Since Andrea Olsen’s wonderful class on the nervous system at the Body-Mind Centering Conference in July, I have been thinking about portals. She began the class with an exercise in which we moved through the portals of walking to moving to dancing to performing to wild dancing, asking us to be aware of each portal and how we passed through from one state to another. Who are we before we enter and who are we on the other side?
Each day is a portal. Who are we at the beginning of that day and who are we as we leave it? Can we be surprised? Today I rose happily to get my granddaughter Laila who was crying and ready to be with us. She was wet and I seized up her bedding and her diaper and forgetting the kiddie gate in the doorway, fell backwards through it and onto it, landing hard on my left hip. The pain was excruciating. The closest thing to it was when the time when I was kicked by my horse in the thigh. I spent the day in bed because I could not sit or stand.
So that was not the portal I had in mind when I awoke. When my youngest daughter ran away, that was an explosion that threw us through a portal leading to a long dark corridor with no light in sight. We have been changed by that for sure. Other portals (the intentional kind) are kinder – the one that opens when I get on my horse or step into my studio or slide into the water for a swim.
Abraham talks about a strategy called “segment intending.” That means that with each small or big transition in a day that we set an intention. This is another way of thinking about portals. A moment of opening, of change of body and mind states. Bringing awareness and intention to each transition allows us to savor it more deeply.
“You enter a new segment anytime your intentions change: If you are washing dishes and the telephone rings, you enter a new segment. When you get into your vehicle, you enter a new segment. When another person walks into the room, you enter a new segment.
If you take the time to get your thought of expectation started even before you are inside your new segment, you will be able to set the tone of the segment more specifically than if you walk into the segment and begin to observe it as it already is.”
How are you changed by the portal of this day?