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How ‘at one’ are you along with your physique, and what causes would possibly there be in case your body-sense received separate(d) out of your soul-sense?
This piece begins with the distinction between female and masculine spirituality, and introduces a number of explanation why dwelling in a bodily physique isn’t all the time simple.
It then invitations a shift to the beloved physique and the way we will begin to re-instate our physique as a sacred place and find it irresistible from inside.
Female and masculine spirituality
Minke de Vos (2016) distinguishes between female and masculine types of spirituality. She writes that masculine religious practices typically deal with capacities of the thoughts, mindfulness, emptying the thoughts from distractions, stillness meditation and so forth. I’d describe this as an upward vitality, emphasising the ‘high’ a part of the physique, and the reference to sky, heaven and universe. These are nice practices for self-reflection and increasing consciousness.
In distinction, De Vos describes female religious follow as “devotional, embodied, and celebratory” (2016: 29), usually together with bodily practices akin to dancing (!), singing, round sharing, nature communion and sensuality. I’d name these practices extra immanent, bringing the religious vitality downward, into the physique, and in direct reference to matter, physicality and the earth.
After I use this distinction I don’t consult with male/feminine gendered traits, however to a way of complementary energies, like yin/yang, that all the time exist in all of us. Basically, the mentally oriented forms of spirituality obtain extra consideration in our tradition, and an vital a part of my work on embodied spirituality is about re-honouring the physique as a sacred place filled with spirit. Nevertheless, returning to the physique generally is a bumpy journey, as our bodily expertise is usually removed from sensual or celebratory.
The Cultural Physique
No matter tradition you reside in, I’m certain you hear many complicated messages concerning the physique. In most non secular cultures, the physique obtained a really dangerous press, usually equating nature and particularly the physique with wild, ungoverned, sinful, and different ‘ungodly’ values.
In widespread tradition, the feminine physique turned objectified, sexualised, given worth principally by way of the male gaze, and never by its personal energy and miraculous life-giving energy. Additionally, cultural gender stereotyping strongly impacts individuals whose sense of id doesn’t match with their given physique.
In medical science tradition, the physique is seen as a machine, with defects that may be repaired, and imperfections to be improved. The advances of expertise strengthened the stress of widespread tradition to ‘beautify’ an in any other case completely wholesome physique to fulfill some idealised magnificence requirements.
Lastly, in educational tradition, the physique is usually perceived as a container for the mind and to move the mind from one assembly to the subsequent.
The Challenged Physique
Each physique has its personal rhythms and timings. We frequently solely take discover, when one thing is out of stability, which occurs to most of us sooner or later.
Generally our physicality will get challenged on a extra common foundation, once we are transgender, reside with uneven our bodies, expertise continual ache, or are therapeutic from intense surgical procedure.
There’s additionally the problem of the ever-aging physique, veins that get extra fragile, wrinkles that crackle our pores and skin, joints bruising or swelling extra simply, the elevated vulnerability of sickness and finally demise. What occurs to our body-perception, once we consciously re-anoint this place as a sacred vessel?
Picture credit: The Unbroken Physique. Mover: Eline Kieft, creative rendering by Florian Divi (2020).
The Unsafe Physique
For many individuals, girls particularly, the physique categorically seems like an unsafe place. Our integrity can have been violated by way of harassment or rape, which in fact makes the physique the final place we really feel secure.
Additionally, apparently extra harmless, verbal messages that taught us to not take pleasure in our personal our bodies or expertise sensual pleasure with one other individual can erode our sense of physique as ‘allowed’ or ‘hallowed’ territory.
With all of the cultural hold ups described above, that may lead us to imagine it’s higher if we don’t consider it in any respect. This usually results in a level of dissociation that reinforces the separation between physique and the sacred. How can we renegotiate our notion of our personal physique as secure place and sanctuary for our personal sacred soul? The reply to that is perhaps totally different for everyone and each physique, relying on what you skilled up to now.
The Beloved Physique
Parking these difficult views on the physique for a second, have you might have thought-about your physique as the one being who’s with you your complete life? Somewhat than neglecting, reprimanding, combating or punishing this ‘harmless’ creature, how wouldn’t it be to make pals with it and look after it like we care for somebody we love? May we prolong this loving capability to our personal physique?
In a good looking audiobook The Joyous Physique (2011), Clarissa Pinkola Estés invokes:
Let or not it’s identified that the physique was made in ecstasy in order that we will expertise consciousness. Let or not it’s identified that spirituality, religiosity, sexuality, magnificence, and nature are bodily and emotional gateways to consciousness. Let or not it’s identified that each sort of physique is wanting and fascinating until the very finish. (Pinkola Estés 2011, audio ebook chapter 2).
Pinkola Estés speaks of our good and benevolent physique because the ‘beloved consort’ who depends on us for nurturing and secure retaining. No matter difficult previous or current circumstances we’ve lived by way of with our physique, how can we considerately look after it in order that we and ‘it’ “can thrive and really feel supported” (Kieft, 2022: 53)?
Sacred Self Contact
Do you know that there’s a deep connection between contact, leisure and emotional wellbeing? Sadly receiving sufficient secure and undemanding contact isn’t usually a given, even when we discover ourselves in a loving, wholesome relationship.
Due to this fact, I’d prefer to make a daring case for normal self-touch to regain a nourishing intimacy with our personal physique. I’m not (but) speaking about sexual contact right here, though it might probably, in fact, develop into that. I’m speaking about taking a second to caress your physique with loving consideration, if you end up in mattress or below the bathe, or getting dressed for work.
Give your self even simply 5 minutes of soothing, comforting contact every day, for instance:
- a face, hand or foot therapeutic massage
- a mild caressing hug with each your arms wrapped round you
- respiratory out and in as you draw lengthy strokes over your torso (breathe in as you draw your fingers up the midline, breathe out as they descend down the edges of your physique)
- when you’re seated, rub your shoulders, legs or your knees
Picture credit: Darius Bashar, Unsplash.
You may select to do that bare or with garments on, nevertheless you’re feeling comfy and most comfortable. It’s actually okay to the touch your self this manner. It’s a type of loving kindness and self care, and you’ve got a proper to provide this comforting, soothing, calming or any sort of contact to your self, the one you love physique, and rejoice the thriller from inside.
References
De Vos, Minke (2016). Tao Tantric Arts for Ladies. Cultivating Sexual Vitality, Love and Spirit. Rochester, Vermont: Future Books.
Kieft, Eline (2022). Dancing within the Muddy Temple. A Transferring Spirituality of Land and Physique. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Pinkola Estés, Clarissa (2011). The Joyous Physique. Myths and Tales of the Sensible Lady Archetype. 5 vols, The Harmful Outdated Lady Sequence, vol. 3, audio recording, chapter 2. Louisville, CO: Sounds True.
Occasions
You may nonetheless be a part of my Embodied Spirituality Masterclasses till December 2022! It’s a deep journey right into a method to expertise the sacred from inside the transferring physique, assembly nature as a trainer, discover consciousness, trance and ecstasy and rather more. You may test it out right here.
I’d additionally like to ask you to a reside weekend workshop I educate in London, 17-19 February 2023, for girls who skilled Early Being pregnant Loss, to work by way of this devastating expertise in an embodied, archetypal and ceremonial method. All data and registration right here.
Bio
Eline Kieft danced from a younger age, together with rigorous classical and modern coaching to change into an expert dancer. She then studied anthropology, deepening her fascination with worldwide similarities between indigenous traditions concerning intangible facets of actuality and different methods of understanding, together with embodied epistemologies and shamanic strategies.
She accomplished her PhD in dance anthropology at Roehampton College, educated in depth with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Research and the Faculty of Motion Medication. Eline labored on the Centre for Dance Analysis (C-DaRE) at Coventry College for 5 years, the place she created a Somatics Toolkit for Ethnographers, and pioneered soulful educational pedagogy. Her latest ebook Dancing within the Muddy Temple: A Transferring Spirituality of Land and Physique was nicely obtained as a singular mix of principle and follow and a medication for our instances.
She is now a full-time change-maker and facilitates deep transformation by way of teaching and programs each on-line and in individual. Her strategy The Approach of the Wild Soul provides a set of embodied, inventive, and religious instruments to re-connect with interior energy and navigate life’s challenges with confidence.
Web site: https://www.elinekieft.com Additionally on Fb | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
Categories: Body, Embodiment, Feminism and Spirituality, General, Goddess Spirituality, Healing, Love, Sacred Space, Sexuality, Women’s Power, Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Voices
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