I am the sea. The sea is me. Mixed media on canvas paper. 11 x 14″ ©2019 Louise Gallagher

I am the sea. The sea is me. I am the seaweed. The seaweed is me.

The exercise is called Wakame,  the Japenese word for Seaweed.  Its focus is to move into felt relationship with our awareness settled deep within our bodies, feeling into presence and receptivity.

At first alone and then with a partner.

Let go of the desire to assist or resist. Be present.

it was one of the first exercises we did on the second day of the Radical Wholeness workshop I attended in Banff this week. The invitation was to allow our bodies to ground into the earth and breathe into being the sea and the seaweed. A wave would hit us and we would bend, effortlessly, fluid like water, bending first at the knees and then allowing our bodies to simply flow with the waves.

We did it alone. And then with a partner. Each person taking turns being the sea, touching the other like a wave and then, being the seaweed, being touched and moving, not in response to, but with the movement of the waves.

It was peaceful. Exceptionally so.

To simply be part of the waves. To yield and to stand in strength, one with the motion, moving in harmony while maintaining our groundedness through our feet touching the earth, our consciousness deeply resting in the stillness of our core.

“We struggle with bringing our minds to rest by trying to out-think our thoughts,” Philip Shepherd, the founder of Radical Wholeness and workshop facilitator said as we debriefed our experiences of the Wakame exercise. “Let your body be like the water in a bottle. Settled fluidity.”

I breathed into my core. Moved with my awareness as it journeyed down from where it held court in the centre of my head brain, deep into my pelvic bowl. I felt its invitation to enter into felt relationship. I breathed deeply and felt awareness melt away inside me as I settled deeply into the stillness.

There is no hunger so profound it cannot be nourished by the stillness within.

There is no yearning so deep it cannot be met through intimate relationship with all of life.

The words rose up from my belly. Filling my body with peace, harmony, Love.

Namaste