Walking My Body

How an uphill walk gave me a different relationship to my body

I recently attended a wonderful yoga retreat with Meriel Goss in Pembrokeshire. It was a spacious and glorious weekend, part of which was exploring our back body and how we move from behind. The previous week I had been deep in preparation for the course I am teaching at the moment, Dreaming your DNA. This month’s Vessel is Du Mai, the Sea of Yang - and this is (in part) our back body, and how we move from the ancestral ancient parts of our sacrum, brain and nervous system, especially in relationship to our form, the Sea of Yin counterpart, Ren Mai.

The two things came together in such an exciting way for me, deepening my relationship to my spine, back body, sensory netork and the space we were creating in ourselves as part of the playful unfolding of Meriel’s holding.

In the afternoon, on our break, I was tired but the sea was calling, in particular a remarkable old slate quarry site called the Blue Lagoon. It was mined until 1910, and was purposely flooded when it was abandoned creating a vibrant copper oxide blue, deep water ‘lagoon’. As a paddleboarder I had often seen striking images of it and really wanted to witness this place for myself.

The tide was out so its classic blue was more of a murky green, but that really wasn’t the point… ever since I was a young teenager I have been entranced by geology, and shapes of formation in Earth. I put this down to my incredible geography teacher - Miss Downes, who taught me to see and understand maps and shapes of valleys and rivers. But also having been obsessed with stones and rocks from a young age there is a deeper fascination, and in later years as those of you who know me and my style of working have discovered, I use the metaphorical language of landscape to discover the hidden places in our bodies that both resource and unfold us as well, at times, hold us back. Finding the writer Sophie Strand was a breath of air to my depths - here was someone expressing everything I was feeling inside.

I deviate, back to the edge of the rocks by the quarry… here was this edged face all around me, and the visible folds and layers of geology in full expansive view in these huge manmade cliffs. There was the pang, of surely they should be buried, it is an open scar of a place that was made visible in a way that felt brutal. It reminded my of the times I have overexposed myself, mined myself without care or attention for what wanted to be revealed. I felt the folds in me, the curls and the spaces, the different stages of me and the growth of me, the layers of differing forms and ancestral bodies waiting quietly behind the wounds listening for the moment when the weather of wind, water and sun brought about the exposure of treasure and shiny bits.

Sigh… I could feel it in my spine the whole of my back body as I rested up against quarried rock face, my eyes taking in the pages of Earth’s movements in front of me… it was remarkable feeling the expression of the edges, shaped by man, tide, wind, water and time.

I could feel the call of the sauna and started to head back up the hill to Trefacwm, I was tired in my body, and part of me played with the idea of sticking my thumb out to get a lift up to the junction - not for long though as I got lost in a dandelion head in full seed clock head!

I love walking, I walk a lot - mostly at the pace of my small, sniffy dog and have used words to describe my walking process as a bimble, a scrummage and a pootle…

However setting up the hill I noticed my spine and back body talking to me, I was playing with the deep listening practice we had done before lunch. Listening to my internal body, immediate sounds, then wider global listening - this by its nature takes me to a more ‘aware’ space.

It is similar to how I engage with the space behind my eyes, noticing how - if I can soften there, it changes how I react and respond in situations. Jeffrey Yuen, an inspiring teacher of Chinese Medicine, talks about how Du Mai holds our yang qi of arising and movement, when we are babies it is Du’s impetus that encourages us to lift our head, to stengthen our neck and look around. Where our eyes land on the horizon we tend to follow and move in that direction, it was in this way that the hill ‘spoke’ to me.

It asked ‘where are your eyes landing on the path in front of you?’
and then
'what happens if you walk up the hill as if it were your body?’

So I played… for every step I walked, I walked up my body. Meeting my being, walking up it step by step - feeling the soles of my feet meet my shins, knees, thighs, then further up to pelvis, lower belly rising up my inclines, it was exhilerating, this new sense of connection to the hill in front of me with my senses.

I could feel my back body, my spine helping to propel each step, an easy alignment as it felt as if I glided up the slope to the point where I got to the top of my crown, and then I brought my energy back down to my feet and noticed where my eyes landed in front of me on the slope, and began again and again. I got excited on the steeper parts, and part of me craved walking up a super sharp incline, to feel how that was.

This feels as if it will a journey that will go deeper, and just sharing this gives me glee…. I would love to know how this lands for you!