The Last Face
Read slowly, aloud, leaving a breath between lines; about fifteen minutes.
Before you begin. This practice works with words that once took root in you and with the shapes they gave you. Do not use it alone if you have a dissociative disorder, a psychotic illness, or memories of violence that still bring flashbacks; use it with a clinician who knows your history. If you are recently bereaved or have thoughts of ending your life, set it aside and speak to someone. Sit upright in a safe place; never practise while driving or near water.
How to return at any moment. Say "I am here," press your feet into the floor, count from one to five and open your eyes on five.
Sit, and let the breath slow. Let the eyes close.
Somewhere in your life a sentence was spoken over you. In anger, perhaps, or with the weight of authority. You do not need to hear it clearly. Just notice that it was spoken.
Notice what came after: a dazed time, when you were scattered like air, and nothing had a shape. In that time the sentence went in. It went in because nothing else was there to meet it.
Breathe out.
Notice how, when you woke, the mind was occupied with it, and brooded on it, and slowly took its shape. You may feel that shape now, in the shoulders, in the face. That is all right. It is only a shape.
Now let the shapes you have taken since pass by, one and then another. If a face comes that frightened or harmed you, you do not have to look at it. Let it stay small and far, at the edge of the forest.
Walk on through the forest. Ahead there is a clearing, and in it a hermitage, quiet, whole, unharmed. Go in. Someone is sitting there who has been waiting without hurry.
They look at you kindly and ask: Why wound? Why not protect?
Let the question rest in you. You know what it is to be wounded. You know what it is worth to be protected.
Now let them give you a new sentence, in place of the old one. Let it be simple and kind: You are safe now. Protect what is gentle, in others and in you. Let the mind be fully occupied with it. Let it take its shape in the shoulders and the face.
Life is a breath of air. A drop of falling water. A flash of light. Let the old shape loosen in that lightness.
(Silence: one to two minutes.)
Now begin to come back.
One. Feel the breath, full and ordinary.
Two. Feel your hands. Touch your own face, gently. This is the face you will carry out.
Three. Feel your feet on the floor and your weight on the seat.
Four. Hear the sounds of the room. Take one deep breath.
Five. Open your eyes. Here, now, fully alert.
Say your name, the date and where you are. Name three things you can see. If you feel slow, repeat the count. When you next see your face in a mirror, let it be the last face of this practice, and look at it kindly.