It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul, but what if the feet were actually the doorway to the divine? These ideas point to a deeper way of experiencing the world, and so there is usefulness in imagining they both could be true.
In July, I walked slowly around the inside of a temple in India. I felt the cool ancient stones beneath my bare feet. It was as if all my other senses paused so that this feeling of feet on stones could stand out in my memory like a bright yellow sunflower in a black and white film. These types of memories end up being puzzle pieces, eventually fitting together to make a meaningful message. In India, it is customary to remove your shoes before entering most buildings, and especially temples. Feet are not dirty. The shoes we wear around the city are what become unclean.
I have always loved being barefoot. When I was a child, climbing trees, swimming, and running around in the yard were sources of happiness. As I grew older, the sensation of my bare feet on hot sand and surfboards became a source of joy. When I was in graduate school and perpetually single, a friend asked me what I was looking for in a man. I responded instinctually, “bare-feet”. She looked at me, confused, and laughed. I explained that bare feet symbolized being in touch with nature, which was very important to me. It still is, but now includes other things like vasectomies and self-awareness.
One Friday evening last winter, I went out to dinner and then to the art walk with a friend. After a long week working in schools, I rarely go out on Friday nights. However, I saw a flier on Facebook about an author read-aloud featuring three familiar neighborly faces, which prompted the rare outing. I recognized the faces, but I didn’t know they were all writers, and so it captured my attention- it was a piece to a puzzle. My friend and I were exhausted from the work week, and so we decided to drop in on the event near the end instead of committing to the whole thing.
After dinner, we wandered into the art gallery and upstairs to the long narrow room where the read-aloud was taking place. It was standing room only, so we snuck in near the back, smiling and nodding at other familiar faces. At the front of the room, without shoes, seated in chairs, were the three people I had recognized from the flier. One of them was reading out loud. It was hard to hear because his voice was quiet, and the shuffling of feet from other art walk traffic wrestled for my attention. It didn’t matter. I heard, saw, and felt enough to know he was sharing brave stories from his own life as a trans person. It moved me.
That evening, a number of puzzle pieces fit together. Like the authors at this event, I write honest personal narratives yet to be formally published, including a full length memoir. I never imagined my face on a flier, reading my story out loud, or talking about it in public. My story was inside a book, and I was out here in the community (or more commonly at home being cozy). I wanted to keep my honest real-life writing separate from real life. Doh! Part of me thought that when the book was “for-reals” published, I would be swept away to a place where I wouldn’t have to talk about it to my friends and neighbors. Listening to my peers read aloud, allowing themselves to be seen and heard, and witnessing them bravely take up space as writers inspired me. The still soft voice within knew I had to do something similar.
My not-so-still voice inside responded, “Oh shit”. This was so much scarier than writing. Writing is exhilarating and natural for me. What these writers were doing, however, was next level and beyond my current capacity. I knew I had to do it anyway. When we are working outside of mainstream systems to heal, we have to build our plane as we fly. There is no other way.
Over the next several weeks, the impulse to act on this newfound inspiration came in waves, each stronger until one wave culminated in an email to two women I knew who also wrote memoirs and shared a connection and intention toward healing. I asked them if they would be willing to meet and discuss an idea for a read-aloud event, and they both agreed. We met at the lovely Sleeper Coffee, which overlooks the Columbia River.
Fast forward to today, and we are now in our seventh month of the Women Who Write to Heal public read-aloud event, held at Sleeper Coffee Shop. The fact that this event takes place in a beautiful location and is open to the public is an essential component. Women’s true stories of healing should not be relegated to windowless basement rooms, journal entries, or hidden away from the public as something dangerous. The only thing they are hazardous to is oppressive societal systems. Can these stories be triggering? Absolutely, although I haven’t heard any feedback that these read-alouds have been triggering. It’s almost as if the fear of being triggered is bigger than the actual possibility. Who knows? If there is unhealed trauma living inside us, anything can trigger it. That is the signal from within that there is healing yet to do. I am still stepping into and embodying these truths, and the event has helped.
In these seven months, I have gained confidence and developed skills in reading aloud and discussing my book in public. I have expanded my capacity as an event organizer and moderator. I have experienced profound positive shifts by listening to other women share their stories, especially those with stories similar to mine. I am getting more comfortable being seen and heard, but most of all, I am no longer trying to separate myself from my writing. For me, the impulse to write personal narratives is similar to the impulse to do yoga. It is a longing and search for truth and communion—first with the self and inner divinity, and then with others. I am my writing. My writing is me. There is no place on this relative plane of existence where I exist only as a writer and not a yogi, and there is no place where I exist as a yogi and not a writer. It isn't a matter of identity; it is a matter of cohesion. In fact, on this road, identity is what is always falling away.
Writing and yoga both have the potential to clear blockages to truth and to allow more soulful self-expression, which I have learned firsthand. In yogic texts, there is a term called “granthis”, which refers to knots in the subtle body (the subtle body can also be thought of loosely as your nervous system or chakra system). These physiological-psychic knots cause blockages that prevent creative energy (shakti) from flowing freely through our system. As I heal from trauma, these blockages in the root of my being are clearing. This process can be mellow and psychological or, as in my case, it can be physical and volcanic. These knots in the system can obscure creative impulse, leading to toxic output or no output at all. However, perhaps ironically, if you don’t let the fear of getting it wrong stop you, honoring the innate energetic creative impulse will eventually destroy those blockages. I do believe.
The process of writing and sharing my memoir has been a swirling mix of awkward moments, confusion, and, at the very same time, profound growth and healing. I now see how this process is entirely normal and necessary for the woman writer who is also a seeker. We face many internal and external barriers to expressing ourselves and telling the truth. Many of us are hyper-aware of being perceived as conceited, crazy, and so on. That is our trauma blockages speaking to us, which are reinforced in society.
I am starting to embrace this messy process, and as I do, it becomes more enjoyable and beautiful. I am okay not being totally clear on where I stand and what my message is. I’m very happy not to be a brand. I’m okay if I get caught in swirling eddies of ego and capitalist entrapment. Despite what cancel culture tells us, we can eventually move on from our imperfect forms of self-expression. If you have stories alive inside you begging to be let out, the worst thing you can do is keep them inside, clogging up your system, in my humble opinion. Rage against the machine! Be imperfect.
Back to the subject of bare feet. When I returned from India, I decided I would go barefoot at public writing and speaking events from now on. I am not sure whose idea it was to go shoeless at the art walk event, which inspired the Women Who Write to Heal event, but the message it sent me was, ‘we are approachable, ’ which enabled me to visualize myself doing the same thing as they were doing. It is a nod of gratitude to that event and those readers.
Another person who inspired my decision to go shoeless whenever possible is Dani Rose, who co-organizes the Women Who Write to Heal event. She is an ordained Priestess and wears a scarf on her head when engaging in sacred work. The space being held for the Women Who Write to Heal event is sacred to me. Women’s true stories of healing are sacred to me. I wanted to express a similar sentiment in my own way, and going barefoot is how I am choosing to do it.
There is a common thread running through the work I do to heal myself: no shoes are required. In fact, during yoga and belly dance, bare feet are essential. Being barefoot is also a way to honor my body, the sacred feminine, and my connection to the Earth. The puzzle of the bare feet is complete. It is my way of saying, “I’m just like you, not above or below.” We are here together, and we are all sacred, from head to toe.
