The spider’s web is web of protection around art-making, around play, and around intentional community. It is an offering for spaciousness from social media. This work is meant to bring hope back into creation. This work allows me to take time with my daily practice, with myself, and with my communities that feels easeful in my body. I hope that these offerings will bring you more ease and consideration in your own body.
Thank you for joining me here. Y’all are welcome to share this offering with your communities. I just ask that you credit my work @meredithannewhite. Thank you so much.
We have made it through the tumultuous astrological forecast that was January, and here we are in what I consider to be the real new year that is now February. January felt Iike a pause, sit, reflect, and revise. I have newly found spaciousness in my body with a side of sticky communication that has come to surface.
This spaciousness has brought me to the precipice of what I’ve come to call protective joy. I’ve planted the foundational seeds of a life that are sacred to me. I watch these buds sprout before me and paint my world with brighter and fuller communities. It wakes me up with a lot of joy these days, even if my footing still feels clunky. As I bask in the glory of this slowly built abundance, I come to this amazing quote from Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed:
“When you are ready to come to our island with nothing but wild acceptance and joy and celebration for our true, beautiful family, we'll lower the drawbridge for you. But not one second sooner.”
It takes so much courage to build a life that makes sense for you and your truths, regardless of what that may look like to the onlooker. That, to me, is worth protecting! This life of mine built with deep love for community and open dialogue and constant pivoting is my abundance.
How does abundance show up for me in my body?
I think this is one of the most pivotal questions I’ve asked myself in a long time.
Abundance does not have to be a physical, tangible object. Abundance does not have to be a trophy, show, client, certificate, or check. Abundance can (and I argue that it should) be detached from success in the ways that capitalism tells us abundance is tied to. Abundance has grown to mean that my body feels at ease today. Abundance has become enjoying a delicious meal with my loved ones surrounded by my plants and a candle and the moon outside the window. Abundance lights my heart up with joy when I’m able to scoop a donut from Betsy at the farmer’s market. Abundance is having a night off with my boo only to lay on the couch and watch an obscure movie rented from Videodrome that I first feel obstinate to watch because it’s not King of the Hill but then find that it expands me tenfold and I love it. (I say obscure because most movies are obscure to me as someone who has seen very few movies up until this point.) A recent favorite has been Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising with real good soundtrack <3
There is a deep connection between this abundance and my willingness to accept the things in my life that support me in this very moment. This abundance is deeply woven together with gratitude. This abundance is hand-stitched with community. This abundance takes my ass out of the realm of ego and into the world of interdependence baby. It means that I allow myself to show up for you in the way(s) that feel resonant for me. It means that I allow you to show up for me in the way(s) that feel resonant for you.
Here’s a more recent example that came up for me that was great. Maybe not great in the moment but caught me in such a way to be like: “this is noteworthy!”
My sweet friend was traveling and asked if I could watch their cat. I was hesitant, but I love my friend a lot and wanted to help. This week ended up being extra triggering for me because of holidays. I found that I was rushed and chaotic and ended up locking myself (including my keys, phone, and all of my belongings) out of their house. I had the great opportunity of walking my ass home on this particular afternoon that I had originally blocked off for a bath and a good cry. It allowed me to understand that the resonance within the container of our friendship is many things, but cat-sitting is not one of them. This is in no offense to my friend or their sweet cat, it has everything to do with the fact that there are better ways I can show up for myself and my friend that feel more aligned.
How might we better listen to our bodies on a daily basis?
I understand that this is not as easy as it may sound as multifaceted beings. I can offer that each day as I open up dialogue with my body, the more aware I become of how it is in constant communication with me about its needs. This allows me to build a trust muscle with myself. I am allowing this body to talk to me in very real ways. It has the ability to tell me no. It has the ability to tell me hell yes. It means that I am allowing myself to feel safe with myself. It means that I am seeing my body and my body is seeing me.
It allows me to sink into the places that feel spacious while I’m doing something. I’m not clinching my teeth or limiting my words. This practice has allowed me to sink deeper into the spaces in my body that grow excited when I talk about something. These are the spaces in my body that light up when I place something on my calendar. And when I have to put something on my calendar that I absolutely do not love (like going to the dentist), then I know that I can ask for support and wrap myself in protection before I go, right? This is part of my current daily practice with bodily abundance! I am creating bodily awareness rooted in trust with myself.
In turn, this rooted internal practice has become an external practice with those in my life around me. If I am continuously in conversation with myself, then I am continuously in conversation with those around me. I am more willing to ask for help! It means that I allow myself to be seen in the bullshit that is life sometimes. This means that I am opening myself up to be seen and accept love in varying forms. It means I am loved through the muck. And this big and expansive and chaotic love is abundance in my book!!
My current space around abundance feels bigger than I’ve ever felt before in my body. It feels slightly chaotic in the sense that it goes beyond the boxes and containers I’ve built for myself out of safety and comfort. It pushes me outside the bounds of normalcy and right and linear achievement. It’s actually pretty scary for me! I can pull apart the threads of what is actually out-of-alignment for my practice and what is scary because it’s so much bigger than what I’m used to operating around.
How might we begin to distinguish our bodily response(s) related to anxiety from just a big, new threshold of abundance?
Again, come back to your daily practice. I absolutely cannot tell you what is going to feel resonant for you, but I can tell you what currently feels resonant for me. More recently it has been speaking up for myself in situations that over time have made me feel small. It has been allowing myself to boulder!! Both of these things feel really, really big in my body. They feel big in a way that I am being utterly expanded from the inside out. I continue to come back to food, to sitting with the earth, lots of walks, and being with my body as I interact with different humans and spaces.
I give you these very real examples because it has taken me my entire life to get to a place that looks and feels this big. My clothes may have chalk, dog hair, and coffee dribbles from trying to drink and sew at the same time. I am surrounded by my neighbor’s chickens and bees. The windows are open and rose incense is blowing around the living room. There is yarn and string stuck to my socks as I scoot around the house between my cards, the couch, the front porch, and the studio. Third eye blind is playing on my partner’s CD player. There’s a half-eaten golden nugget on the kitchen table next to a cup of tea I forgot to drink when it was warm. My hair still has a bunch of clips in it and is growing by the second with warmer weather. I’ve given myself a stopping point in the day so that I can meet my friends to climb. I’ve got leftovers in the fridge because cooking just isn’t happening. I share these examples because my very tidy boxes have been utterly broken open, and I am actually okay with that. My abundance is chaotic okay!
What are the places that you know bring you joy?
Are you smelling something lovely?
Is there a tune playing in the background?
Are you next to someone or a sweet animal?
Where can you sink into those spaces in your body when you are surrounded by joy?
Can you write this down?
Can you weave in more of this joy for yourself as a daily practice?
This is how we may begin to define our own abundance! Great!
Thank you for continuing to show up here with me in this amazing container. I hope that these words and this offering allow you to deepen your own practice with resonances in your own body.
Thank you for joining me here. Y’all are welcome to share this offering with your communities. I just ask that you credit my work @meredithannewhite. You can find me here, on my IG @meredithannewhite, and my website.