My mother’s body,

a safe hold to me;

a child who clung

onto the soft

pillows of my

mother’s belly,

her thick shoulders

carrying generation’s

worth of trauma...

I could always find

a cove of love

within the

hills of her body.

And yet it was

a shameful

thing to her...

a thing that

needed to be concealed

and hidden behind

children and plants

and people and

oversized shawls

in every photo –

she stood behind us,

the forbidden body’s

protectors

to which left

only her

dis-embodied

head hovering

in the background

in all our

family albums.

Her body

was a known-secret

that no one could

speak of,

constantly being

manipulated and then

comforted,

diets killing off the fat,

emotions begging

for their

return.

The love I knew

as a child

was in her body,

yet, she

only celebrated

this beloved body

when it started

to lose

pieces

of itself.

How strange, I

always thought –

to praise what’s left

behind

when what’s gone

was what I

loved most.

__________

I am currently writing a new poetry book that will help women connect to their intuitive bodies. It will hold practices and poetry for deeper embodiment. I believe our bodies are bridges to the spirit and we cannot fully experience our spiritual life without the body. Being truly present within our bodies is a remedy to the mind-created problems we face every day. Dropping into the Heart is a way of embodying ourselves, vulnerability, and authenticity, no matter what shape, size, color, ability, or emotional landscape we have. In fact, the more emotional we are, the greater the need to connect with our deeper body and not the superficial layer that affects us so much. Sign up for the newsletter to hear about its release!