Being in the Shell

Being in the shell…
Amusing, really.
It holds me, houses me, haunts me—
this soft architecture of flesh and bone.

The longer I sit in my shell,
the more it teaches me
about who I am.
Not just as thought or spirit,
but as marrow and membrane,
tendon and tremble.

On the new moon, I practice dying.
A quiet ritual.
A reminder that this shell will one day fail me.
It will deteriorate.
Decompose.
Dissolve—
just as it was once formed,
cell by cell,
breath by breath.

The first time I practiced the dying meditation,
my body rebelled.
A surge of panic rose up—
a visceral, electric terror
at the idea that this form,
this skin I wear,
will one day cease to be.

But in that panic,
a revelation.
The shell,
this humble, tireless thing—
I had never really thanked it.

It was a transformative moment.
Not just an awakening,
but a reckoning.
I realized how much more
I needed to love this body.
Not for how it looks.
Not for how it performs.
But for the quiet miracles
it performs without applause.

Our shells do everything for us,
without even being asked.
They carry the weight of our lives,
of our stories,
our wounds and wonders.

And still—
I take my able body for granted.
So I am learning.
Practicing.
Listening.

Listening to the ache in my shoulder,
the hunger in my gut,
the fatigue in my bones.
Not as interruptions—
but as messages.

I am learning to speak the language of my shell.
To sit within it,
with reverence.
To be fully here,
until I no longer am.