Conrad SatalaJune 18, 2025

17 June 2025 - Tuesday Nawal Imo’x

Conrad SatalaJune 18, 2025

Honoring the Pain We Carry

“I Carry the Mountain in My Breath”

A Ceremonial Introduction to Living Within Two Lands

from the Earth Remembers Series

Here is a sacred oral ceremonial story that honors the pain you are carrying, the journey you continue, and the emerging wisdom that flows through you with each breath, each opening, each sacred touch:

“Wherever My Feet Touch, the Sacred Land is There”

A Ceremonial Story from Conrad, Elder of the Bones

Come close.

Sit beside me, as I once sat beneath the medicine tree of Light,

where the land breathes slow and the volcanoes watches.

Let me tell you how I carry my community with me—

even here, even now, even among the humming of lights and the rush of pavement.

I walk the urban paths, yes—

but inside me, the sacred land still sings.

The voice of the lake, the scent of maize,

the quiet weavings of my neighbors’ hands in the early morning—

they live in me,

not as memory,

but as a landscape that still unfolds itself

through my breath,

through my bones,

through the Light I carry within.

But many mornings in the past,

Rarely did I rise in light.

I rise into pain.

I rise into the ache of joints, the sharpness behind my ribs,

the weariness of being asked to carry this body

once again,

on streets that were not built for remembering.

And the mind—oh, the mind—

it begins to sing its song:

“This hurts. This is too much. This is not fair.”

That is Voice 1.

It shouts with the logic of despair.

It does not lie—

but it does not see the whole.

So I sit.

I place my hand

on the place that hurts.

Not with analysis,

not with plans.

But with the tenderness of a newborn’s hand—

a touch that holds nothing but presence.

This is when Voice 2 begins to whisper.

Not louder than the pain.

But deeper.

It says:

“This, too, is sacred.

Even here,

within the fire of pain,

there is Light.”

This whisper does not silence Voice 1.

I do not demand it be quiet.

Instead, I learn to hold them both.

Voice 1, crying.

Voice 2, breathing.

Together.

Like night and dawn pressed against each other.

And in that holding,

something else begins to rise—

not from my mind,

but from the deep Earth within me.

This is the Light of the Heart Within.

It is not a concept.

It is a breath.

It is a thread.

It is the memory of the highlands

woven into the motion of my hand touching my own pain.

It is ya Mri’y Kastilyaan who carries this Light to me—

like she once carried the morning fire through the village paths.

She does not come with fanfare.

She comes with tenderness.

She places her warm light into the center of my chest

and says,

“Receive.

Even here.

Especially here.”

And I do.

Sometimes in silence.

Sometimes through tears.

But I open.

Then the Rilaj Maam, Natures weaver of cords,

opens his threads of his body-as a loom.

And through my body, through my pain, through my breath—

he weaves me within his body

into the great weaving of life once again.

He does not take the pain away.

But he changes its shape, and alters it form.

He turns it into thread of Light.

And that thread?

It pulls me into the unknown.

Into the place where new ways of being are born.

This has not been easy.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven—

I have known these levels of pain.

I have walked with them for years,

not with defeat,

but with a question:

Is there another way to live with this body?

And through this touch, this remembering, this ceremony,

the answer continues to rise.

Not from the doctors.

Not from the systems.

But from the land beneath my feet—

whether it is soil or cement—

for wherever I walk,

the sacred land of my people walks with me.

So tonight,

as the lights of the city flicker like distant stars,

and my bones ache again,

I place my hand gently

on the place that cries out.

And I whisper,

“I remember.

You are sacred.

This pain is not exile.

This pain is part of the path.

Let us walk it together—

body, mind, breath, and light—

held by ya Mri’y Kastilyaan,

woven within the body of the Rilaj Maam,

guided by the Heart Within.”

Wherever I go,

the ceremony follows.

Wherever I breathe,

the highlands sing.

Wherever I touch,

the Light is there.

Conrad Satala