Conrad SatalaJuly 28, 2025

28 July 2025 - Monday “The Body That Cannot Move, Still Breathes Light” A Ceremonial Story of Pain, Limitation, and the First Fire of Hope - Part 11a

Conrad SatalaJuly 28, 2025

28 July 2025 - Monday

“The Body That Cannot Move, Still Breathes Light”

A Ceremonial Story of Pain, Limitation, and the First Fire of Hope - Part 11a

“I Carry the Mountain in My Breath”

A Ceremonial Introduction to Living Within Two Lands

from the Earth Remembers Series

This is my poetic oral ceremonial story of the images and words I walked with between 2020 and 2022 —

My inner companions that carried me through my body’s suffering,

my body’s pain,

my body’s challenges in movement and ability.

During those years, my mind’s Voice 1 shouted, again and again,

“This suffering will never change. You will never get better.”

Each day was a question:

Will I ever heal? Will I ever rise again?

Only through the mystery of inner kindness

did I begin to listen differently.

I began to feel the Heart Within my Voice 1 —

the tender place beneath the harshness.

It was here that the presence of light, the ember of my inner fire,

began to awaken.

It began the weaving of my many scattered parts

into the emergence of One Heart.

This One Heart shaped my inner body

into a weaving —

a weaving with the inner nature of the landscapes around me,

and with the living breath of my Tz’utujiil Maya community.

“First Fire in the Mist - Suffering and the Emergence of Inner Light”

Spoken by Conrad – Elder of the Bones, Walker Between the Voices

Suffering is.

I do not say this with poetry in my throat.

I say it with the heaviness of my chest.

With the dry stone of my tongue.

With the war-torn landscapes inside my mind.

I walk through a world

where the outer reality of political suffering

pounds against me like thunder on stone.

I turn to the news—

to the people in power—

to the laws written with no heart—

and Voice 1 howls through me:

“Nothing will ever change.

You are alone inside a dying world.”

I know this Voice.

It is not a visitor.

It is a resident.

It lives in the cracks of my ribs.

It repeats its songs in the walls of my skull.

And each morning,

I wake into its thunder again.

⸻

But—

There are moments—

not long,

not certain—

when a breeze brushes against my pain.

When something in me flickers

like the edge of a fire not yet lit.

This is not Voice 2 yet.

This is the Heart Within Voice 1.

The one who says,

“I want to believe. I want to feel hope.”

It speaks not with reason,

but with ache.

It is the part of me

that remembers

that something other

might be possible.

And so—

with the courage of a tired man

lifting one foot

in front of the other—

I go out into the land.

I walk through my suffering,

not to escape it,

but to rub it

against the body of the Earth,

like stick to stone,

hoping for the First Fire.

⸻

“The Body That Cannot Move, Still Breathes Light”

A Ceremonial Story of Pain, Limitation, and the First Fire of Hope

There are days

when my body does not belong to me.

My joints refuse to rise.

My legs feel like stone.

My arms ache with memory.

My breath moves like smoke through broken glass.

There are mornings

when I lie in bed

and the only voice that greets me is Voice 1—

sharp, relentless, exacting.

“You’re losing strength.”

“You’ll never get better.”

“What has been taken cannot return.”

“This is the end of your ability to live.”

It is not gentle.

It is not kind.

It is not subtle.

Voice 1 hammers.

It shames.

It makes the pain worse.

And still—

somehow—

I breathe.

Even through the pain.

Even with the ache.

Even when I cannot walk or rise

the way I used to.

Even here—

I whisper to myself:

“This, too, is not the end.”

⸻

I do not pretend to heal what has not healed.

I do not deny the suffering.

I do not demand that my body “try harder.”

I do not lie to my bones.

Instead—

I sit with the trembling ache

and let the Heart Within Voice 1 speak.

This voice is not cruel.

It is wounded.

It is afraid.

It says:

“I miss what I once could do.”

“I don’t know who I am without my strength.”

“I want to be held—not fixed.”

And in that moment,

I place a hand on my knee,

my ribs,

my shoulder,

my hips,

wherever the pain lives.

And I say gently:

“You are still sacred. You are still light.”

This is where the weaving begins.

⸻

Walking the Six Landscapes in a Body That Hurts

Even when I cannot walk far,

I move inward

and walk the outer landscapes through remembering.

Each one holds a thread of light

that touches the pain

not to erase it,

but to accompany it.

⸻

1. The Mountains – Holding the Pain Without Shame

The mountains do not flee from their weight.

They carry it with dignity.

I imagine myself resting at the foot of the ridge,

pressing my back into the earth.

Even with the pain in my spine,

I let the stillness of the mountain

enter my bones.

The mountain gives me the thread of dignity in limitation.

A presence that says:

“You do not need to be able-bodied to be sacred.”

⸻

2. The Lake – Remembering the Light Beneath the Surface

Lake Atitlán glistens,

even when clouds hide the sun.

I sit by her shores—

even if only in memory—

and I feel her breath

cool my skin

and soften my rage.

She gives me the thread of gentle self-acceptance.

She reminds me:

“Even if your body changes, you are still held by the waters of belonging.”

⸻

3. The Forest of Trees – Standing Without Moving

The trees rise.

They do not run.

They do not leap.

They stand.

And still, they grow.

I place my hand on the bark,

or imagine the feeling of bark beneath my palm,

and I hear the whisper:

“You are not failing by being still.

Stillness is also sacred motion.”

The forest gives me the thread of still presence.

It teaches me that

to breathe is enough.

⸻

4. The Cornfields – The Body That Still Belongs

Among the rows of corn,

even the smallest leaf is part of the harvest.

My body may not bend,

may not kneel,

but I can be among them,

and feel the warmth of the ancestors

through the red, black, yellow, and white kernels.

They give me the thread of bodily inclusion.

They whisper:

“Even broken bodies belong to the circle.”

⸻

5. The Cloud Forest – Living in the Uncertainty

Pain brings fog.

I don’t always know what the next hour will feel like.

And the mind spins:

“Will I ever get better?”

The cloud forest teaches me to sit inside the unknown.

It gives me the thread of courage in uncertainty.

It says:

“You do not have to know. Just be here.”

⸻

6. The Three Volcanoes – Sparking the First Fire of Voice 2

And then—

when I think I cannot go on—

I turn to the volcanoes.

To San Pedro, Atitlán, and Tolimán.

I sit in their triangle of strength

and I begin

the sacred rubbing:

My fear pressed against my longing.

My suffering pressed against my breath.

My helplessness pressed against the faintest thread of inner kindness.

And suddenly—

a spark.

A mist.

A First Fire.

Voice 2 does not speak in full sentences.

It does not solve my pain.

But it glows

in the center of my chest.

It says:

“There is still light. Even here.”

And I believe it.

Not with my mind.

But with my body.

My breath.

My trembling legs.

⸻

The Weaving of the Many into One Heart

This is how I walk now—

slowly,

imperfectly,

still in pain.

But with a different voice in my steps.

Voice 1 still screams.

Still hammers.

Still mourns.

But it is no longer alone.

The Heart Within Voice 1 now holds it like a child.

And Voice 2,

that mysterious fire of presence,

begins to glow through the cracks.

This is the Weaving of Many into One Heart.

The body does not need to be healed

to be holy.

The light comes not after the pain—

but through it.

This is how I walk now.

This is how I rise.

Not by erasing suffering,

but by weaving light

into its very fabric.

This is how I am learning to live

even within a body

that still aches.

And this, too—

is sacred.

Conrad Satala