Maha Mudra, a chapter from Waking by Matthew Sanford.
“When I return home from the hospital, everything seems the same – my blue velvet chair, the sounds of my fridge, the creaking of my wood floors. Everything except for the feeling that I have recently chatted with aliens. That’s how my body memories strike me. How could my body have memories? Bodies don’t have memories, minds do. Not only did I believe this growing up, but my philosophical studies reinforced it. Now, in the span of a few days in the hospital, my sense of who I am, where I begin, and where I end once again has broken wide open. My body interacts with the world and records it regardless of whether my mind is having any experience.” Matthew
This is so reassuring to someone like me who has no memories of the actual molestation, the rape that my friend witnessed, and yet my body has given me the feelings of it, the paralyzing terror.
While Matthew couldn’t recall the accident where he was paralyzed, his body was aware of the whole ride and recorded it and stored the information in feelings.
It is the storage that I find remarkable. It is stored until we are strong enough or willing to seek deep inside of us and explore the feelings that seem to be there at odd times, or feelings that don’t match our thoughts in reality.
When my body responded physically to the news that my father was a pedophile, there wasn’t any thing I could do but follow its lead. I knew by the second day that I too was a victim; I just didn’t know how I knew, for my mind was still as blank as ever.
Yet deep within my cells, I felt the truth of it all.
I knew that he molested me, I knew that all the times I feared him were justified and I felt this to be true, with emotions and feelings that were beyond an intellectual thought.
Matthew continues.
“ This seems simple enough. For example, at any given time, the back of my head is visible to the world during every instant that I am awake. My body is also present in every second that I am alive, even while I am sleeping. Both of these thoughts are easy to grasp intellectually, but to feel them – that is different altogether. I felt those body memories in three dimensions. They went beyond the two-dimensional mental experiences and instead expressed themselves through the three dimensional experience of my body. That my body could be a possessor of memory made me confront something that was undeniable. My body – not just my mind was also conscious. How does one truly open to something like that?”
“The act of “opening” consciousness makes us feel both uncertainty and the onrush of silence that comes with it. This is one of the reasons that becoming aware is often painful. There are many stunning things about the Grand Canyon. One of them is the eerie silence that accompanies its vast expanse. It is both awesome and unsettling – one knows not to stand too close to the edge. The feeling of openness and a confrontation with silence are deeply related.”
“Opening to the fact that my body was conscious caused me intense grief. I took advantage of my thirteen-year-old body so many years ago. It was subjected to profound violence and I abandoned it in the process. Did I really need to? Was it really my only option? The existence of these body memories made me confront the silence and uncertainty of recognizing my own mistakes.” Matthew
I know the grief that follows this awareness of consciousness within the body, the neglect we feel for not knowing it was alive and filled with feelings and how it awaits for our cue. I am humbled by this body and I am now trying to release it from any other feelings that are lodged within.
Yoga seems to be a vehicle for doing this. Matthew also speaks of his experiences with yoga…
I will write more on that tomorrow.
For now, I am affirmed by his experiences.
