Day: April 18, 2023

There are certain landscapes that I walk through where I know that I’m little more than a very brief visitor. You’re not meant to stay here, the hills and mosses tell me, and I respect them, making my footsteps lighter, my strides slightly quicker.

The landscape does not need me here, want me here, I know.

There are other places that I pass through, buildings that I see, stories that I hear, and I feel an instant kinship. A part of my body knows, recognizes, and calls out, I’m so glad to see you again, it’s been ages. I’ve missed you. Despite the fact we’ve never met before.

We hear a lot of talk about the stories we make up, the stories that define us, the stories that limit us, but we don’t often talk of the stories we arrived with.

I often wonder though, what stories are already held in the earth of our bodies. What stories breathed us into being. What stories looked out through our eyes before we really knew what we were seeing in an effort to be known in this form, in this life, in this time.

Stories looking to either find their ending or be continued on.

On the most recent retreat I was fortunate enough to co-host with Rupert Isaacson, I sat with an incredible group of people and shared stories. And because we do not exist indistinct from those who came before us and their experiences, I heard of the dreams, aspirations, and challenges of not only those present but of those whose families we’re born or arrived into.

It’s a challenging thing to look back objectively, without labelling someone or something good or bad, right, or wrong, an encumbrance or a letdown. Especially in situations where it’s family on whom we cast our lens.

To look back and see the limits of a situations, the lack of skills to deal with an emotional reality in the moment it was relevant, the loss of dreams, the stuckness of certain situations. The many wantings of people never in a position to have them fulfilled.

When we talk of our stories, we’re mostly always looking forward. To create a narrative that best serves us, that allows for more expansion, for more possibility. To create a healing in this moment in order that the future be brighter, less encumbered, more free.

I believe the same is true of the reverse.

That every time we shed a limiting belief, a limiting situation; that every time we take half a step beyond our current self to grab something that we want, or to move towards what we love; that every time we allow ourselves that fortune, the current of that experience lightening rods into the ground effecting not only everything moving forward, but everything moving back.

Healing occurs moving forward, but we also heal in reverse.

For familial lines, ancient lines we may never have seen or touched. But nonetheless exist within the clay of our bodies.

The work may be individual, but the effect is universal. A special kind of magic.

You doing the work is for everyone.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

 

In our movement sessions this week in my membership, we are focusing on the talus bone, the part of the ankle joint that the tibia sits on and rides forwards and backwards in space. As riders and horse people, we typically notice our ankles a lot; for a few different reasons they’re an area that can hold a lot of tension and depending on our own body patterning assist or block us in harmonizing with the movement of our horse.

From a biomechanics perspective, it’s a common pattern to see riders creating force pressure down to achieve the upward movement in the rising trot, or to maintain balance in the canter. When the ankles are used as part of this leverage system (ankles, knees and tailbones fall into the “most likely suspects category” here) it creates a point of compression that reverberates through the rest of the body and is part of our fight flight movement patterning on the whole.

In the parasympathetic nervous system, the talus bone relates to the first three toes of the foot. When it’s in this position, the dome like structure can easily move forwards and backwards, allowing the shin to lever and movement to be fluid all the way up the leg.

The navicular bone is just below it, and in the fight flight system, it twists to face more towards the pinky toe, causing the talus bone to change its orientation and create more compression in the joint.

Because of the fascial train attachments- the deep front line at the back and the superficial front line at the front- opening the joint space around this area and re-establishing optimal movement creates big change; the deep front line has more tone and length generally, affecting the movement of the organ bag and structures all the way up to the head, not to mention mobilizing the centreline.

From an emotional perspective, the talus is one of the epicenters of guilt and shame in the body. When we feel “stuck” or unable to move forward because of leaving something behind, causing hurt feelings, not taking someone or something with you (amongst other things), this presents as a stuckness in the talus. It is literally our “moving forward” structure.

Who knew our little ankle bones could hold so many stories.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

If you’re interested in learning more about the membership or joining us for the Talus movement sessions, you can do so here!