Usually we have quite a collection of paradoxical beliefs. We’re holding energy that is both old and wise, you and foolish, believing and doubting. Embracing all of it, we grow, gradually re-educating all the cells toward self-love, which in turn open us to the flow of our own spirit. The object is not to “be spiritual” because one miraculously stumbled across the truth. The spiritual is inherently beautiful. The object is to discover and destroy the lies that say otherwise.
The full drama between the truth of ourselves and the lies we have accepted acts out in muscle groups that relax or tense, and breathing patterns that are shallow or deep. If we feel safe, we express that freely in our body postures, our voices and movements. IF we’ve been taught that our bodies and many of our natural feelings are not acceptable, we set up complex distortions, subterfuge, and illusions. Feeling unsafe, we create masks that we hope will protect us or be accepted by the outside world.
The imagined split between body and soul is the great, great grandparent of most of the duality we experience on Earth. Through the centuries of spiritual questing, we’ve periodically pronounced the body originally sinful, a temptation, and a distraction that deduces us to explore our senses at the risk of our souls.
We’ve decreed that it must be mortified, shamed, punished, denied, hidden, or at the very least overcome. Even if we defiantly chanted “eat, drink and be merry,” afterward we often felt guilty and ran to our prayers and confessions for forgiveness. Maybe it’s not okay to feel this good, or have this much fun?
Overstatements? Probably. But ask yourself:
How often do I link laughter, dance or the sheer joy of being alive in a physical body with my spirit?
Do I experience Spirit present in my sexuality?
Am I critical or approving of my body?
Do I view the aging of the body as enemy or another rich cycle of life?
Whether we celebrate or deny it, the body is with us as vehicle, focus and record of our earth experiences. The goal is to synthesize spiritual mindfulness with awareness and appreciate of the body. All of us are spiritual beings having a physical experience. No matter how or even if we define it, or whether or not we formulize it in a religion or theology, we carry a longing to bring our physical experience in sync with our spirit.
The elements of the Earth are in our bones, the rivers and oceans run in our bloodstreams, the wind tides of life fill our lungs, fire energizes our minds and bodies. Our heart beats entrain with the beat of the earth. We need the sun as we need the great forest in order to live. From the sacrificed animal and the abundant harvest, our cells carry the life force of all that we take in. We cycle to them; they cycle to us in an interdependent, circular dance of life.
Whenever we don’t listen to the body, we don’t listen to the Earth. If we don’t regard nature, can we respect our own nature and that of all others and the life-force behind nature that is the mother of us all?
Seed Thought for Meditation
Mind exists in every cell in my body and can be contacted.
