I almost cried
when I remembered the fact that you died but you never really went away. I almost cried when she held my feet in the back of my skull like she was holding water. When I looked at my vulva in a mirror for the first time through the eyes of love. When I looked up, and I saw the crescent moon in the broad daylight hanging above the oceans swells. When I felt the parts of me that can no longer exist in relationship with you.
A devotional reflection on healing attachment and the somatic work of return
Connection is a fundamental human birthright that sadly so many of us miss, especially once we get into the deeper layers of intimacy both inside ourselves and with others. It only takes a few times of reaching to a caregiver or friends and being rejected for us to begin sinking into the layers of shutdown. Collapse will come in – shoulders will roll in and pelvis will tuck. It learns to defend itself against hope and trust. We need connection. This sacred desire for connection is what were called to carry in our cauldron this Gemini season.
Present with the longing for connection
the hand sometimes wants to reach out and up. As we begin to heal the patterns of shame and shutdown in our relationships, a tender grief often arises — grief for all the connection we missed while we were just trying to protect ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with this instinct. It’s ancient. It helped us survive. But over time, the habit to self-protect becomes a wall between us and the love we long for.
Our attachment system is not just an emotional layer — it’s a foundational structure. It’s the blueprint our nervous system builds everything else on. So when we begin to rewire this pattern, we’re not just making small adjustments. We’re doing deep, spiritual, shamanic grief work. Like learning a new language while still speaking the old one. Like hearing a piece of music that breaks you open. When we finally feel that connection we’ve been longing for there may be a huge wave of relief, thank Goddess.
But then there is also grief. For all the missed time we spend in other states trying to protect ourselves, trying to control others. This is a part of getting and being real in relationship and it’s worth it. It’s how we shift the old patterns. It requires us to hold multiple realities at once: the part that wants to stay safe, and the part that longs to be seen and held. Gemini’s favorite thing.
And let’s be honest
— this kind of healing hurts. Anyone who’s done it knows it’s not cute. It’s humbling. It’s frustrating. It’s messy. It asks us to stop blaming the people closest to us and instead start untangling how we’ve learned to relate. To pause and look at how we shut down. How we disappear. How we make people work to reach us — or how we cling too tightly, hoping they won’t leave.
This is not just emotional. The shutdown lives in the body. It needs more than talk to unwind. We are attuning to each other all the time, often below our conscious awareness. We sense each other’s nervous systems, we pick up on tension and love, on openness and retraction. To shift these patterns, we need safety — not as an abstract idea, but as a felt experience. A real sensation inside the body.
So what does safety actually feel like?
That’s the exploration. That’s the relational practice. And it begins by simply noticing when we’ve retreated into isolation. Not judging it. Not rushing out of it. Just naming: I’m here. I’m frozen. I’m afraid. And then… a little breath. A little softening. Maybe the presence of another body who’s not trying to fix us. Just being with us.
When we slow down enough to attune to that moment — the desire to pull away — we’ll often notice what comes next: loneliness. And that’s where we tend to run. Into scrolling. Into work. Into food or fantasy or over-caregiving. We try to escape the ache of being alone. But if we can stay with it just a little longer, something beautiful starts to happen. The urge to reconnect arises naturally. The body wants to come back into connection — sometimes slowly, sometimes with resistance — but always with longing.
That’s the bridge.
That moment of noticing the impulse to come back. How we meet each other there matters deeply. How we speak. How we touch. How we feel — somatically, emotionally, not just intellectually. Because when we’re shut down, what we really feel is frustration, confusion, inadequacy. We send mixed signals. We want closeness, but we’re afraid of it. We want touch, but we flinch. We want love, but we’re armored.
So we need spaces — sacred, messy, slow spaces — where we can practice vulnerability. Where we can learn that connection can be regulating. That love can be effective, not just performative. That we don’t have to earn belonging by hiding our pain. That being with someone else, in our realness, can be the medicine we’ve been searching for.
This is why we made the Mother of the Sword podcast episode — to be a balm. A hand on the heart of the part that’s been hiding. An invitation to soften the shutdown, just a little, and let the body lead the way home. Join our free fire ceremony this Tuesday June 3rd to take this work to the sacred fire in community.
What we can do in these moments
is subtle, sacred work. We can mirror body language gently, just enough to signal: “I’m here with you.” We can name what’s true in the space between us: “I see you’re feeling frustrated. I feel that too.” Or offer a soft invitation: “I want connection — do you?” Our posture, breath, and tone are all part of this language. The body is always teaching the mind how to feel, and so much of our healing comes through that physical awareness. But if we’re used to abandoning ourselves for love, this is where it gets tender. Often, in our longing for intimacy, we fall into old cycles — trying to fix or change the other as a way to feel safe, to soothe our own nervous systems. We reach for control when what we really crave is presence.
Body Temple Dance
helps unwind that. It brings us back home to our own body, our own rhythm, our own center. Instead of using someone else’s behavior to regulate, we begin to root in the truth of our sensations. We let the breath move. We let the hips speak. We meet our longing in motion. We remember that we don’t have to become shapeshifters to be loved. We just have to stay with ourselves — honestly, imperfectly, and in motion. That’s where true connection begins.
I have been blessed
by a lineage of undomesticated artist healer, musician, Earth tending, trance dance witches. We are holding the rebirth we are in as a way of acknowledging the magnificent power of Love the lives in the Unknown. The Great Mystery.
Gemini can hold us in the truth by allowing multiple realities to exist. Let’s keep learning how to build bridges in the moments that feel like walls.
What is the deeper truth, here? How do we learn that feeling our feelings is safe and create environments where we can embody the reach.
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