January 29th, 2020

The Earth Angel or the Body Spirit Courtesy of the Ritman Library

The Earth Angel or The Body Spirit - Courtesy of the Ritman Library

Being Here is Everything
 
Welcome to the new website. You will notice that the name of The School of Spiritual Psychology has been changed to The School of Integral Spiritual Psychology, which more adequately reflects the present phase of the work of the School. For a full understanding of the significance of this change, you are invited to peruse and contemplate the new site.
 
Then, equally, welcome back to the blog. There were somewhere near 50 entries on the previous site. Rather than continue that numbering, this entry on the new website is numbered 1.
 
Where we are and where we are going. 

I have tried to unfold a sense of the inherent complex unity of the human being with Earth, and have given many particular descriptions of this truth, giving attention to the Original People of this land as those who lived this unity. In that process of awakening to the Spiritual Earth, and also departing, radically, from the assumption of a division between the Spiritual realms and the Earthly realms, the blogs developed sensitivity to the integral wholeness of body, soul, spirit, human, earth, and divine. Absolutely basic to the actual experience of Wholeness is being here, being fully bodily awake, for it is insufficient to speak the language of Wholeness; it must become fullness of awareness.
 
I know this weaving that is Wholeness feels complex, maybe close to impossible, particularly given the pathology of modern collective consciousness with it narrowing the human being to a commodity-driven “me”, imprisoned in seemingly insatiable desires to own the Earth rather than to inhabit with Her. We do not, though, make the Wholeness, we aspire to return to it, not as it was lived by the Original People, but according to our times and circumstances of consciousness.
 
So, here we go, or rather, continue. If you are starting to read the blog for the first time, just dive in, stay with it, awareness will awaken. Do not be concerned with ‘understanding’ or ‘knowing’, be more present with the event of the language-ing rather than the content per se, and release trying to ‘get something’, for the greed of the day reaches all the way into the capacities of thinking.
 
Above, I mentioned the absolute necessity of being here, being bodily here. We are not here. We now live within multiple constructed layerings that have removed us from body, from Earth, from each other, from community, from the Divine, and turned humans into commodity-seeking commodities. We live in the prison of social constructions, technological constructions, political constructions, electronic constructions, familial constructions, civilizational constructions --- we live within every possible medium except the medium of soul, the medium of the divine that we are, the unity of spirit-matter that we are, the medium of human body that we are. it is impossible to be here without undoing what removes us. And, if we are not bodily here, it is not possible to be in the fullness of where we are, with Mother Earth. I will speak next time of the obstacles to simple Earth-Presence, but I want to provide an easy method of being fully bodily present. New age mentality recognizes a need for “grounding”, but the interferences have become so intense that something more intense is needed than trying to be direct awareness through the body, the feet, and into earth.
 
This little exercise (I do not speak of it as a “practice”, certainly not a “spiritual practice” as there is nothing spiritual about it in any direct way) comes from Wim Hof. Look him up here. He is a real character and is known for developing the bodily-physical realm – in extreme ways. He can, for example sit surrounded completely in ice for four or more hours without any dire effects. He hikes up mountains in the middle of winter wearing only shorts and no shirts. He swims in the middle of winter in icy lakes. He has developed courses to physically develop the body. We are not going to suggest that, but only the very first exercise he describes. The exercise is his discovery of being fully in-body, free of stress. Stress is a pretty good word for being out of body, filled with fear, anxiety, restless, in our ‘head’, and getting ready for physical illness – the norm of the present world.
 
An Exercise for Coming into Body
 

1. Sit. Take 30 deep breaths. On the outbreath, breathe out regularly, that is, don’t expel breath all the way down to the stomach.
2. On the 30th breath – at the exhale, do not inhale, do not breathe, stay in non-breathing as long as possible without becoming uncomfortable. The moment discomfort arises, breathe out. (You will notice that you will be able to stay in the non-breathing a very surprising length of time.)
3. When you come to the top of the inbreath, hold that breath --- and while holding it, press outward, as if you are going to breathe, but do not breathe out for a few seconds. Feel what is happening bodily, inwardly; feel the movement of currents into the region of the head.
4. Then, go ahead and breathe out and continue regular breathing.

 
There is nothing in the exercise to notice beyond what is in the directions. Notice the result, the immediate result of the exercise. What does the body feel like – inwardly, at the surface, outwardly. What is sensory experience like.
 
Hof has medically verified that doing this exercise results in the strengthening of immunity to infection (stress is the primary reason for infection).
 
If you continue following this blog, each time you are about to read the blog, do this exercise. It only takes a few minutes. More importantly, consider doing this exercise a minimum of once a day.
 
Next blog – Obstacles to simple Earth-Presence