fit inside the lines.  I hope you dare to live outside of them.  I hope you aren’t afraid to have some people not like you, or think that you are less evolved because you don’t hide your feelings in the deepest closets inside of you…like most of them do to feel more “presentable”.

I hope you know you are always presentable because of who you are and what you are made of, and not just always presentable, but always adored.

I hope you make a mess sometimes.  All over everything.

I hope the guttural, and the primal, are two of your best friends.  Right along with the orgasmic and the ecstatic.  I hope they are all invited to your party.  And I hope you get to party hard…dancing until you remember everything…

Your body will show you how.

I love you so fucking much.

Love,

Jennifer

Love this writing? Hop on my email list to receive each new post!

Also, if you love this writing, you will adore my courses, which you can see here, and my beautiful patreon project here!…

{ 4 comments }

When I Let Go…

by Jennifer on August 13, 2018

Friday, August 6th, 2018

I dreamt about my grandmother’s house again. The small home that seems to sprawl in my mind…the drawers and cupboards spilling their contents out if even slightly provoked. The entire building felt like a time capsule, since it was hard for my grandmother to let almost anything go. So it has both a harmless and a bit of a haunted energy in my mind. I loved to explore the aging contents of her home, squirrelled away always in case of some looming winter because of the hardships she grew up with, but I also wince a little at the memory of dust and mothballs and papers that nearly crumbled in your hands.

It’s all because of the box. My dreaming about grandma’s house.

You see, I have become incredibly sensitive to the generally-benign fungal breakdown of old papers and books. For a writer this has been a heart-breaking realization, but also a great gift. After all, it led me to my closet. I had a closet filled with every bit of paper and old book of writing from my entire life…as a scribe and a record-keeper I had a love affair with these old books of my poems, and letters, and stories I had written. I thought I would look back on them when I was 80, but instead I am having to face them all much, much sooner and make hard decisions about them now.

It was actually because I tried to meditate nightly for a year. I meditate in a lot of ways, but usually not as a daily seated practice and wanted to see what it would be like…but the smell of my closet bothered me too much for me to meditate in my special place. I literally owned a closet full of things that were making me sick…even if they were dear to me. That knowledge, along with the true blessing of finding The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, gave me what I needed to finally declutter down to the bones of everything I owned. Even though I am not quite done and have some of the hardest last items ahead of me, I have no words for what it has given me to do this process.

But I never thought I would give up the box.

The box doesn’t seem all that special I guess. It is just a wooden box that had a scene of a house in a wood pasted onto it which had already half fallen away when I fell in love with it. I found the box when I was a little girl, up on top of one of grandma’s wardrobes. It had the most beautiful antique heart-shaped lock on it, and I just knew it would hold all of my most sacred things. Grandma, not famous for letting go of things as I mentioned, gave it to me anyway. I was the happiest little girl I could have been.

I put all my most special things in it. And as the rare little girl who started her calling as an Oracle at a young age, I had many sacred things indeed. I even kept my crystals in it, and, once I started giving my childhood readings, I always, always brought the box with me so my healing things would be ready for the session. I adored my box.

And I kept it all these years. I would look at it and feel joy rush through me. When I reached the time to begin going through sentimental items I decided to go through the box when I was doing the rest of my crystals, but just for a cursory glance since I was sure I would never want to let anything in that special box go.

And then, I opened it…and even through the mask I was wearing I could smell it. It smelled like death. It was the most horrible-smelling thing I had yet found. Don’t get me wrong. Someone else would say it smelled perhaps like any old antique, but to my system it smelled like poison. Tears burst from my eyes. I knew there was no way on earth that I could keep it.

Life was showing me what to let go of, whether I wanted to or not.

And of course I know the truth. I know I will still be that little girl who gave readings even without the box. I will still be that child who knew everything that she believed from deep within, and lived from that knowing. I am still that girl every day now. I am the girl who held to that knowing, even through great hardships…just as I do now.

No, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with keeping the box in different circumstances. It was a very lovely and special thing to keep…magical to me like a living memory I could still feel under my fingers. With so many memories from past lives that I can’t have mementos from, I have cherished things like the box even more. But life wanted me to let go of the box, and showed me in the clearest way she knew how. So, let it go I shall.

I could get another box. I could fill it with all my special things now. But I feel I am done with boxes. I have loved them so, but now I don’t want my home to be a time capsule like my grandmother’s. I want my home to be an open window where the wind can blow through, and I will keep my crystals on that windowsill.

And perhaps I will be more that little girl than ever when she is not represented by that box.

If I threw it in the ocean, (which I would not do) perhaps the mermaids would keep their special things there. But I would no longer do the same. Keeping some special things can give one wings, but keeping too many special things can keep one from flying.

I suppose, like the little mermaid herself, I created a beautiful cavern of wonderful things that set my heart aflame. But in my story it is me that has to let it all go back into the stream of life. It is me that has to deconstruct the temple of my past joy.

Again, please don’t misunderstand and think I will keep nothing (there are many things I will still keep, or scan), or that I am saying anything one keeps is holding them back. Oh goodness, no. I am just telling you what happened to me, when I began to have to release things I loved like stars falling through my fingers, and knew it must be time to create a new night.

And in many ways my journey is just beginning. In the past two or more years I have decluttered absolutely everything in my house but the very last items…sentimental paper items. They all fit in two huge plastic tubs and I can see them when I turn my head to the left…right now. They are waiting for me, promising that the journey will have challenges and require great courage…but will also bear great treasures, and will surely set me free.

In the dream at my grandmother’s house I got overwhelmed by the musty smells and needed to get outside to find some fresh air. But as soon as I arrived, looking down at the familiar dried grass and sand I stood on every summer growing up, I remembered the ticks. The ticks that most likely gave me Lyme Disease, which has marked my life in ways that are impossible to describe.

But there are phenomenal gifts that come from a mark that deep.

There is no way I could have brought back the medicine at the bottom of the dark ocean where almost nothing lives if I hadn’t gone there myself, and while I rail against it on the nights I still backslide a bit on my long healing journey, I wouldn’t change anything about the years it has taken.

For if I had found an instant cure long ago, there are so many things that wouldn’t have happened that I would never trade for anything…things that will bless the rest of my amazing life. Like the opportunity to live in a home that feels like an open window, and not like a mausoleum of my past…like the chance to live with things that leave me bright, the chance to live light.

And yes, some of this is consolation for my becoming “allergic” to things I love. But it is the best consolation I could ask for. And while my two bins of old paper still don’t smell good when you pull the papers out and open them up, overall the bad smell is completely gone from my room, and every room in my house. And this was all just yet another way for me to listen to my body, and for her to show me what was right for me.

And that has been the deepest gift of this long slow healing journey…the gift I never have to give away or let go of, because it lives inside me. I was so profoundly attuned to my body before, but now for the rest of this life, there is no distinction between she and I at all.

We are one wave. One pulse.

And I would give up all the boxes in the world for that, and so much more.

Here’s to feeling light and free, because we let go of what we thought we never could…and in doing so kept everything we could ever truly want.

Love,

Jennifer

Love this writing? Hop on my email list to receive each new post!

Also, if you love this writing, you will adore my courses, which you can see here, and my beautiful patreon project here!…

{ 0 comments }

Time to Refresh: Mid-2018 Eclipses ~ An Oracle’s Prophecy

July 16, 2018

Jennifer Luna Posada July, 2018 In the wake of a fresh new moon and solar eclipse, there is a silence.  A pause…but one covered in frantic, intense energies, obscuring that precious pearl of new knowing you attained by moving through recent deeply transformational energies.  Your boat has been rocked, rocked again, and perhaps even struck […]

Read the full article →

When You Speak Your Truth

May 4, 2018

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 “If someone backs away when you speak your truth…let them.” ~ Jennifer Posada “some people, when they hear your story, contract. others, upon hearing your story, expand. and this is how you know.” ~ nayyirah waheed I am going to tell you a great secret… In this world it is unlikely […]

Read the full article →

Better

March 21, 2018

Monday, March 12th, 2018 If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill let yourself fall ill… – Rumi The winter that I was seventeen was strange and long…as the season went on the tendrils of darkness reached further into my friends and I’s hearts, but even then I knew it must be for a healing […]

Read the full article →

2018: Coming Full Circle ~ An Oracle’s Prophecy

November 29, 2017

Jennifer Luna Posada December, 2017 You know you still ache for it deep inside… That fresh feeling a flower feels when it suddenly knows it is time to open…when new energy fills you and every moment is like a first morning in a magical land, precious and perfect and whole.  A feeling of falling in […]

Read the full article →

It’s Let go Time ~ An Oracle’s Prophecy

October 19, 2017

Jennifer Luna Posada October, 2017 So let go, let go, just dive in… because there’s beauty in the breakdown… ~frou frou We are all looking for the days of light.  The days of waking up to the pleasure of skin against sheets, silky and sweet…feeling the ease of breathing soft like the movement of lightest […]

Read the full article →

To the Great Below…

August 18, 2017

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017 “From the great above, She turned her ear to the great below…” ~from translations of the myth of Goddess Innana When I was a little girl, where I’d visit my grandmother in the South, there were abandoned railroad tracks I’d walk for hours.  I’d balance on the rusty rails and let […]

Read the full article →

My Great Undoing

June 16, 2017

Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 It wasn’t new… I had been undone so many times before.  My dress rehearsals were profound and comprehensive.  They were shows unto their own, not mere shells of the one to come.  But there is something to be said for my great undoing.  Its refrain is so different from the rest […]

Read the full article →

On Letting it All Crumble Down…

May 10, 2017

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017 When I was twenty-two, I lived just a few miles from this beautiful archway, a gem in the middle of the deep blue Mediterranean.  It was like a dream rising out of the sea…a gateway to another world.  It was enormous, defied description, and was one of the most majestic things […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries