The Wednesday Reset
Autumn series

You are met at the door, cleared with sage before you put anything down, and asked how you actually are, and given long enough to answer, out loud, to seven women who are listening and one who is judging nothing. The new moon has just passed and the first light is back, which is why we start here: a cycle that has only just begun is the right place to name what you are calling in. You lie down, covered and warm, and meditation takes you under the noise until you can see it, not what you think you should want. Before you leave you name it, only to yourself if you would rather, and I keep hold of it. In week six I will ask you what happened to it, because I will have remembered.

What am I calling in?

The moon is filling and so are you. The work gets physical: slow, precise Pilates, every shape adjusted to your body rather than your body forced into the shape. Nobody at the front to keep up with, no counting, no comparing. And when something has changed in how you stand since last week, I will tell you, because I will have noticed. You go home taller than you came in.

Where am I stronger than I have been admitting?

The full moon has been and gone and there is nothing left to push for. You lie down, warm and covered, and do absolutely nothing while I come to each woman in turn, hands to your heart, for as long as it takes, nobody watching, nothing required of you. Being given to is harder than the Pilates. It is also the week most women cry, and that is welcome here; you will not be rushed through it or asked to explain it.

Can I let myself be held?

The light is going out of the cycle, and letting go belongs here rather than at the start. Nothing is asked of you tonight except to stop carrying it, and to say out loud, if you want to, what it has cost you to carry. The breath does the emptying: long, low, unhurried, until your ribs move differently and your jaw lets go without being told. You go home lighter across the chest, and heard, probably for the first time that week.

What am I ready to stop carrying?

We meet two days after the new moon, at the emptiest point in the whole cycle, with almost nothing in the sky. The bowls are played close to you and above you until the sound stops being something you hear and becomes something you feel, pooling in the heart and the solar plexus, moving through your ribs and the backs of your legs. Sound reaches what talking cannot, so something loosens without you ever having to name it, to me or to yourself.

What is ready to move through me?

We close with the moon past its first quarter and the light properly back: more than half, and rising, which is the whole point. All five woven together. You hear back what you named in week one, and what I have watched change in you since. You leave with your own practice: what to do with your breath, your body and your mornings on the days the barn isn't there. Not an ending. The point at which you can hold yourself the way you have been held here.

What am I taking with me?