Shiné: mind/body/spirit

On Monday we deepened our exploration of the somatics of the breast (as in, the old way of referring to the chest, inclusive of but not exclusive to the mammary glands, breasts, heart, lungs…)
Did I lose you?

Isn't it actually unbelievable that in practice spaces almost exclusively made of up women, even in classes focused specifically on "the heart center," nobody ever mentions the breasts? Like our breasts have nothing to do with our experience of our chests, or the intricate relational workings of our heart and our lungs? Like the energetics of the physical seat of the fourth chakra don't in any way include the breasts, and so we are not to mention them, and not, for god's sakes, ever to touch them. Repression is an amazing thing. The water we swim in. We stop even noticing the rules we obediently follow.

I want to ask: what do the breasts know? What is the wisdom of the breast? I think it's pretty revolutionary, actually. If you have been or have ever been around a nursing mother, you know what it's about. It's an experiential encounter with a way of being that requires a total dismantling of individualism. Some of us need to actually work at developing the relational sensibilities to be able to make it happen, the latching and the flowing. Neither the mother nor the child can do it alone. Both need to attune to one another, to fall into a profound one-ing that is based on relaxation. At the risk of falling into a kind of gender essentialism that discludes a q***r experience of the chest: the true function of the breast is not to be bullied around to look a certain way, not to be groped like a plaything or a security blanket, but to remind us how to let in, let down, and let through. To nurse a baby is to literally create the milk - the life-giving force of the goddamn universe - and to channel it through the tunnels of the body in order to nourish another life.
So now, to risk blasphemy: how in the world did anyone ever come to replace this simple, organic, obvious example of the life-giving sacred current that flows through all things with the complicated story of bread and wine and god-as-flesh and sacrifice and etc. etc. etc.?
When they had mother's milk the whole time?
Patriarchy is just wild.

So anyway we did that. Together we practiced breast-centric prostrations. If you haven't been able to circle up with us in this perfect season with the doors open and the surround-sound of birds and crickets and perfect summer air, here's a video of the basic practice. On Insta, I included a little snippet of writing which I don't have the tech skill to recreate here, trying to capture how this feeling of "letting down" operates in a relational field, when you feel cut off from someone you love because you get stuck in a contracted, judgy way of being. It's just this:

The relief
the released from that dry, hardened place
when the heart finally cracks
and we fall to our knees
not metaphorically but actually
fingers gripping the sink so we won't fall through the kitchen floor
and all the while all we needed
was just to let down.

God, the relief when you can let down into this flowy, compassionate, relational mode of nurture. It's the good side of heartbreak.

On Monday we deepened our exploration of the somatics of the breast (as in, the old way of referring to the chest, inclusive of but not exclusive to the mammary glands, breasts, heart, lungs…)
Did I lose you?

Isn't it actually unbelievable that in yoga spaces almost exclusively made of up women, even in classes focused specifically on "the heart center," nobody ever mentions the breasts? Like our breasts have nothing to do with our experience of our chests, or the intricate relational workings of our heart and our lungs? Like the energetics of the physical seat of the fourth chakra don't in any way include the breasts, and so we are not to mention them, and not, for god's sakes, ever to touch them. Repression is an amazing thing. The water we swim in. We stop even noticing the rules we obediently follow.

I want to ask: what do the breasts know? What is the wisdom of the breast? I think it's pretty revolutionary, actually. If you have been or have ever been around a nursing mother, you know what it's about. It's an experiential encounter with a way of being that requires a total dismantling of individualism. Some of us need to actually work at developing the relational sensibilities to be able to make it happen, the latching and the flowing. Neither the mother nor the child can do it alone. Both need to attune to one another, to fall into a profound one-ing that is based on relaxation. At the risk of falling into a kind of gender essentialism that discludes a q***r experience of the chest: the true function of the breast is not to be bullied around to look a certain way, not to be groped like a plaything or a security blanket, but to remind us how to let in, let down, and let through. To nurse a baby is to literally create the milk - the life-giving force of the goddamn universe - and to channel it through the tunnels of the body in order to nourish another life.
So now, to risk blasphemy: how in the world did anyone ever come to replace this simple, organic, obvious example of the life-giving sacred current that flows through all things with the complicated story of bread and wine and god-as-flesh and sacrifice and etc. etc. etc.?
When they had mother's milk the whole time?
Patriarchy is just wild.
So anyway we did that. Together we practiced breast-centric prostrations. If you haven't been able to circle up with us in this perfect season with the doors open and the surround-sound of birds and crickets and perfect summer air, here's a video of the basic practice. On Insta, I included a little snippet of writing which I don't have the tech skill to recreate here, trying to capture how this feeling of "letting down" operates in a relational field, when you feel cut off from someone you love because you get stuck in a contracted, judgy way of being. It's just this:
The relief
the released from that dry, hardened place
when the heart finally cracks
and we fall to our knees
not metaphorically but actually
fingers gripping the sink so we won't fall through the kitchen floor
and all the while all we needed
was just to let down.

God, the relief when you can let down into this flowy, compassionate, relational mode of nurture. It's the good side of heartbreak.