09/06/2026
I will always be grateful that I landed in this field. Within a therapeutic landscape that privileges the wisdom and pain held in the entirety of the body - from the wonderous cerebral matter up top, to the grounding pads of the toes below.
I found myself on the lengthy, stone covered shore of Napier Beach last weekend. Those toes feeling the rocks beneath, my eyes searching the Pacific Ocean for something I wasn't sure of yet. And I had rocks in my puku. I had been carrying around an assortment of heaviness, and no matter how much I had tried to think my way out of it, the weighty rocks remained.
I began picking up palm sized stones, smoothed by the wind and the sea, checking in to make sure it felt tika for them as I went. Asking first, and offering gratitude as we negotiated what happened next. I felt their comforting weight in my hand, and with all the effort I could muster, began hurling them hand over hand into the ripping waves. I didn't do this alone, I was witnessed, and it is so often in this witnessing that a shift can take hold. I threw stones until I had no energy left, until I knew I had thrown enough. For a long while afterwards, I felt the effort in my arm - perhaps I pulled a muscle. And still now I recognize a feeling of comfort knowing I cannot go back into that sea and pick those stones up. That ocean front is notorious, it is not safe for me to go searching for stones I have now released.
A few days on, as my arm begins to grow quiet again, I notice a distinct shift in my body. The stones no longer live inside my puku. There is a residue, there likely always will be, and very likely more stones will gather over time. But now I have a body memory imprinted indefinitely, and I have a place to go - where the sea will welcome a release of energy, and my toes can hold tight to the shore.
