hollowing out

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
Read more.

Hollowing out. Becoming a cave.

Being carved deeply. Into a bowl. Into a cup.

Able to collect, to gather, to hold.

This poem, which I posted a few weeks back, keeps arising in my bodysoul.

• My mind wonders: What does it mean to be hollowed out?
• My heart feels a bit scared of the carving.
• My body simply senses—the stripping, the filling…
• And my bodysoul?

She knows. She has experienced this over and over again. She understands that this is the lawful unfolding of life. Filling up, overflowing, hollowing out, and filling again…

As you read this, I am assisting Sara Avant Stover at her annual SHE Retreat, this year in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We are in silence except occasional necessary speech.

I am being hollowed out. And filled up.

If we are never hollowed out, how can we become full of what we truly desire? If we are constantly filling—just one more class, one more movie, one more meditation technique, one more cookie, one more practice to learn to love ourselves—how will there be room to be filled?

For what we truly want is to be transformed. Trans-Formed. To be hollowed out, to be changed, filled in a new way, from the inside out, from our inner core, our inner wisdom, our soul. So that this trans-formation is truly a change in form, in our outward shape and way of being and living.

I am clear about my desire for my life’s work—I love serving women who want to feel more fulfilled in their lives, who want to feel more connected to themselves, who want to come home.

And in this hollowing, I am letting go of exactly what that is supposed to look like. I have many ideas, many offerings, many loves—and I’m practicing letting go of knowing which one(s) will come to fruition.

I am staying with my desire to serve and my desire to be hollowed out and filled. I am dancing with the unknown.

This feels like the rhythm of Autumn to me—this coming to fruition and this letting go. This sifting and sorting and aligning with what is True, and allowing myself to be hollowed out for how that Truth will fill and shape and flow through me.

As Gunilla Norris says in her lovely gem of a book Becoming Bread, “Here is the terror of Autumn. And the beauty! What is ripe is sacrificed…Let us honor all that has dared to grow to fruition.”

All that I have grown into, all that has filled me up until now, all that has shaped and formed and ripened me—all this could be sacrificed in the hollowing.

How are you being hollowed out? What is coming to fruition?
What might you be asked to sacrifice? Are you ready?

For practice with this cyclical rhythm of being hollowed out, join my Autumn Way of the Happy Woman® Yoga, Meditation & Life Balance Mini-Retreat on November 15th from 2:00-5:00 here in St. Paul.

For a deeper exploration, consider signing up for Free Discovery Session to find out how my Women’s Holistic Health & Wellness Coaching can serve you.