Picture
Caption: YOU'VE GOT TO
LET THE GREAT SADNESS GO
- Part 2 A 3-Part Story Of A
Most Unlikely Friendship
By Meri Aaron Walker
Picture
Caption: So, as I was saying,
I was terrified for Ben
to touch my body.
It was one thing to
do yoga with him...
and quite another to accept
body work from him.
The reasons I was afraid
are a story for another time.
Just know, they were good reasons.
But, as David Whyte says ...
Picture
Caption: Life can find you
only if you are paying
real attention to something other than your own concerns,
if you can hear and see
the essence of otherness
in the world,
if you can treat
the world as if it is not
just a backdrop for
your own journey,
if you can have
a relationship with the world
that isn't based
on triumphing over it
or complaining about it.
- David Whyte
Picture
Caption: Her Body Burns With the
Shame of Not Belonging.
Anywhere.
Caption: When Ben and I started working,
I couldn't speak about how badly
I hurt - or even where I hurt.
The pain was so deep and wide
across my nervous system that
words wouldn't reach it. Neither
had anything else. Therapists
had finally called it PTSD
and backed away.
Good thing Ben is a wildly
curious somatic archeologist
who doesn't mind not knowing
"what the problem is"
when he starts massage therapy.
Picture
Caption: She Told Him She Was
Ridin' the Razor's Edge.
He Told Her She Could Get Down.
Caption: On Ben's table or on the mat,
sounds, colors, shapes,
and textures exploded
across the big screen
of my private auditorium.
Sometimes I cried aloud.
Mostly I tried just to meet
his touch where I could
feel it ... without going crazy.
He wouldn't stop touching the places where I had stashed sadness.
Picture
Caption: What Was That Promise
That You Made?
Picture
Caption: You Can't Go Home Again.
Picture
Caption: You've Got to Find Something
to Carry You Through.
Caption: One time, while we were working
in silence, Ben asked me quietly
what scared me more: going crazy or
having people think I already was...?
I found that question
so provocative that
I explored it for weeks,
using my IPhone.
An avalanche of mobile art
poured through me as
I looked for an honest response.
Picture
Caption: The Past is a Blue Note Inside Me.
Picture
Caption: The Devil is Hungry,
The Devil is Sweet.
Picture
Caption: She Quickly Learned
To Shut Things Out.
Picture
Caption: I Ain't Gonna Eat Out
My Heart Anymore.
Picture
Caption: When She Let the Wind
Blow Through Her, It Peeled
Off Parts She No Longer Needed.
Picture
Caption: One time on the mat,
Ben told me
he could imagine
that a lot of people
thought of me as scary...
And that he noticed
he wasn't afraid of me.
Not even a little.
Picture
Caption: She Told Him She Just Wanted to
Feel Again. He Said, Feel Free.
Picture
Caption: Sugar and Spice And Everything Nice.
Picture
Caption: Say No to Everything
That Is Not a Yes.
Picture
Caption: Clothe My Desire.
Picture
Caption: My Knight in Shining Armor.
Picture
Caption: Ben kept on like some crazy-ass volunteer in the Fukushima nuclear wreckage: diving with me,
checking out the damaged fuel rods,
never attempting to remove them.
"My soul was in the lost and found.
You came along
and helped me claim it."
-Carole King
The more we dove into
the broken places in my body,
the more I wondered how
I had become so terrified
of my own self.
Picture
Caption: 3 Stories Further
Down the Rabbit Hole,
She Found Him Waiting For Her.
Picture
Caption: Shaken.
Picture
Caption: None Of Us Has Any
Clothes On.
Picture
Caption: After awhile, we literally
went into the water to work.
When Ben gave me some
Watsu massage, I began to
understand it wasn't just artwork
he wanted to trade.
It was Genuine Love.
Something way past Romance.
Love that heals and feeds
the giver and the receiver alike.
And the price would be nothing
less - and nothing more - than
letting someone else into
my precious broken heart,
instead of hogging it all to myself.
Picture
Caption: We Only Get What We Give.
Caption: I ain't your judge or your king
And, Baby, you know you ain't
no Queen of Sheba.
We may not even have our dignity.
No, this could be just a prideful thing.
But, Baby, we can choose you know,
We ain't no amoebas. But
Are you ready for this thing called love?
Don't come from you and me,
It comes from up above.
I ain't no porcupine.
Take off your kid gloves.
Are you ready for this thing called love?
And you ain't some icon
carved out of soap sent down here
to clean up my reputation. And,
Baby, I ain't your prince charming.
Now we can live in fear,
or act out of hope for some
kind of peaceful situation.
Baby, don't know why the cry of love
is so alarming. But
Are you ready for this thing called love?
Don't come from you and me,
It comes from up above...
- Bonnie Raitt, Thing Called Love
Picture
Caption: Such Tender Persuasion.
Part 3... Coming Soon...
Caption: IPHONE ART GIRL
Original #iphoneography
#iphoneonly #stellerfamily
© 2015, Meri Aaron Walker, Talent, OR. All rights reserved.
Excerpted from upcoming books.
Images available on a
variety of materials.
Come along, I do mobile art
and creativity workshops:
http://iPhoneArtGirl.com/want_more