Most Of Us Are Taught To Fear Endings. We Are Told They Arrive Like Storms On The Horizon, Like Lightning Striking From Above, Apocalypses Waiting At The Edge Of Time.
Yet the original meaning of apocalypse, important to remember in these times, was never destruction. It meant unveiling — the lifting of a veil, the revealing of what was always present but hidden from view.
Perhaps this older meaning feels especially relevant now. We tend to imagine the apocalypse as a finale, but endings are not limited to catastrophe. They can also be moments of recognition — small unveilings of memory.
Long Before We Walked The Earth, We Moved Through Water. It Was Fins That Carried The Earliest Stories Of Movement Before Feet Ever Learned The Language Of Gravity.
Within the architecture of our bodies, those ancient memories still live. Perhaps this is why Pisces, the sign of the fish, closes the great zodiac circle — because the end does not simply conclude the journey, it remembers the beginning.
It Is Curious That Pisces, The Final Sign Of The Zodiac, Governs The Feet.
Not the mind, where we imagine endings, Nor the heart, where we often fear them, But the quiet structures that have carried us through every season of our lives
The feet understand completion. They have borne our weight through beginnings, losses, pilgrimages, and the small daily crossings we barely remember. Ancient traditions suggest the entire body is mapped on the soles, each foot reflecting the greater human journey.
In some Eastern teachings there is a point near the center of the sole referred to as the Bubbling Spring — a place where the energy of the earth is said to rise into the body. I have often thought of it as an Eternal Spring, a reminder that even at the farthest edge of the journey, renewal is already waiting beneath our steps.
I Began To Understand This Through A Simple Practice That Developed Quietly Over Years Of Running.
Somewhere along the way I discovered that if I allowed my toes to spread gently, opening like a small fan as my foot met the ground, the entire structure of my body began to reorganize itself. The landing softened. My balance improved. Ankles that had once felt uncertain began to find their strength. What started as a small physical adjustment became something more like a conversation with the earth.
I began to feel a subtle awakening in the center of the foot — that Eternal Spring point — as though each step was not simply contact with the ground, but a receiving of it. Running became less about effort and more about somatic sensing. Less about force and more about relationship.
As a child I often ran barefoot without thinking about any of this. There was no technique, no theory, no awareness of posture or energy - Only Movement.
For a brief period when I was very young, I ran on my forefeet, as children sometimes do, the body instinctively protecting itself through lightness. Only later do we begin to forget these natural intelligences as shoes narrow our toes — or habits develop that even reshape the structure itself.
During my years as a body worker I saw this pattern often. Women would come in with persistent pain in their lower backs, hips, and knees, and again and again the story led downward to the same quiet habit: years spent balancing the body forward in high-heeled shoes. When the foot is asked to live at an unnatural angle, the rest of the body must negotiate the cost. The spine compensates. The hips tighten. The knees absorb what the foundation can no longer carry.
Many Despaired At The Idea Of Doing Without High Heeled Shoes!
Along with other invitations back toward strength, I would sometimes offer a negotiable remedy which I myself used when I was a fashion model — I would share the memory from my own childhood, how naturally I had once moved on my forefeet, and how certain strengthening exercises could help the foot remember some of that forgotten stability. Nothing forced, only a gradual re-education.
I would say, “When you are not wearing your high heeled shoes spend some time walking on your tip toes (forefeet) until you are in the habit of walking on your tip toes while wearing them.” The body often responds well when it is reminded rather than corrected.
Yet I sometimes wonder if the body ever truly forgets. Perhaps every human foot still carries the memory of those earlier movements — not only our own childhood running, but the long human story itself.
The wonder of billions of feet having crossed this earth in search of food, safety, meaning, and belonging
Every life carried forward by these humble structures
The Feet May Very Well Be The History Professors Of The Human Journey.
In my own life I have come to trust awareness as my guide and a kind of files editor for my consciousness. Not a force that tears things apart, but something more like a patient revealer.
When we begin to face ourselves, to see more clearly, unnecessary tensions often loosen on their own. Old fears lose their authority. Patterns that once felt permanent begin to reorganize themselves without struggle. Something long held in storage begins to open.
Perhaps this is why the journey ends with the feet. From our first toddling steps, when we discover the miracle of standing upon the earth, to the many thousands of miles they carry us, the feet quietly accompany every chapter of our becoming. They walk us through our searching, our losses, our awakenings, and our small daily beginnings. And one day, as quietly as they first learned to stand, they complete their work and release us back into the great mystery from which we came.
Just think how many billions of feet have touched this earth in this way — learning balance, seeking belonging, finding their path, and finally laying their journey down?
