Cultivating Embodiment and Presence - Module 2
Session 3
Wild Geese
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.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– Mary Oliver
For our next two circles we will cultivate our embodiment and presence. Practicing the art of listening to our bodies, so that we may find and rest in the flow of our intuition.
We will build on our previous explorations of creativity by cultivating awareness and presence from inside our bodies and continuing to notice what we are drawn to, what desire feels like in our body and increasing our trust in our own bodies wisdom.
Reflection Prompts
• How does creativity feel in your body?
• What emotions do you associate with being in a creative flow?
• What do you feel in your body if you feel resistance to creativity?
• Does the resistance show up as a thought, a sensation, or something else?
The Collective’s Seeds
What have you not noticed yet?
What do I desire?
Links
Free Community BBTRS Breathwork
Grounding to the Earth Practice
Guided by Erin McGuiness
Home Creativity Practice
Wander & Gather Practice
Creativity thrives in many modalities. In Euro-Western culture the vehicle for creativity that holds the most weight in the collective consciousness is a “birth” process for creation. However, there is another process I love. One that utilizes intuition, the body, the quiet inner voice that whispers to us of discovery, of “gathering” as a creative act. Following is a practice to play with the forces of wandering and gathering. I encourage you to try it if you are craving some inspiration.
First create a “container” for your wander/gather, this provides boundaries and containment that allows for the free flow of the wander.
Set a timer for at least 20 minutes or as along as you desire it to be. You can wander anywhere, even in a bathroom, though I feel outside leads to a richer experience and the wilder a place the better. If you wander in an area that you are unfamiliar, I recommend bringing your phone with gps so you can relocate yourself after the wander.
Do something to tell your body that you are starting to wander. For example, mark the transition point mentally, by noting when you cross the threshold of your front door, clap your hands, place something like a broom or stick on the ground and step over it. Some sort of physical delineation to tell your body that you are now entering the wander.
What is the wander? Mary Oliver names it beautifully in her poem Wild Geese - it is letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves as you move through your environment. Some suggestions for facilitating this capacity within yourself are to sit quietly for a few minutes letting your mind quiet. Witness your thoughts come and go, like clouds in a sky, no need to chase them or follow them, just witness them rise and fall. Bring your attention into your body, notice a place of ease or comfort in your body. Maybe it is sunlight on your skin, the feeling of your hand resting on a leg. Allow yourself to settle into that sense of comfort, into that soft animal of your being. From this settled place within your body become curious of the world around you, look with your inner child’s eyes at the colors, shapes, light. Listen with your child’s ears to the sounds around you and allow your body, your intuition, your wonder, your joy and your curiosity be drawn to what it is drawn. As you wander gather 3 things. When your timer rings and your wander is ending, return to where you started (with your 3 things).
Let your body know your wander is complete by doing the same physical act that began it. Cross the threshold back into your house, clap your hands or step over a broom in the opposite direction etc. depending on how you marked the beginning, mark the end as well.
Next take a few minutes and journal by writing and/or doodling about your experience. What came up, what inner voices resisted surrendering to the process, what felt good? How did it feel in your body? Turn your attention to the 3 objects you gathered and journal about what the objects symbolize to you. Use whatever avenue feels best to unpack the symbolism of your objects. Some suggested points of entry are to explore your personal relationship to the object through personal associations/meaning. Reflect on the collective/cultural/societal associations of the object. Do your personal ancestral familial lineage(s) have a special relationship to the object or something similar to it? With intention, look up the symbols on the internet or in any resource books you have on symbolism. Play with word associations as well, like puns or plays on words that may or may not also directly relate to the content of the object. To complete the process notice the interrelationship of the objects, is there a story they tell together. Do you notice any themes that move through them, does this relate to anything happening in your life now? If you arrange the objects in a certain way does that change the story they are telling you?
Reflection Partner Check-in
Reflection & Integration - Connect with your Reflection Partner and share what you are learning and exploring. Each buddy system decides how often, how long and in what way they want to meet. You can be creative!
Session 4
Reflection & Integration
““Can you tell me how to practice yoga?"
"The Great Yoga that is to drink, to eat, to touch, to see, to walk, to sleep, to urinate, to defecate, to listen, to remain silent, to speak, to dream, to love, to sit, to cross the street, to get on a bus, to travel through town and country, sights and sounds, beauty and ugliness without ever being separated from the divine, which is in the self. No type of yoga is better than that which isn't afraid of immersion in reality. Outside of reality, there is not a single trace of the absolute.
"The Great Yoga is like the English grammar that I taught at school. It is very simple. There is a sentence, some words, a punctuation mark. The Great Yoga is very acute perception of the punctuation. We are used to paying attention to the words, but the door to the divine is found in the punctuation. The commas, the periods indicate the pose taken between two parts, between two propositions, between two sentences. The comma, the period that's infinity. That's the void."
"How do you apply this grammar of yoga to the life of the tantrika?"
"Between two breaths, there is a comma. Between two feelings or two ideas, there is a comma. Between one gesture and another, there is a comma. The magic of the Great Yoga is that all life experiences are followed by a comma, and the yogi can continually operate in and drink from the infinite by being conscious of this punctuation. Our life is too often like a text without punctuation. We believe that the words run together to infinity. When we begin to meditate, we are frightened by the huge lava flow of words that pushes us continually forward or to the side of our lives.
We feel ourselves bombarded by our chaotic mental activity, which swallows up our punctuation and leaves us exhausted, no longer making sense.
"Bit by bit, the air penetrates our meditation. The magma of words becomes more like a strip of clay that you can stretch between your two hands. All of a sudden, there is a rupture, a silence, a void, a comma, and true life begins.
This break allows us to be present, to catch our breath, to enter into the next group of words fully conscious. These moments of emptiness are like rest stops on a long climb.
They allow us to realize what we're in the process of doing and to taste it fully.”
- Daniel Odier talking with Devi, Tantric Quest by Daniel Odier
The Collective’s Seeds
Links
Home Creativity Practice
Air - Expansion Contraction & Pause Embodiment Practice
The invitation is to be curious and explore - stepping out of a right or wrong frame. To give yourself more permission to play and be curious.
Embodiment Practice
Relax, ground, notice your spine, your me/not me and your edge.
Create a semi-circle shape with your arms, biceps straight and horizontal, forearms in a semicircle.
Gently place your attention at the base of your throat. On the adam’s apple (male-bodied) and triangle (female bodied).
In-hale and expand your chest open your arms.
Pause.
Ex-hale and contract your chest and close your arms.
Pause
Repeat for a few cycles.
Release your arms, relax. Notice how your throat, heart, arms and hands feel. Is there any increased sense of energy, blood, life force moving through you?
Reflection Partner Check-in
Reflection & Integration - Connect with your Reflection Partner and share what you are learning and exploring. Each buddy system decides how often, how long and in what way they want to meet. You can be creative!
The invitation is to be curious and explore - stepping out of a right or wrong frame. To give yourself more permission to play and be curious.
What aspect of my life do I move with ease through states of expansion, pause, contraction, pause?
Feel into that, drop in. Journal, doodle, dance what that feels like. Witness yourself - how does that feel in my body? Explore the shape your body takes as it moves through the states.
Connect with your Reflection Partner and share what you are learning and exploring. Each buddy system decides how often, how long and in what way they want to meet. You can be creative!