We are living in a time of collapse. The climate is heating up, biodiversity is rapidly decreasing, the sixth wave of extinction is accelerating, the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer, the neoliberal economic system enables genocides and the systematic exploitation of indigenous peoples and nature around the world, separation, loneliness and mental health problems are on the rise, fascism is gaining a foothold and polarization is on the rise. Of course it weighs us down, it squeezes the chest, presses on the bones, takes the porosity out of the cells and the lightness out of the mind. Of course we feel it all in our own ways.
In the midst of all this, gentleness, compassion, kindness, sincerity, solidarity, community, slowness, rest, mourning, silence, hugs, radical acceptance, listening to others, touch, beauty and joy are like a healing salve. We need radical softness everywhere! The colonialist, capitalist and patriarchal system in which we live is based on separation and hardness, control, domination and violence. We are so used to hardening, accelerating, tightening and performing in so many ways that we don’t even notice how we colonize our own bodies. How we bypass our needs, go beyond the limits of the body, do more than we really could.
What if the answer was not more action but quality action?
Could we feel our soft animal flesh relax, becoming ever more softer?
How could we stay as soft as possible? Could our tissue be as soft and porous as moss? The exact same thing happens in our tissues as outside. As above, so below…
We are but crumbs of the universe, a microcosm. When we are not moist enough or in enough movement and flow, our fascia tightens, it becomes like sand. We need softness, moisture, tears and dance, poems and songs, art and passion to live. We need softness. We need each other. Hugs and compassion, strokes on the cheek and yielding to touch. We need safety and support so that we can soften even more.
What if there was more softness everywhere? What if our surrounding spaces were soft, inviting us to rest, to slow down?
What if our touch were light, delicate, sensual?
What if nature could be soft, moist, flowing? What if our words were soft, delicate, vulnerable? What if our songs and poems were soft? All our culture? What would soft news be like?
What if our country's borders were soft? What if prisons were soft bouncy castles?
What if knowledge was soft? And not-knowing too?
Soft nature, oh the greenness. When nature is allowed to be soft, it puts on a jacket made of moss and warms its feet in the worm poop and hums the song of the trees.
More softness, please.
More empathy, more dreams, more sleep and rest, more movement and dance, more laughter and more, oh much, much more tears. Tears make us so deliciously moist and soften all of our tissues and organs. When emotions get stuck, we harden, our cells get rigid. So more tears, please!
More prayers, more rituals, more poems and songs, more breathing, deep, deep breathing.
More messiness. More chaos. We can be messy and stuck and not have to crawl under a rock, instead we can be messy AND be connection to each other.
Because we are. Always. Connected.
Whether we realize it or not.
Connection. Aliveness. Life is waiting in our cells every moment.
We are at each moment connected to gravity, to the earth’s pull, to the air that we breathe in and plants out, to the waters of this planet and even the stars in the sky from which we all are born from. We are always connected.
What if what you are doing was enough? Just enough? How could you be softer and gentler with yourself right now?
Can you touch your own soft animal belly and soften even a little? As much as a faint whisper even?
Breathe.
Slow down.
Return to Your Soft Animal Belly
