Leap Upwards
Harbin Hot Springs
2010


Late into the night
Small sacred hot pool
Is lit by several white candles
Standing on the metal alter

I walk in silently
Stand on the wooden platform
Wrap my wet fingers around the metal bar
Lowering my naked body into scalding waters

Temperature is on the verge of terror
Feels almost like the edges of my insides
Closest to my skin
Are boiling in response

As I rest into stillness in the heat
A thin layer of cooler water forms around my body
So as long as I barely move in the water
I remain in a state of almost comfort


Yet I have created for myself a challenge
To exit the scalding waters
I must leap up through the hot
To catch with my wet fingertips
The metal bar high above my head
As I find it sexy to then pull my naked flesh
Up with my arms onto the wooden platform





I have already painfully learned
That I only catch that metal bar
When I leap with full determination at the goal
When I leap with all of me pushing upward
When all of me defys gravity
When only part of me leaps up
Then I miss that metal bar
And fall forwards onto the wooden platform
And through the terror of almost boiling water
Moaning in pain at the combined
Pain and perceived failure

Only I decide to enter the pool
I get to decide how I enter
I get to decide how long I stay in
I get to decide how I exit
I could choose to not enter
I could choose the stairs
Yet I choose the challenge
Why not?

I love how experience has taught me
To look up
To focus
To reach deep within
And to leap

With practice
Even defying gravity
As one flies through scalding water
Feels easy

What next?

******************************WE ARE ALL STARS***************************

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