Saturn’s Edges
(This is not a complete stand alone piece but
an excerpt from my journals of my journey … )
Last week I wrote a bit about the form the symbol Saturn moulds in our psyches. The planetary God of restriction, limitations and time. His presence giving shape to matter. Turning wind into bone. The essence of materiality. Cause and effect. Things that cannot exist without boundaries. The alter ego to Jupiter, the jovial planet of abundance, expansion and freedom. The representative of the formless and spiritual. To me, a self proclaimed child of Jupiter, the mere mention of Saturnian parameters makes me feel trapped.
However this week, as my feet hovered inches above the ground, my body suspended like a rag doll, I found myself begging Saturn for his gifts of structure and strength. I also felt compelled to record this moment in hopes that one day I would have totally forgotten what it feels like to flop heavily, in charge of unresponsive anatomy. That one day I would be safe again in the confines of constriction and need a reminder of what it used to feel like to be made of sand.
Of course, for now, my bones are still formed and hard. They haven’t crumbled yet (although after years with a spinal cord injury and no weight bearing exercise bones do become brittle and snap easily). But bones made of jelly is the best way I can describe to you what it currently feels like to be me.
I arrive to rehab trusting and excited but unsure of the days activities. I’m in a new (to me) facility that practices neural based recovery. This activity is movement that attempts to bring together the broken links between the brain, musculature and the nervous system. It is a gym environment. Wall to wall equipment, rubber mats and pumping music. The clientele are all people like me. People on wheels. People that have lost command of their bodies and are looking to rebuild connections. People that truly understand the physical cost of living and how quickly everything can be taken away. People that have had a visitation from death and were given another chance. People I increasingly feel more comfortable around.
The therapists roll a large flat bed over and I park next to it and transfer over. As I begin to lay flat I know to expect a wave of muscle spasms as my body recalibrates to a position it is not frequently in. After my legs are done doing their electric dance of surprise at being straightened the therapists pull a large harness over. The gear I’m about to be strapped into goes between my legs and around my hips supporting my body so it can hang, attached to a metal frame that suspends me above the ground. Suspended like this I will be wheeled over to a treadmill so that with a team of people moving my legs I can mimic the act of walking.
As I see my feet hovering inches above the ground I suddenly recall a dream I had the night before. I was wearing a similar harness, except not hovering inches above the earth but instead miles. I was skydiving. In the dream, in the middle of the skydiving session, I suddenly remembered I couldn’t control my legs. I warned the instructor I was attached to in the sky that my knees wouldn’t lock under me. As I did I slowly began to slide out of the harness back towards the earth. /
Laughing I told the therapists how this moment felt pulled from my dream life. They asked what happened in my dream.
“Well … I hate to tell you this but my knees wouldn’t lock and I slid out the harness”
The team of therapists assured me I wouldn’t fall out of the harness. However my knees not locking into place is exactly why there is a team of therapists. It takes four people to facilitate the motion needed. Two therapists hook their fingers into my shoe laces and cup the back of my knees so they can lift my feet over the moving treadmill. One therapists supports my back and hips. Another controls the equipment. This is called Gait Training.
Most of the time I am sitting. Or lying down. With the firmness of a chair beneath me I almost forget how unresponsive and soft my body is. But hanging from this contraption in the nuero gym I am very aware that if I did not have assistance controlling my legs my body would crumble beneath me. This is the first time I have experienced an activity such as this one since my accident and losing my body. Suspended in this way for the first time I am very aware of my muscles NOT contracting. Without the firm hug of muscle tightening as it wraps around bone I feel limp and wobbly. Like a body made of sand.
In this second the work ahead of me looms momentous. Making a connection from head to abs to knees to feet to say “Hey, can you support me please?” feels miles and miles away. Maybe this is the miles away from the earth my skydiving dream was attempting to represent. Not only is the firmness to hold myself upright missing but a sense of dizziness and exhaustion rush in immediately as my body has quickly gotten used to sitting. And this is where I call out for those once despised traits that Saturn represents.
Firmness.
Boundaries.
Edges and Restriction.
Please hold my body. Contain these edges. Please press on me from the outside. Keep me firm and upright.