A man is placed upon the steps, and a baby cries
High above you can hear the church bells start to ring
And as the heaviness
Oh the heaviness the body settles in
Somewhere you can hear a mother sing
Then it’s one foot then the other
As you step out onto the road
Step out of the road
How much weight? How much?
Then it’s how long and how far
And how many times
Before it’s too late?
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
Walk me through this one
Don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We’re tying, we’re hoping
But we’re not sure how.. (Jane Siberry , Calling all Angels)

I have been dealing with foot pain quite a bit these past few months, the fascia so tight sometimes I feel like I am bound, and all movement is painful. Imagery/ideas come to me about movement, being grounded, roots, constriction, the Tao as well as toes, standing on my own two feet….and on and on. Having painful feet is kind of an embarrassing ailment for me somehow. Not as “glamorous” as a migraine for instance. So on top of the pain, is me not really wanting others to know about it. A great combination.

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Things had been getting better until an incident the other night seemed to flare everything up again, though it took me awhile to understand completely why. Tiger disappeared just at dusk, and I searched for him for over 2 hours in the dark. I knew something really bad had happened, because he would not do this—he might tease me for a few minutes but not for 2 hours in the dark. After awhile I got hysterical, sobbing, panicked and sure he was dead. My neighbor Sally came over to help and I tried to pull it together in front of her. Eventually we found him, stuck under a wooden platform I’d had built intending to put a pool on it (another story). He’d gotten wedged behind a beam and stuck where it was really low, so I hadn’t seen him there earlier. I had to call a neighbor to come over and jack the thing up to get him out.
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Being on my feet that long looking for him really aggravated them, but what I’ve realized made them as bad as they are now is that I totally left my body and went up into my head during the whole thing. I gave into a panic so great that it brought back old times of panic. Kind of like PTSD. And every muscle in my body was knotted up trying not to feel.

A good way not to feel is to not be grounded. You know how electricity won’t shock you if you are not grounded? It’s the same with emotional pain to a degree. My physical therapist pointed out that a good part of my foot tightness comes from the front of my leg pulling up on the foot muscles, as if it’s trying to pull them off the ground. So that energetically it would be like my feet were arched bird claws—just the toes and heel touching ground. The day after she told me that I had a picture pop into my head as I lay in bed– a photograph I remember of me at a very young age, in which I am in a “walker”. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a fabric sling of sorts that you put a baby in, that has holes for the legs, and is suspended from a metal frame on wheels. So the baby hangs there and can kind of “walk” while suspended. In the picture it’s just my toes touching the ground. That’s how I learned to walk. Not crawling and being allowed inch by inch to find my way to my feet and develop all the muscles needed for standing and walking—but by pushing myself around on my tippy toes while suspended on wheels. I think it’s probably a good metaphor for how I’ve moved through life. (By the way, this is not to blame the moms of those days who did that—they had no idea how bad it was for kids).

Babies’ feet are so sensual when they are happy and allowed to really explore them. Baby toes are all about vulnerable, soft, delight.
~~~~~~~~ (photo by Karla Prudent)

They like to wiggle them and wave them and put them in their mouths. A friend of mine from Tribe says she named her granddaughter’s toes, “Big Tom Bumbo, Maudie Hassel, Perry Rude, Rudy Whistle and Ity Bity Peety” and that by the time you get to itty bitty peety, her granddaughter goes insane with delight. (photo by Karla Prudent, aka granny)

I’m working with allowing myself to move back into that state. Of baby toes, and baby movement, and baby delight. When I walk on the beach I do so very slowly, feeling into each step. Letting the bones articulate, the muscles stretch exactly as they want. Belly breathing, noticing the shells, the sparkle of wave foam. Each step in awareness. Of course I lose it, just like in meditation, and find myself 20 faster steps down the beach without having noticed. But then I pull my attention back. When I can stay with it, the muscles start to let go and the experience is intensely pleasurable. As silly as it may sound I’m spending time belly crawling too. I lay on the floor in my workroom and let the movement unfold inch by inch—the hip moves forward a little dragging the leg, the arm reaches out. Frustration for a second that I feel stuck, but then I let the body figure out its next move, not my mind. And it comes if I wait and stay focused long enough. And again the experience is such pleasure.

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It’s hard to stay anchored in that experience—to feel you’re really safe and can move on now. One of the things that startled me about Tiger’s being stuck was that even when we got the damned platform jacked up, he wouldn’t move. He had stayed frozen in fear so long he couldn’t let go of it quickly. He wouldn’t move at all for quite awhile, then moved a bit towards the opening, then back to where he’d been stuck. He did this over and over as I cajoled him out. It was puzzling to me—there was a big wide opening, why didn’t he just run out it? I think he had to work his way out—he had to work his way out of the freeze and to be able to trust that big opening. His body needed time to adjust and trust it. I tell myself it’s the same with me. The true path is not always straight or the shortest route. Like water or the Tao, it may follow many twists and turns and backloops as part of the natural progression.

So two steps forward, one step back, one to the side, one digging into the sand, one sliding out from under me, and one kicked up in the air. I’m doing my best to follow and be true to my rhythm.

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