Embodied lessons in the wisdom of systems

... or what happens when you notice the mirrors

There is no companion but love.
No starting or finishing, yet a road.

—Rumi

I’ve never been one to force myself into a system. That’s not what systems are for, anyway.

For a while I shunned human design and astrology and anything that appeared to have definitions and boundaries because I was afraid I’d become too narrow minded. The fear was unfounded. I am as deep as deep can be. Riverbanks are a gift. Water flowing with gentle guidance.

If you read the I Ching, you’ll learn all kinds of strange language. Language that doesn’t “make sense,” but feeds your subconscious. A language of lines and shapes and transformations.

Brene Brown says being able to communicate our emotions leads to deeper intimacy. But emotions don’t make sense either. That’s why we need poetry.

Human design, a self proclaimed experimental system, with n=1. According to the system, I’m an emotional generator. For years I studied human design thinking it was “right” about me, but the thing is, it’s just a mirror. A series of nuanced reflective mechanisms, perfect for my bodymind that wanders endlessly. I am liquid. I need a force to ground me.

Give me a boundary and my curiosity is piqued. I want to dive into the deep end.

Emotional generator. I always liked those words because they are clear. I generate emotions. They drive me.

We all feel emotions, but some seem to be less generative of them, more receptive to them.

You’re floating in the ocean. A wave comes. Woah. What is that?

I am the ocean and its currents and its creatures and undertows and I move as all of it. I drown and want to be choked. I’m choked and want to be battered by a coral reef. I’m battered and want to sink to the bottom and be stabbed by sea urchins. I’m stabbed and want to be licked by a passing school of fish dancing in perfect formation. The ocean is romantic that way. Emotions are a tidal wave I can’t help but get swept up in.

A month ago I had a dream I was wandering in the forest when I noticed a tidal wave hovering over my head. All I could do was look up in awe and wonder, what happens next? I didn’t run or panic or gear up to fight. I just stood there, eyes wide.

Joseph Campbell says mythology is like a second womb. Without a system, can the psyche handle the monstrous mystery that is this living? Without a hero’s journey, can we emerge from the chaos?

Carl Jung says, “the world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”

Systems of self reflection are less cage than astrology apps will have you believe, more antidote to the world’s projections, more salve to cultural doctrines, more balm to religious wounds.

Systems are neutral. The fatalism comes from individual points of consciousness otherwise known as “you.” The rigidity comes from minds that will not see and hearts that will not feel. If you notice the open doorways, the system is also what can free you from rigidity.

Emotions are as liquid as it gets. Liquid likes a groove to move through.

“A design of focused energy,” from the root to the solar plexus. Contracting on a feeling, tension building, heat travels, a channeling, a fiery clinging. The recognition that this volcanic feeling will extinguish. Another will surface. What does it mean?

A universal rumbling, my central channel directing a rhythmic awakening. Words can’t touch it.

I remember the moment I noticed the details giving way to a greater thing. Zoom in all the way and what you find is space, form. Patterns repeating, transmuting, illuminating evolutionary process.

Science is not my forte but maybe it is. There is poetry to science. There are questions, always. No definites. A scientist who tells you something definitely is probably not a very good scientist. I heard a scientist say science is the art of disproving hypotheses.

Maybe that’s what systems are for, really. Disproving our misconceptions.

We talk about unconditional love yet we cling to conditions. If they’re going to love me, “I mustn’t be like that,’ and “I must be like this.”

How do you know?

And what about you loving you?

I have a genius for the unusual which I used to run away from. When I ran, back then, I retreated into dark corners. Away from myself. One day I decided to play with my shadows and learned asceticism is a gift. Indulge the desire for solitude and you’ll unearth ancient things. You’ll learn what love is. You’ll learn harmony from the dissonance. You’ll come together again and again. It’s a trial and error process.

When I started with human design, I was all mind. Perfected pathways. Squaring up. Straight lines. I thought I knew where I was going. Then, the information drowned me.

The nervous system is wiggly. Bundles of receptivity creating experience through the curves of a body.

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