The Hollow Bone

04/01/2026

~~Pledge of Love to the Earth~~

Oh Great Vastness, Great Wildness.
Today I pledge my union to you and my love to you.
You have always been around me for many Lifetimes,
But now I want to join with you, deeper, Inside.
A Spiritual Union

Over the past few years, I have felt our bond grow.
Whenever I have felt torn with pain or burdened by shame or fear, I have sought you.
In the gladdest days or the darkest nights, it has been your breath which
graced my smiling heart or dried my tear-stained cheeks.
When my spirit is weary and broken, it is You with unrelenting tenderness who holds me,
or leads me to the softest grasses to sleep and heal.

Oh Wilderness!
How tender my heart feels towards you.
Your unconditional love is boundless and I witness it with awe.
All else pales in my life when I look at You.
From You I have learned my inner wildness.
I have learned to honor my instinct,
to pay attention to my inner truths, to find my authentic self.
For I am not whole if I do not embrace Instinct, Truth and Authenticity.
What greater lover, teacher, companion could there be
than to have you by my side holding me or showing me the way?
I am so full with your beauty and gentleness!

So today I stand,
A love-filled bride, a passion-filled goddess.
I look at the prairies—and I see us.
I look at the mountains—and my void is full.
I look at the streams, rivers and lakes---and my womb takes seed from you.
I look at the meadows and woodlands---and the seed within grows.
Whenever I sit still and honor You, I give birth new to my love.
Today I pledge exquisite union with you…Ecstasy.
I pledge to love and honor you.
To become one with the wildness of you, and soulmates
to all the plants, rocks, and creatures throughout you.

And last I pledge to dance with you till my last dance.
And when my dance is through, I shall return to you
And nourish you
With my flesh
And bones.
For our union is the regenerating cycle of birth- life- death---and rebirth.
CHW

02/28/2026

01/03/2026

Thoughts on Training at 82
By Steve Beyer

Much of modern practice culture—martial, meditative, or therapeutic — assumes a forward arc: more strength, deeper experiences, subtler sensations, greater insight. Progress is measured by accumulation. This model works tolerably well while capacity is still expanding.

In late life, it fails.

The problem is not simply physical decline. It is conceptual inertia: continuing to measure progress by standards that no longer apply. As expansion slows or reverses, practice easily collapses into nostalgia (“what I used to be able to do”) or consolation (“acceptance,” “gratitude,” “wisdom”). Both quietly abandon discipline.

Late-life progress requires a different metric.

Here, progress does not mean doing more. It means removing what interferes.

One gets better not by expanding capacity, but by reducing internal drag: fewer unnecessary tensions, fewer compensations, fewer stories required to justify effort, fewer emotional residues after action. Alignment becomes more reliable; decisions cleaner; force is released more precisely; attention is available when needed and not dissipated elsewhere.

This kind of progress is subtle but not subjective. It appears functionally: in steadier posture under load, in quicker recovery from error, in action that begins without internal negotiation and ends without excess. Nothing mystical is added. Something unnecessary is removed.

Crucially, this redefinition avoids the false choice between striving and surrender. Standards are not lowered; they are sharpened. Limitations are acknowledged without being aestheticized. Acceptance is factual, not comforting.

In this sense, late-life practice is not diminished practice. It is more exacting. With less margin for error, precision matters more, not less. With fewer repetitions available, each one matters more. With fewer remaining chances, decisiveness itself becomes a discipline.

Progress, then, is no longer forward movement toward an ideal. It is the gradual elimination of whatever prevents clean action under narrowing conditions.

That is what remains trainable.

01/01/2026

Sitting in front of a warming fire.
My final post of the year 2025.
Blessings, Ana

12/30/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HMDvaXYNy/

Grief goes through many different waves and phases. Here's an interesting take on Kübler Ross’s stages. Acceptance of the loss and whatever you’re feeling begins the process of letting it move through you. We’re all struggling in some way. Be gentle with yourself in the process.

12/24/2025

🤦Oh my! There have been many anecdotal stories of transplant recipients suddenly taking on traits of their dead donors.
In some shamanic traditions there is a belief that our organs carry an aspect of the soul.
If I was working with the person in this story as a client, I would immediately check if the spirit of the donor had attached to her, then release that spirit to the light so they stopped influencing her.

12/13/2025

Internal boundaries. This is a very interesting take...it may also explain people who trauma dump.