March arrived and so did the season of her dissolution.

She needed to start over and just end it dammit!  She felt the surge of tornado energy beginning to churn down into the earth’s center. Her center. She recognized this voice. It has visited before. It burrows deep into the throat until she thought she would faint and die if she did not scream, even a little.

Walking in shops and lingering at work, she searched for evidence in other peoples’ eyes. She looked for clues, a hint of mutual recognition.  She saw none. Were others suppressing their screams as well?  She couldn’t tell and sometimes felt that she was the only one. Secretly, she knew better. But she was not intuitive enough these days and could not rely on its power. Would not. Should not. Therefore, didn’t.

The phase of her dissolution continued. Clothes were organized in a variety of creatively named piles—keep, give-away, throw-out, make into a rag. “Funny”, she thought sadly, how she could not even come up with any other names than the dull, the mundane, and the over-used. A lot like how she felt. She noticed that too. She began with the living room and counted fifty-three items in all. “How was this possible?” she thought. She tried to recall what deep meanings most of these objects had evoked at one time. Parts of her that no longer existed or had moved on. She found these non-essential suddenly irritating now, empty and void of life.  She vowed to remove all the “stuff” that held no authentic voice.

Her voice.

Whatever that sounded like. She didn’t know anymore. The walls of the room began to breathe a little and the curtains sighed and fluttered. Not much was left. Only the essentials. Special photos of people she loved or had loved at one time. An afghan her mom had made all those years ago, still wrapping her up in love, the plants which brought the outside in and nurtured her in ways only mother earth could do. The candles, yes, and the music, and her beloved books. They belonged. The double lazy-boy couch, a great find, which cradled her body after those long, difficult days of trying.

She sighed and brushed a wisp of hair away from her right eye.

She did well. She could see. She was satisfied. She surveyed the remains of what was left. What she was trying to create and dissolve at the same time.

What she had wanted more than anything else was to create a baby. It was a beautiful dream that had turned into a logical plan. She had known what to do. She had understood the procedures. The timing. The injections and drugs. She even got the commitment and responsibilities of keeping up those optimal conditions to achieve this dream. What she didn’t plan on was on how shitty it would feel.

Somehow the original baby-making intentions didn’t include, well, so many calculations. And she had never particularly enjoyed math. Who knew she’d have to incorporate it into her dream. Organic turned into clinical and she wasn’t ready for it. Optimism transformed into depression and she wasn’t prepared for that either. The veil grew heavy as the light began to peek less and less until there was not much left to see except the failure.  With a big, capital F. Just like that word. Only it felt uglier and more despicable.

And lonely. Just like she felt—and couldn’t say.

The tornado began its movement again deep down in the horizon. She saw it was coming. Again.

After so many attempts, plans, failures, and decisions, she understood she would not stand after another round of the storm. Her body and she had nothing left of the old dreams. Shattered, on the edge of the waters, she began to let that go. This dream no longer served her. In fact, it was destroying her. No, she could not be polite anymore.  She would not.

It was over.

Finally, in her mind, over. But, she still had to deal with the ‘other’—her body. It was a more arduous task at hand.  She received the invitation. She went. She took the plunge.

It knew it was over, but had felt so estranged from this woman that it was not sure it could trust her, ever again.  She had been taken the body for a ride and not a pleasant one at that. This body did not know if the relationship could be repaired. Indignantly, it noticed the un-sensations, why it didn’t even know how to be breathed! It felt a stirring though, as this woman began. Pockets of inhales, exhales, stretching, reaching, and opening.

Inverting and strange, unfamiliar words and sounds ingested into the abyss of those energetic voids. Dissolving slowly into the embers of the fire, the body felt this new craving forming, a little at a time. It danced a careful dance, not wanted to be misused again. It hesitated at times, fearful, giving the signals that edges were being approached. She respected them and bowed in honor. She waited for another day. Leaning, simmering and gently feeding these new apertures. The body began to feel itself open, release, melt, and heal.

A new kind of birthing.

Not what she had originally dreamed. But one that transformed her nonetheless. It felt divine and right and where she belonged.  The body thought so too.

She realized that yoga had saved her.  She would be forever grateful that it did.

Linda Maria Sperl is a practicing yogini who believes in the deep, healing powers of women’s intuition, yoga, writing, and the moon.  She teaches a gentle, meditative yoga flow and weaves poetry, journaling, philosophy, and breath consciousness into her yoga classes.  She believes that a yoga practice is a spiritual journey and strives to create themes that are nourishing and soothing to the soul.  Linda Maria is deeply grateful for the practice of yoga and the enriching experiences it has given her in life.  She lives in New York with her amazing hubby Rich and Sophie, her sweet, little cocker spaniel.

 

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Editor: Tanya L. Markul

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