Honest Humanity

An honorable human relationship -- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" -- is a process of deepening the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

- Adrienne Rich

Restor(y)ing the Body!

"You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the body. Somewhere there is a place where the two ends meet and become interlocked. And that is the place where one cannot say whether it is matter, or what one calls psyche."  -- Carl Jung

My good friend and collaborative partner, Dana, and I have been working together to create a mind + body integrative healing practice, which we have affectionately named 'Restor(y)ing the Body'. Essentially, we work together to explore the unique ways in which our clients carry their own personal stories in their physical bodies.  Much of the work we do reflects the above idea from Carl Jung, as we aim to help people discover the precise places where their ideas about themselves and their physical expressions have become interlocked in symptomatic ways.   In our practice and our workshops, we use a variety of methods to help people explore and transform these constricting patterns that exist in both the body and the mind.  These methods include (but are not limited to!) body work, shamanic techniques, energy and vibrational medicine interventions, guided meditation, and authentic movement exercises.

We also passionately agree with psychologist and spiritual teacher, Judith Blackstone, when she suggests that "our fixed grasp on ourselves and the world is not just mental but also somatic. There are rigid holding patterns throughout the whole body, limiting our capacity for cognition, emotional responsiveness and physical sensation.  Even our sensory perception is limited by the psychologically based constrictions throughout our whole body".  The real thrill for us has been watching people rediscover the magic of who they are, by reconnecting with the wisdom that can be found when the mind and body begin to dialogue at the same point of reference.

We LOVE this work, and are so excited to start sharing it with more individuals and groups of people.  If you or someone you know would be interested in beginning to learn how to re-write their own "story", whether through a private session or a workshop experience with us, please feel free to message us on our Facebook page: Restor(y)ing the Body, or email us at restoryingthebody@gmail.com!

Namaste,
Whitney & Dana

True Self.

Lover.
Filled with wonder.
Playmate of the Universe.
More curious than afraid - a steadfast friend to Mystery.
Soft.
Tender.
So soft and tender.
Spacious enough to include all beings.
Different than trustworthy: Entrusted.
The way a river has a course, yet is absolutely Free.

Divine Formlessness

In this culture, most of us remember learning about the Judeo-Christian concept of God when we were very young.  Perhaps the background for this learning was deep, rich and mysterious.  Or maybe our exposure to religion often felt stuffy and bland.  The ideas we formed about this God may have been wonderful or menacing or terrifying or healing or comforting or even confusing.  I know that one of my early associations to "learning about God" involved a felt-board with felt cut-outs of animals that I could arrange on Noah's felt-ark according to my own whims.  With all this power to pick and choose who might survive the flood, I really questioned the necessity of alligators in my version of this brave new world.  A little later on in my religious education, I read about this same flood from a leather-bound bible that included a little sketch of a woman on a rock, gripping a small infant in her arms while these turbulent flood waters rose up around her.  If I had been familiar with swear words like this at the time, I'm pretty sure I would have shouted or cried out to the tune of "What the FUCK?"!!

Instead, I ran crying into my parents bedroom and demanded an explanation!  What was I supposed to make of this?!  Had I not been told that God was a powerfully safe, wise, moral, benevolent, grandfather type of God?  One that LOVED THE WORLD SO MUCH that he gave his only begotten son?  (I don't think I knew what the word 'begotten' meant, but I sure knew that phrase by heart). None of this made any sense and my whole spiritual-worldview was consequently hanging by a thread!  I imagine that was one of my mother's more unwelcome parenting moments in some ways.  She didn't have a satisfying answer for me, and likely didn't have a satisfying answer for herself either.  I've thought about that moment many times as I've moved along my particular spiritual path.  Because, as it turns out, this capacity to question and wrestle with the image (i.e. form) of God that's being presented to me has remained a consistent, and almost involuntary function for me.  And despite many moments of uncomfortable disillusionment, I consider this to be one of the great gifts of human consciousness.

The gift, as I understand it, is this: my questioning mind has not limited my receptivity to the many expressions of God in my life.  In fact, so far, the inverse has been true for me.  I have not had to exclude possible mediums through which Divine Mystery or Presence or Purpose might reveal Itself to me.  Nor have I needed to limit the ways I might be able to approach This Mystery.  God has been God in everything from Vacation Bible School and charismatic church gatherings, to gong baths, Sufi mysticism, poetry from Mary Oliver, the novels of Barbara Kingsolver, yoga practice, the Muslim call to prayer, quantum physics, microbiology, Hindu shrines, Jungian psychology, mountain ranges, weeping willow trees, my husband's heart beat, shamanic journeys, remembered dreams, top 40 music hits, conversations with friends, conversations with enemies, and even those dreadful alligators.  It's a thrilling way to orient to the world when you believe that around any corner or behind any set of eyes (human or animal), one might encounter Divine Mystery!  

Another curious consequence of this openness towards the Divine Personality has been that I tend to shame and neglect less and less parts of my own personality as well.  Maybe this is because I learned that mankind was made in God's own image around the same time I left those alligators to fend for themselves during the Great Felt-Board Flood!  If God is truly limitless, then perhaps being made in God's own image allows us to become wildly undefinable too.  I'm reminded of the way God described God's Self to Moses, saying only this:  "I AM WHO I AM, I AM BECOMING WHO I AM BECOMING, I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE" (Amplified Version).  I also take great comfort and inspiration from the first three sets of commandments that God gave to Moses during that same Mt. Sinai conversation.  First) there's no other God than Me.  Second) you better not try to form any image of Me.  Third) don't even name Me.  

Whew!  Now, see if you can orient yourself to that Divine paradox of nameless, formless specificity!? For me, it's become such a perfect set of instructions to keep me company on my own spiritual quest. From this vantage point, I can never assume I know this God completely, but I can always assume this God knows God's Self entirely.  Does that not sound like the most wild invitation into a simultaneously thrilling and humbling relationship with Mystery?  Both God and mankind can then be always on the move together!  And thank God -- because without movement we would all be disconnected and dead.  Final note:  I still don't have a satisfying answer for why this Great Flood is part of The Mystery, but with Great Doubt in fixed ideas and Great Faith in the limitless of possibilities, I'm really quite content to keep questioning.  After all, it seems that all the great heroes of this particular faith tradition (Job, Jacob, Abraham, Jesus, and maybe Eve?!) modeled a similar kind of attitude of open-hearted wrestling with These Mysteries.  

Born Again (from Within!).

“There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves.” - Thomas Merton