Walking into Aging, Wisdom, and Embodied Presence,

By Debbie Rosas

I am living inside a body I’ve come to love more deeply with time. I am still dancing. Still sensing. Still learning. But now, I move slower—not from loss, but from reverence. I listen more. I push less. I let the moment shape me instead of trying to shape it. And what guides me, more than ever, are my feet. Everything begins with the feet.

They are not just my foundation—they are my compass, my teachers, my link to the sacred ground I stand on. They carry the stories of my life: the ambition, the joy, the heartbreak, the healing. And even now, they continue to teach me— and especially about alignment, truth, and the very quiet strength that lives beneath the surface.

These days, I dance barefoot not just because it feels natural, but because it brings me home. Back to the pulse of the Earth. Back to the language of sensation. Back to a place where movement becomes meditation. I didn’t always listen to my feet. I actually used to see them very simply as only functional—not really truly foundational.

I squeezed them into shoes that didn’t fit the shape of my life. I pushed through their fatigue in service of appearance, not presence. But now, I pay attention. I notice the way they ground me when I’m overwhelmed. How they whisper when something is out of balance. How they anchor me solidly to the ground when the world feels all too fast.

Feet and my whole body tell the truth. They don’t over-explain or pretend. They speak to me through sensation. And when I truly listen, they guide me back, not just to posture, but to presence. Taking care of my feet and my whole body has become a daily act of devotion. I touch them. I massage them. And, I especially sincerely thank them.

I stretch my toes wide like roots into the floor. I reach my hands into the space around me. I allow myself to make sounds for breathing even more deeply, and I use all my movement as a lifestyle and a ritual to connect with all of me; my mind, my emotions, and my spirit. I meet myself where I am, just as I am. Barefoot and aging and alive.

I’ve also returned to what has always sustained me beneath the movement: sensing, meditating, writing. These are my sacred quiet roots. These are the things I did long before I had words for them. These are the things that continue to hold me when everything else falls away. Poetry, for me, is always The Body’s Way voice made visible.

Poetry carries the sensations I observe into language, giving shape to the unspoken moving about inside me. Meditation, in my life today, is not about stillness for the sake of silence. It’s about creating space to listen to my body’s voices, and without rushing to notice the breath, the shift, the or even the very whisper of a sensation before it passes.

It is a practice of returning. Again and again. The poem I share with you now was born from this way of being. It is not about the past. It is about this moment—this body—this breath. It is a love letter to my aging, awakened body. I offer it not just as words, but as an invitation: to pause and listen. To sense and return to the foundation of your being.

To let your body speak through poetry. To let your breath become a practice of presence. Let this poem open a doorway. A breath. A remembering. Because the way we are in relationship with our body and life and the way we stand tells a story. And mine, like yours, is still being written, step by sacred step toward a new beginning.

Aging With My Body 

I have stood with this body through seasons and years.
I have grown older with her—not in resistance, but in relationship.

Lines have appeared, but so has depth.
Pain has visited, but so has wisdom.
Slowness has arrived, but so has presence.

I no longer measure my body by what she used to do.
I honor her for what she knows.
For how she adjusts, adapts, and continues to show up.

Aging is not decay—it is deepening.
It is standing with the self-more tenderly.
It is hearing the quieter signals.
It is loving the changing landscape of skin, muscle, and rhythm.

I do not want to go back.
I want to go in.
I want to stay close to this living, breathing, sacred instrument—
my body.

I am not just function.
I am divine design.

I am feet with 26 bones—tiny architects of your freedom.
Ligaments that leap. Muscles that remember.
I balance your whole being.
I dance when you do. I rest when you rest.
I open so you can rise.

Let my toes bloom.
Let my arches lift.
Let my heels echo the past.
Let the balls of my feet guide you forward—and backward—through memory.

Within me live 7,000 nerve endings.
I am your compass.
Your whisperer.
Your antenna to the Earth.

I invite you to wake up.
To stand up.
To show up.

I am your first connection to the ground of truth.
Every step is a conversation.
Every moment, an invitation to return to yourself.

So feel me.
Thank me.
Stand with me. In me. As me.

And together, we will walk forward—
Rooted.
Receptive.
Radiant.
And—through every stage of life—alive.

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