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# Remembering to Flow
- URL: https://emilymorter.com/remembering-to-flow/
- Published: 2020-07-20T15:19:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-17T05:57:01.000Z
- Description: dead chickens, grief and safety, nervous system flow, soft and tender moon
- Author: Emily Morter
- Tags: Writing

I'm writing this wintry July from within the second lockdown in Melbourne. We lost our beloved chickens to a fox this week. It was a shock to be face to face with the cycles of life and death in such a visceral way (literally picking up pieces of viscera, bloodied feathers and stiff headless bodies to bury). The tending to death felt very familiar and important and has left our hearts cracked open. We miss you Pippy, Flinchy and Brave. We are so grateful for your gentle lives.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5d/ec/5dece2dd-1b31-4e64-87f1-1d453618bd9f/content/images/2026/08/7b1c8264-6e83-49d0-bd15-f0910ddcc04d_4608x3456-jpeg.jpg)

A graveside song for the chickens, Jul 2020

This feeling [stretched between gratitude and grief](https://embodimentmatters.com/francis-weller/?ref=emilymorter.com) is reminding me how things are never black and white, never just one thing or another. My binary thinking is being challenged as I try to flow within the paradox of life. I think we are all facing **grief** since COVID changed our world. The grief of everything we've lost, of unmet expectations, the sorrows of the world, ancestral grief surfacing. Our modern values of progress, permanence and neat separation are coming apart at the seams with the pandemic. We can see how entangled and complex we are.  
  
I see this complexity within the current notion of **safety**. We are being asked to isolate, keep our distance, wear masks, not touch people outside our household. All for very valid, scientific reasons that increase safety and protect the most vulnerable in our community. And at the same time, I feel most safe and secure when living in community, closely connected to loved ones, seeing people's faces, laughing, singing, hugging and sharing food. How can I live with this paradox? How can I create safe containers for people as I'm working? How can my community create safe spaces so that everyone has an equal chance of living a healthy life? These are long term questions and have no easy answers. But I always find starting with myself helpful. *How can I intentionally create a feeling of safety within myself?*

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5d/ec/5dece2dd-1b31-4e64-87f1-1d453618bd9f/content/images/2026/08/4987c904-3225-44bc-892f-c0ae9197d0d0_4608x3456-jpeg.jpg)

Our first precious egg, Oct 2017

I have been remembering what I know about the autonomic nervous system, that it is designed to flow through cycles of **engagement > activation > rest**. To build up charge and then discharge. The attunement of the nervous system is patterned by our caregivers in infancy. For many of us this means hypervigilance, avoidance or disassociation is a normal baseline state. And we may remain stuck in one phase, without ever flowing or discharging. This is where health problems or dis-ease can arise. We start to remember ease and flow in our nervous system by:

- finding our centre and developing the ability to feel our whole body and trust what it tells us
- keeping familiar and predictable rhythms (particularly how you eat, sleep and move day to day)
- tending to secure relationships with others (both human and non human), with place and with the divine/the unknown
- practising awareness skills (mindfulness beyond the individual), such as listening to birds, observing the plants growing nearby, feeling the temperature and humidity of the air on your skin
- asking have you had your daily dose of beauty, rest, nature and nurture?

But here's another both/and paradox for you... it's not all personal. We **co-regulate** our nervous systems. So you may be feeling anxious, panicky, tight and stressed because you are eating junk food, only sleeping 4hrs a night, your desk set up at home is a mess, you forgot to walk or hydrate today AND because it's a global pandemic, daily life is very far from predictable, your partner lost their job, your neighbours are wearing masks and you don't have any facial cues, historical trauma, institutional pressures... not all of this is under personal control. *No one can regulate for us, but we also can't do it alone.*

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5d/ec/5dece2dd-1b31-4e64-87f1-1d453618bd9f/content/images/2026/08/2b8eb15f-81e1-44d5-b287-71eae9ee4f45_4608x3456-jpeg-1.jpg)

New moon prayers, Jul 2020

Tonight is the second Cancer New Moon in a month, exact at 3:32am Tuesday in Melbourne. It's a time to honour the limitations and practical barriers we are living with. To appreciate the small daily actions that support you. To practice slow, steady change with deep compassion and gentleness. 

If you are really struggling this month, please reach out. We need strong containers to hold us when we face our grief, so find trusted support. And know that numbness and denial are valid and necessary sometimes when this isn't available. I also love these [emergency somatic strategies](https://mcusercontent.com/4acc6542c463e72f352266981/files/42aada32-a5ca-46c9-a8ef-8862f23a01cf/Somatic%5FResourcing%5FStrategies%5FHandout%5FSarah%5FSchlote%5F2020%5FA4.pdf?ref=emilymorter.com) of self containment and orienting if you are alone or just need to hold it all together.  
  
We'll be lighting candles this evening and looking at photos of our lovely chooks and crying and feeling soft and tender and held by each other's breath and heartbeat.  
  
Much love,  
  
Emily