relaxing into the mexican sun

    earlier this year, i discovered that the air miles i’ve had tucked away for a long time would just get me to mexico city.   that culture and people and a friend there and the mexican sun had been calling to me (and continue to do so).  and so, i went.  in october.  a brilliant move on my part.   as i’ve said before, i so needed to step out.  in this case, to put serious physical distance between me and all that’s been so challenging and stressful and frightening during the last year and a half.  oh my oh my oh my was it the right thing to do.   i slept like i haven’t in a long time.  i dreamed the way mexico has always inspired me to do when there.   i soaked up the mexican sun and the warmth and generosity of mexican friends.  i wrote.   i drew.  i took lovely siestas.  i walked, and then - finding the hard surfaces of stone and cement, that are everywhere in mexican towns and cities both indoors and out, really tough on my hip - i biked.  yes, for the first time since this earth-shaking diagnosis showed up in my life, i got on a bike, and it was fine, and then it was liberating..!   as was the entire trip.

    the relaxation muscle was well work-played in mexico and now thankfully it serves me well here in the states.  i’d gotten too practiced in a kind of revved up way, even if outwardly sometimes it didn’t seem so.   however, i know most of the time during this last year, it's been clearly evident.  no hiding that level of stress.   now, my whole being can and does now more readily give way to relaxation. 

    there’s real healing in that relaxation place.  there’s space to move.  space where our innate healing powers can do their finest work.  space into which able assistance from the cosmos can slip in.  relaxation is really the heart of meditation.  i can feel it physically in the moment sometimes, something else beyond my will or wish moves me.  as i sit quietly, meditating, i feel the head of my femur shift in the pelvic socket or my sacrum re-align.  it feels like magic and yet it’s so very real.

    i know my body, mind and spirit aches for this kind of relaxation regularly and for obvious reasons.  but, i’d hazard a guess that yours does too - if not as frequently as mine, certainly often.  we’re a revved up society.  and it really doesn’t serve us.  take time, dear friends.  find the ways to deeply relax.  breathe deeply.  all that seems so pressing can really wait.  and, a big one for me, even when doing what feels so very important, do it in a relaxed state.  move through relaxation.  gently.  with forgiveness.  and ease.