Inner Authority

"I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

-- Hermann Hesse

Remembering what we already know.

I want to learn how to let Love move through me unobstructed.

Believing that particular Resource is Eternally and Infinitely available.

The Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, and the End.

Dwelling right inside of me.

Perhaps then I could freely give That which I knew could never be exhausted.

Love.
Love.
Love.

Love.

My soul says, "It's True already, you know?"

And I can only respond, "I'm working on Remembering".


-- Whitney Logan

Creation According to Eve? (Humor me).

Somewhat paradoxically, my movement away an over-identification with church dogma began during a course on the Old Testament at a Baptist university in Texas. Like any good overview class should, we started with the creation narratives (there are two!) in the book for Genesis. To my utter amazement, the ordained Baptist minister that was teaching my class let us in on this little secret: one of the two creation stories suggests literarily (not literally, but literar(y)-ily) that Eve is the apex of creation! Essentially, the literary movement of the story tells us that God ordered "His" creations to be increasingly more complex throughout the course of those seven days; the cherry on top being woman (Eve).

That struck me as supremely confusing at the time, as I didn't know how to reconcile this with the rest of the things I'd been taught through my religious education so far. Consequently, it took years and years of letting that gem of knowledge marinate in my mind until it eventually collided with the teachings of other spiritual wisdom traditions for me to start making some new assumptions.

But, let's get back to the juicy tale here! If Eve is really the apex of creation, why then did God say all that nonsense about giving Adam a "helper" (insert mental image of woman in an apron without the right to vote) when he created her? Well, turns out: God called Eve a "helper" using the same language "He" also used to describe "Himself" in the role as "helper". The Hebrew phrase is "ezer kenegdo", and it is only used again throughout the rest of the whole Old Testament to describe the kind of help God offers to mankind.

Eve is starting to seem like less of a disappointment right now, huh? Well, it gets better. In light of this new information let's revisit that infamous "how Eve got tricked by the snake into ruining everything for the rest of us" Garden scene and examine a few of the other symbols we find there.  We can no longer necessarily assume that Eve is somehow dumber than Adam and consequently more likely to get "tricked" by such a wily snake like she's some sort of naive damsel in distress, right?

So, what's the deal with Eve and seemingly spineless exchange with the serpent then? Well, here's a fun fact: a serpent or snake in nearly every other ancient spiritual tradition is often considered a feminine symbol, as it (like a woman) has an intimate, embodied knowledge about the cycles of life, death, and re-birth through it's molting (skin-shedding) process. Menstruating women are also connected to this intimate knowledge of the cycles of life through the shedding of their uterine (endometrial) lining, which is how the two creatures got linked to one another. So curious!

Now if we decide to take a little risk and consider that neither the serpent nor Eve are all bad, what are we to make of this whole business of eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (despite being told not to quite emphatically!)? On a symbolic level, eating from that tree in particular sorta sounds to me like a kind of initiation into a new type of moral consciousness. The kind of consciousness that can separate or distinguish "good" from "bad". I imagine that developmental psychologists might suggest an interesting parallel between the timing of typical menstruation and the various stages of moral development.

But let's leave that aside for a moment, and notice that whatever exciting symbolism may be there, we still need to deal with this business of getting kicked out of the "Garden" after being initiated into "knowing what's up" re: good and evil. Is it just because they broke the rules? And what do we make of the snake's seductive little statement to Eve about how eating the fruit would make her "like God"?

First, let's maybe ask ourselves how it is that knowledge of "Good and Evil" makes a person like God? I have a friend that suggested to me that perhaps knowing about "Good and Evil" is the only way we can really examine our choices and know ourselves. Essentially, consciousness of ourselves is possible when we are able to understand the relationship between "Good and Evil", and then recognize our own power to make informed choices.

Second, let's reflect on why we understand this resulting banishment from the Garden as such a devastating fate for our spiritual ancestors. What is so compelling about the Garden that this makes us feel so convinced that this was an excruciating experience of loss? The symbol of the Garden itself suggests fertility, new life, the womb, the lap of the Mother, the place of fusion with Caregivers, and innocence about our own Responsibility in the world. I imagine that the last time we all felt that kind of unconscious union was probably right before we became conscious of our "separateness" from "mother".

Regardless of whether or not we are projecting our own sense of loss onto their exile, we seem to be able to deeply relate to this anguish and shame that Adam and Eve experience. We think we know that this is a very terrible moment when Adam and Eve begin to feel their "separateness" from God and each other, and try to hide themselves out of shame. They are able to recognize their nakedness (vulnerability) for the first time, seem to have a negative judgment about this, and are consequently alienated from the blissful privilege of unconsciousness that the Garden had allowed them to enjoy up until then.

Yet, this same story also says that God made man and woman in "His" own image, and that "He" saw that this was very good. If we're going to consider everything else literar-ily, we might start to wonder if this story is not just the perfect set up for the most epic Redemption tale of all time.  A real prelude of sorts for what was would happen next (i.e. Jesus Christ: the personification of this Life, Death, And Re-Birth phenomena that seems to make the world go round).

And why did we need Jesus to do this for us? Drumroll, please: I'm inclined to think that it was so that we could have the courage to Remember that the Garden is within us! Jesus' big message was all, "hey guys, you don't need religious folks in fancy robes to stand between you and the Divine in order to mediate that relationship anymore". Maybe some people took him seriously, but mostly, it seems to me that the religious culture in the West has literalized their way right back in the same legalistic "Oh no, we've been kicked out of the Garden and are so ashamed, so let's come up with a bunch of rules and rituals that will help alleviate our guilt and anxiety" system that Jesus made a point to criticize thousands of years ago. I don't like speaking for Jesus, and so I won't. But I personally like to assume that he would be pretty disappointed by the current state of things too.

Speaking of Jesus, rumor has it that he was trying to bring Good News to people! I believe - passionately - that his "Good News" was a message about we can know that place of union (Garden) with God inside of ourselves!  For real.

AND SO IN CONCLUSION(ish), and because I think it's worth considering, I'm boldly saying, "hey people, these stories might be telling us that the Gospel truth sounds like this: turns out, we can choose (in any moment) to leave or return or leave and return again to this place of union with the Divine". Connection, Separation, Re-connection. Life, Death, Re-birth. The trees do it. Our cells do it. Snakes do it. The seasons too. The human heart beat reminds us of this rhythm: contraction, expansion, contraction. Perhaps the sound of the Universe is echoing in our own chests for a reason.

And we get to be conscious of it! What a gift.

This gift of consciousness given from God to the snake, and then from the snake to Eve, and Eve to Adam - might be the kind of gift that empowers us with the exquisite creativity - and very real responsibility - that makes us "like God" in some important way. We too can choose how to use this gift of consciousness: creatively or destructively (for Good or for Evil, so to speak).

As a being that could offer Adam the kind of "help" that God offers to mankind, we might even want to conclude that Eve had good motives for sharing that fruit with him after she had tasted it herself. I think I love her for her conscious courage.

**And by the way, any good parent (Divine or otherwise) knows that if you want to be sure to get your kids to eat something strange and unfamiliar you should try telling them something like "eat anything you want.... except for this one special thing... that's only for grown-ups, which I've willingly placed here unlocked and unguarded".

Nice trick, God.
 
And thank you.... for trusting us enough to let us become conscious of the Mystery.

The initiation was brutal, but the reward is so sweet.

Welcoming Rejection.

"The gift in rejection is that it can become the new face of liberation".

I've been silently repeating this to myself for several days now, hoping it will stick.  Turns out, I'm weeks away from being 30 years old, and the possibility of rejection is still a big, scary thing for me.

Perhaps too early in my life I suffered from an incomplete initiation into this particularly devastating kind of pain, and have subsequently been trying to avoid it by learning to be "likable enough" in most situations, most of the time.  Today, I'm hoping that these nearly 30 years of life experience have finally allowed me to decided that the price one pays for that comfortable "likable" status is way too high.  Every effort to avoid this experience on the outside, the searing pain of rejection becomes internalized instead.

All too recently - despite years of therapy and other healing interventions - I have discovered that this inner ridicule is still wreaking havoc on select parts of my psyche and bodily systems.  Fortunately, I also know -- largely as a result of all those same years of therapy (etc.) - that many of my initiations into the bitterness of rejection have also carried with them an elixir of healing far beyond any kind of suffering I had feared before.

So, to expand on my original mantra: I'm thinking that the gift in a conscious approach to any experience of rejection is that it may become a powerful teacher on the path of liberation.  Exactly what that teaching will be teaching 'you' is unknown until it's endured, I suppose.

May we have the courage when we need it.

Namaste.

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

Pages 1-6 are missing.

     "… Will m[a]tter then be utterly [destr]oyed or not?"
     The Savior replied, "Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other. They will dissolve again into their own proper root. For the nature of matter is dissolved into what belongs to its nature. Anyone with two ears able to hear should listen!"
     Then Peter said to him, "You have been explaining every topic to us; tell us one other thing. What is the sin of the world?"
     The Savior replied, "There is no such thing as sin; rather you yourselves are what produces sin when you act in accordance with the nature of adultery, which is called 'sin.' For this reason, the Good came among you, pursuing (the good) which belongs to every nature. It will set it within its root."
     Then he continued. He said, "This is why you get si[c]k and die: because [you love] what de[c]ei[ve]s [you]. [Anyone who] thinks should consider (these matters)!
     "[Ma]tter gav[e bi]rth to a passion which has no Image because it derives from what is contrary to nature. A disturbing confusion then occurred in the whole body. That is why I told you, 'Become content at heart, while also remaining discontent and disobedient; indeed become contented and agreeable (only) in the presence of that other Image of nature.' Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen!"
     When the Blessed One had said these things, he greeted them all. "Peace be with you!" he said. "Acquire my peace within yourselves!
     "Be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying, 'Look over here!' or 'Look over there!' For the child of true Humanity exists within you. Follow it! Those who search for it will find it.
     "Go then, preac[h] the good news about the Realm. [Do] not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it."
After he had said these things, he departed from them.
     But they were distressed and wept greatly. "How are we going to go out to the rest of the world to announce the good news about the Realm of the child of true Humanity?" they said. "If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?"
     Then Mary stood up. She greeted them all, addressing her brothers and sisters, "Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and will shelter you. Rather we should praise his greatness, for he has prepared us and made us true Human beings."
      When Mary had said these things, she turned their heart [to]ward the Good, and they began to deba[t]e about the wor[d]s of [the Savior].
     Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don't because we haven't heard them."
     Mary responded, "I will teach you about what is hidden from you." And she began to speak these words to them.
     She said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.'
He answered me, 'How wonderful you are for not wavering at seeing me! For where the mind is, there is the treasure.'
     I said to him, 'So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it <with> the soul <or> with the spirit?'
     The Savior answered, 'A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. 'Rather the mind, which exists between these two, sees the vision an[d] that is w[hat … ]'

(Pages 11-14 are missing.)

     " '… it.'
     "And Desire said, 'I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?'
     "The soul answered, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You (mis)took the garment (I wore) for my (true) self. And you did not recognize me.'
     "After it had said these things, it left rejoicing greatly.
     "Again, it came to the third Power, which is called 'Ignorance.' [It] examined the soul closely, saying, 'Where are you going? You are bound by wickedness. Indeed you are bound! Do not judge!'
     "And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgement? I have been bound, but I have not bound (anything). They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.'
     "When the soul had brought the third Power to naught, it went upward and saw the fourth Power. It had seven forms. The first form is darkness; the second is desire; the third is ignorance; the fourth is zeal for death; the fifth is the realm of the flesh; the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the flesh; the seventh is the wisdom of the wrathful person. These are the seven Powers of Wrath.
     "They interrogated the soul, 'Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?'
     "The soul replied, saying, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died. In a [wor]ld, I was set loose from a world [an]d in a type, from a type which is above, and (from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on, for the time of the due season of the aeon, I will receive rest i[n] silence.' "
     After Mary had said these things, she was silent, since it was up to this point that the Savior had spoken to her.
     Andrew responded, addressing the brothers and sisters, "Say what you will about the things she has said, but I do not believe that the S[a]vior said these things, f[or] indeed these teachings are strange ideas."
     Peter responded, bringing up similar concerns. He questioned them about the Savior: "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
     Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
     "Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
     After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.

Confession

I used to belong to a very charismatic evangelical Christian community when I was very young.

Ever since formally leaving that community I've wondered how to make sense of the power I witnessed then.

At first I tried to live without respect for religion altogether,
But my longing for the Great Spirit was still within me.

No high in the world was like the Ecstasy I remembered
When encountering the Lord God Almighty.

So, finally, I surrendered
Letting grief and fear visit me.
And a part of my heart returned with them.

Caring about my own suffering returned me to myself.

Yesterday, it dawned on me how to reconcile ephemeral worldviews along the journey.

The way the Lover longs to see their Beloved's face from all angles, I want to discover God in every Place.
To know God in precisely the biblical sense of the word: "visceral, erotic, initiatory, epiphanic".

Changing who I AM
With every Encounter.

I approach the Throne Room shyly now; peering up from behind lowered eyes so carefully.

This way of Loving God is what has truly Saved me.

Loss; whose other side is salvation....

Everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-- Mary Oliver

Healing the Ancestral Lines

Recently, I had a beautiful and strange experience called a Tarpana ceremony. Tarpana is an Ayurvedic ritual that combines physical massage with spiritual journeying (or "active imagination") into a timeless, spaceless place in which I was encouraged to have conversations with people (alive and dead) with whom I have established or inherited unhealthy relationship patterns.

The Tarpana ritual turned out to be much more powerful than I expected at first. Combining bodywork with spiritual and psychological sensitivity helped me feel into the places in my body where I was holding onto these attachments. From there, I could then work to release these holding patterns in the psyche and the body simultaneously. I have done many, many kinds of therapy and spiritual healing rituals in my life, but this one in particular brought something unexpected: a new sense of personal responsibility.

Let me explain.  

After the ceremony, I felt myself start to understand - both mentally and viscerally - that my attitudes towards the people in my life (past and present) manifest as inner attitudes towards myself. I could see how all the negative energy I’d been directing towards any of my relationships created the same experience of negativity in my own body! For example: if I was defending against empathy and understanding in a relationship with someone else, I was blocking off the flow of empathy and understanding within my own system. Alternatively, when I allowed empathy and understanding to arise towards this person, those same energies began to flow freely in my body again.

Many intuitive healers talk about the role of psychological or spiritual sickness in the manifestation of physical dis-ease. I saw this very clearly during my Tarpana ritual. It was as if the innate flow of healing energy was being released from behind a dam of my own creation. It became suddenly obvious to me that while the abundance I seek is within my own reach, it is also not freely available if I’m willfully defended against others - alive or dead; present or absent; known or unknown.

As Rumi says, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it".

May all beings Awaken. Namaste.

Human Consciousness

“Over three decades of systematic studies of the human consciousness have led me to conclusions that many traditional psychiatrists and psychologists might find implausible if not downright incredible.  I now firmly believe that consciousness is more than an accidental by-product of the neurophysiological and biochemical processes taking place in the human brain.  I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence.  We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.”

-- Stanislav Grof, MD, PhD 

Fruit of the Spirit

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a shamanic retreat at a beautiful retreat center near St. Louis.  For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of shamanism, here's a few rough talking points: a shaman is an indigenous (i.e. in some way native to the "place" they practice) healer.  They often facilitate "journeys" to transpersonal realms so that people might have experiences of healing and transformation they may not otherwise have access to in their ordinary waking state of consciousness.  In shamanism, there is also a deep belief in reciprocal exchange between all potential and manifest energies.  In other words, it's possible for us to have a mutually influential relationship (and an ongoing conversation!) with all things - visible and invisible.

During this recent retreat, for example, I was able to receive some information about the psychological origins of a current experience of dis-ease in my physical body.  From this previously mentioned belief in the possibility of reciprocal relationship with all energies, I was encouraged to ask the dis-ease itself about it's origins.  I asked this specific energy why it had manifested at this time in my life.  It answered back immediately: "because of your belief in scarcity".  I also asked the dis-ease where the physical origins of this energy block - or holding pattern - were located in my body, and it responded by showing me the back of my heart.  I was working with a woman who is both a shaman and a neurologist during this particular exercise, and she reminded me that the back side of the body often holds the unconscious beliefs associated with each organ or energy center in the body.  Subsequently, I then decided to then ask that energy center if it would allow whatever was unconscious to become conscious (i.e. unblocked).  After a moment or two, I received this answer:  "THE LOVE IS REAL".

I didn't understand that message in it's entirety immediately, but my body responded by softening in such a way that convinced me that this answer must be exactly right.  Later that evening - in the middle of a Despacho Ceremony - I kept noticing feelings of the deepest kind of tenderness in my body.  This feeling of tenderness was connected to my own experience of love towards the many energies and persons that were being honored by this ceremony.  Spontaneously, I understood that what Spirt meant by "THE LOVE IS REAL" was that my own experience of love in my physical body is a real experience of Love.  At that moment, I could literally feel my heart pouring itself into every other cell in body, and I wept many tears for many hours out of this experience of profoundly loving overflow.

That night, I had a dream.  In the dream, I became aware of a feeling of deeply satisfying joy in my body.  As I went searching for the source of this joy, some kind of disembodied dream voice explained to me that "joy is also experienced on the inside".  Fortuitously, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down all that I could remember from the dream before falling back to sleep. During our lunch break the next day, I went outside to find a place to make "Sand Art" (another shamanic ritual involving reciprocal exchange with nature).  While gathering up some sticks I intended to use to enclose my sand art with, I happened to stumble upon this literal sign in nature that read "JOY":

As you may be able to see, I placed my sticks in a circle at the foot of this altar to JOY, and then began to clear away the leaves with the boundaries of the sticks.  Underneath the leaves, I found a small stump.  Upon uncovering this stump, I noticed that it was literally shaped like an anatomically accurate human heart!  See image:

When I turned the stump over, I discovered that the entire back side of this heart-shaped stump was covered in ICE!  The "back of the heart" was literally frozen over.  Immediately, I allowed myself to feel into that real experience of love I now believed to be available in my own body, placed my hand over the icy stump, and proceeded to send love and warmth to that frozen heart until I felt nothing but warm wetness underneath my palm.  At the exact moment I realized the thawing process was complete, the noon-ish sun shifted in the sky just slightly, spilling all of it's radiance onto my face, and casting a perfect shadow from the "JOY" sign right through the center of that heart-shaped stump.  I understood the tender message that the natural world seemed to be speaking to me in that moment, and allowed myself to become conscious of the real experience of joy in my physical body too.

Some moments later, I got up in order to walk away from this sacred space and ran into another literal sign in nature that read "PEACE":

I stood there gazing for at it for a moment, trying to honor the message that might be trying to reveal itself to me.  I felt peaceful, certainly, and could appreciate that this feeling of peace could also become an internal refuge.  But when I tried to walk away from this spot, I felt something pull me back toward it.  I looked all around the little meadow of trees, and only found one other sign:

In a single moment, I remembered (thank you Christian youth camp!) that there's a passage in the Bible lists the "Fruit of the Holy Spirit" in precisely this order:  LOVE, JOY, PEACE... Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.  I laughed out loud, feeling myself filled with gratitude for this newly enlivened teaching, as I suddenly understood in a new, deep way that they are ordered in this way for a reason.  I wondered how much of my life I had spent trying to master self-control in order to gain an experience of love (something that probably got reinforced by this same youth camp, unfortunately).  At this particular moment, however, I could see very clearly the grievous error in this way of thinking, and felt the grace that comes with an embodied understanding of how things could be different.  It seemed that Spirit had given me a living, breathing experience that would continue to help me understand that we must start with a belief in the immediate, experiential, available reality of Love, and everything else we value would flow forth from there.  

Mary Oliver says it this way: "You do not have to be good.  You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". The rest will follow.

The God You Love Is Inside

This magnificent refuge is inside you.
Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway…
Be bold. Be humble.
Put away the incense and forget
the incantations they taught you.
Ask no permission from the authorities.
Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads to the
invisible path that leads you home.

~ St. Theresa of Avila

Divine Mother

Perhaps poetry goes unwritten 

In Your name

Because wordless are your workings

Deeply held in the mysteries of the body

I feel Your whispers

When the Wind raises hair on my neck

Or the moon reaches into

The back of my heart

The dark Earth causes 

Me to weep with wonder

All sensation begins to feel like Your caress,

And all inner movement as searching for You! 

How is it possible to Love this much?

You weave everything into Love, Mother

By never turning your gaze away 

From me.

Unnameable, unknowable

Yet the source of all that is known

You are an Encounter!

The Whole experience of being belongs to You.

In the soft animal of my body, I find

You are Becoming as I become

Transformed into what has always

Been joined as One

There was never irreconcilable loss -

No true leaving;

Only forgetting

Your face is in everything.

The Serpent in the Garden

The Fruit of finding out -

We were never truly separated,

Nor banished from You

Only asked to look for you in darkness too.

I can see and hear and touch and taste and smell again!

Knowing there was never any reason 
to hide
And now, nowhere to run -

But Home.
Where I can find you Eternally
Deep inside the belly 
Of my own beating heart. 

-- Whitney Logan, 2.1.13

The intelligence of 'Trance'.

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone. 

-- Emily Dickinson

There's an incredible book called The Inner World of Trauma by Donald Kalsched.  In the book, Kalsched explores the way self-destructive habits get created in response to early traumas we might experienced.  Essentially, he suggests that these self-destructive habits were ORIGINALLY intelligent because they allowed us to survive what was unbearable at the time.  As we begin find a way to start looking at these painful habits later in life - the gift and burden of consciousness then becomes learning how to forebear what we once could not in order to give up what no longer helps us thrive.

The intelligence of the psyche will not allow us to go there, however, until we feel authentically safe enough to survive this kind of regression into old psychic injuries.  In my work as a therapist, I often realize that the symptomatic 'acting out' that brings people into my office must then be intrinsically linked to an unresolved feeling of danger.  Figuring out how to help people get safe in their bodies, safe in their relationship with me, and safely connected to their own inner reality feels like the heart and soul of what I might hope to achieve with each new person I see.

Lately, I've become convinced that figuring out how to create this safe space for someone else requires a certain reverence for the 'symptoms' themselves.  When we approach our destructive habits with curiosity and compassion, I believe we afford ourselves a chance to learn how to follow their trail into an accurate understanding of their symbolic function.  Once we can see clearly how our own attempts to survive our lives may no longer be helping us to do so, we might be able to forgive ourselves for holding on to what hurts us and begin to let go.  It sounds like somewhat of a paradox, of course, but I truly believe that it's our capacity to honor the original intelligence that created these personal habits that imprison us the most, that then gives us the possibility to begin living beyond them.

Namaste.

Soul Dance

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced

WE HAVE COME.


by Jewel Mathieson

Book Evangelism!

The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren
A Little Book on The Human Shadow by Robert Bly
The Deepest Acceptance by Jeff Foster

The Intimate Life by Judith Blackstone

The Bond by Lynne McTaggart

Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber
The Polyvagal Theory by Stephen W. Porges
The Ever Present Origin by Jean Gebser

.... Ready, break!

Be The Mystery.

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. And as you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, this intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world shall cease to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
And to the rushing water speak, I am.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

It's okay to feel things!

My own experiences with intense emotions (both personally and professionally) have convinced me that there is purpose and intelligence inside of all emotional material.  Over the past several years in particular, I've noticed a correlation between the feeling of sadness and the experience of grounding. Often times, when I attempt to slow down and connect to the immediate ground of my being, I also notice that I must allow an experience of genuine sadness to move through me as well.

I've also noticed a correlation between "not wanting to feel sadness", and an avoidance of grounding practices like meditation or deep relaxation.  Yet, I also know that every single time I've allowed this feeling of sadness into my conscious awareness, I wind up with a sense of incredible gratitude for having reconnected to my tender, immediate experience of being.  In fact, those moments of working with this emotion in particular have often taught me that sadness an appropriate expression of grief for having abandoned my immediate experience of myself in the first place.

Consequently, the sadness - or grief - turns out to be the emotional expression that allows me to authentically reconnect with my own wholeness.  My point?  Difficult emotions do not arise to haunt and persecute us, but rather to invite us back into relationship with our whole dynamic selves.

My other point?  The emotional experience is already here whether we acknowledge it consciously or unconsciously.  I once heard a brilliant man express the following sentiment about working with difficult emotions:  "Whatever arises arises.  As a result, we only have two real choices about how we might approach things:  face forwards or ass backwards".  I believe it's precisely this practice of 'facing' ourselves that ultimately reflects our original beauty back to us.

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

Movement Theory!

In this culture, we are typically taught to understand the body as the ultimate biological machine in which the brain functions as a kind of "control" switch board.  Over the past decade of my life, I've been questioning this irreverent attitude towards the body in a really persistent and ongoing way.  My questions are largely intuitive and typically require more experiential learning than theoretical learning. However, once in a while I have the good fortune to stumble upon some fascinating theoretical information about the body that deepens the way in which I experience my own.

Apparently, there are five basic types of human movement that make up something called "The Satisfaction Cycle":  Yielding, Pushing, Reaching, Grasping, and Pulling.  All five of these movements are fundamentally important for human survival and interaction.  BUT - and here's the amazing teacher within this concept - yielding is the foundation for every other movement possibility in this sequence.  In other words: without being able to first yield into something, you cannot push off from it, reach out from there, grasp hold of anything, or pull things back towards yourself.

Why is this so fascinating to me?!  Because what's true in the body is also true in the mind and in the heart, of course!  See if you can make this analogous connection with me: we must first yield into our own authentic desires if we want to be able to move towards, reach out, grasp hold of, and pull them back into ourselves.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly got the message from this culture that being soft and open about what I really wanted to experience in my life would make me an easy target for disappointment.  In recent years, however, I've been able to slowly (sometimes painfully!) unlearn this defensive habit, and experience many tender and beautiful things as a result. It now absolutely stuns and delights me to discover that the movements of my physical body were there all along, revealing this truer picture of things.

So what is yielding and how do we do it?  I imagine we each have to explore this question in our own personal hearts and minds to some degree.  Yet, it's equally interesting to note that Merriam-Webster defines yielding as "lacking rigidity or stiffness; flexible", "disposed to submit or comply", or "productive" (as in "high-yielding wheat").  That's right; yielding can mean "productive"!  As the cornerstone of all other movement possibilities, this makes perfect sense to me.  A seed must be willing to submit to the earth and the rain if it wants to be able to then push, reach, grasp, and pull in all the nourishment it requires to become the fullest (most productive!) expression of itself. We, ourselves, are no different.

Here's how Rumi might also say it: "Let yourself [yield and] be drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray".  I wonder if your heart - or mine - is softening into it's own gravitational pull yet?

Remembering the Body.

“Human skin is porous; the world flows through you. Your senses are large pores that let the world in. By being attuned to the wisdom of your senses, you will never become an exile in your own life, an outsider lost in an external spiritual place that your will and intellect, have constructed.”  - John O'Donohue

Much of my professional practice involves trying to teach people how to come home to the intelligence of their physical bodies.  In our culture, this can be an extraordinarily difficult task for most people.  It seems that at some point (perhaps around the Renaissance) we began to devalue the body and glorify the intellect.  You may notice this inheritance in many of our cultural, philosophical, and religious ideals such as "mind over matter", "I think therefore I am", "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak", etc.

There are many implications and consequences for this devaluation of the body's wisdom, which is easily noticeable in our modern society.  I imagine that we can all think of many times when we have mistreated or shamed our own bodies or the bodies of others.  However, I also believe that much of our personal and collective suffering is related to this pervasive sense of cultural disembodiment (mistreatment of the earth, improper allocation of resources, oppression, war, chronic pain, auto-immune diseases, addictions, eating disorders, diabetes, and other habitual self-destructive patterns).

This is a hard pattern to change because once we believe we are our minds, we become convinced that the stories we generate in our minds are absolute truths.  In order to avoid threat to our sense of self that any sort of cognitive dissonance would inevitably produce, we then feel compelled to act in ways that will reinforce the stories we're so busy telling ourselves.  Example: "no one will ever accept me for who I really am" becomes a devastating self-fullfilling prophecy when we let that belief convince us to keep secrets and tell lies.

But, what if we didn't have to believe all of our thoughts?  What kind of personal freedom would we experience if we weren't married to our own stories?  I think it's hard for us to imagine this in a cultural context that tells us we ARE our thoughts.  In fact, I think that the split between body and mind is so deeply rooted in our ideas about ourselves that we cannot address this chasm by simply "thinking" about it.  Einstein first famously suggested that we cannot solve problems on the level in which they were created.  Following that logic, I believe we must address this split by turning towards what has been split-off (i.e. the body) in an embodied way.

I've found that one of the most accessible ways for people to re-discover the body's wisdom involves practices that pair conscious physical movement with a simultaneous unknown goal.  This revelation is something that I've stumbled upon by accident after many blind leaps into body practices like yoga, thai massage, authentic movement, conscious breathing, rolfing, energy medicine, somatic experiencing therapies, etc. etc.  I'm not sure why I've never bothered to try to understand these things with my mind before I do them, but the gifts I've received as a result of "not needing to know" (i.e. figure out) what's happening have been immeasurable.  Chiefly, I have discovered this: embodied presence feels like Love.  ALL OF THE TIME.  Even when there's an experience of pain and discomfort, a larger field of loving awareness seems to permeate and contain it simultaneously.

Note:  I'm not suggesting that the mind is not engaged in this, but that it is simply free to stop trying to control and predict my experience, and can instead become open to some new possibilities.  In fact, it's precisely because the mind reflects the body and the body reflects the mind, that we can begin to understand how habitual physiological posturing is connected to habitual psychological posturing. Consequently, when we start to notice how changes in the body predict changes in the psyche, a really miraculous thing can happen:  reconnection!  (Fun side note: the word "religion" comes from the latin root re-ligamentus (i.e. ligament), and literally translated means "re-connection"). The reward for this kind of reconnection is a renewed access to one of our greatest sources of natural intelligence.  I have noticed that when we are able to reconnect to this embodied intelligence, we are then immediately drawn back into a deeper connection with our natural belonging.  As John O'Donohue reminds us, "our bodies know they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless".