Art by Autumn Skye Morrison ~ http://www.autumnskyemorrison.com/

There I was, sitting on my pillow on the floor of my room, wrapped in a blanket, crosslegged, back straight, deeply open, flowing, feeling, after one hour of practicing addithana (strong determination, non-movement) Vipassana Meditation… I opened my eyes, and looked at my hands… and they began to reveal life to me, slowly but in a very vivid way – I saw, I experienced, my hands, as little baby hands.  So tiny, barely able to grasp anything but a finger, so cute, smallest finger nails ever, softer than a baby’s bottom, barely any markings on them.  Then, they morphed in to my hands right now at almost 30. Strong. Lean. Large. Nimble. Albeit a bit dry, cracked, and starting to get worn…  ooooooh and then, before I knew it, wow.  They told me I would one day have hands like my Nanny, who passed away Feb 2014 at 90+ years old.  Oh her hands, large like mine (my parents use to say Nanny and I have ‘cla-bola’ hands. I think they made this words up but it meant large and strong! I used to get handed all the pickle jars to open :))… my hands now elderly, large, boney, knuckles bulging, strong red nails, blue veins running all over the place, worn, skin hanging… beautiful still.

What an experience that was!  Reminded me of the Autumn Skye Morrison piece posted up top.  One could see the painting as three separate generations of women… mmm or, the same woman in three different phases of her life. This body… these bodies… they age. We are all born in baby bodies, our bodies grow and age year by year.  We don’t have to think about it, we don’t have to consciously tell our bodies to grow.  It is automatic.  The trillions of cells in our bodies who are constantly renewing themselves and forming our physical bodies- grow us…

Ever stop to really get present to this fact?
Ever ask yourself, “Who exactly is living this experience?”
My hands helped me see
the changing of my body,
will not
be
the end,
and was not
even
the beginning
of
me