I continue to dig, delicately untangling roots of memory and belief. In the hours after meditation I am revisited by long-forgotten memories from childhood. Long summer days spent riding bikes around the neighborhood, helping my mother tend our little plot in the community garden, cannonballing into an electric blue swimming pool. My sister, whole, smiling. The sound of the neighbor kid’s flip-flops slapping against concrete as he approaches our door.

When I began working with the root chakra, I was nervous that the memories I’d unearth would be dark and traumatizing. But they are simple and sweet, all bright sun and blissful ignorance. In their wake, however, they leave behind pangs of longing for lost innocence, and nostalgia for simpler times. Through remembering, it is almost as if I am being able to see remember who I was before I learned about inadequacy, who I was before I had to be someone better, who I was before I learned that there was something to fear. 

That is to say, the textures and colors of my raw material; who I truly am.

I suppose that now the more difficult part of my journey is dismantling the fears and beliefs that have blocked this natural state. I imagine I may have to dance with these demons for quite some time before I discover an antidote for the poisons they have given me. I am ready for a good fight.