Honoring what Our Bodies Need & Offer in Prayer

To restart from the wisdom of the body, almost every subject requires a reorientation of our “mind-set.” I wonder what some of you think about these pointers. Please comment.

• Physicality is basic to all of life. Physicality extends beyond our immediate body to include our greater sense of spirit, mind, and heart, areas that are only apprehended from the point of view of being bodies.
• All bodies are connected in a greater whole. Our presence and absence affects one another. We uphold and wish the best for each other at all times, for we are part of each other. To disregard anyone is to shun our own soul.
• Each body is a universe unto itself, a unique universe that cannot be fully known. Therefore we are not expected to “know ourselves” only to “be increasingly present to ourselves.”
• We are not required to articulate vast or complex experiences, only to “experience” them. Dance, wordless song, music or poetry is often the most effective prayer in life’s layered circumstances.
• Since prayer is an opportunity to be with all that we know and don’t know, it is good to learn to improvise, to build a practice that helps us to lean into the unforeseen in a trusting way.
• Though we are not required to grow or change, change is constant. Prayer allows a way of collaborating with the greater guidance systems, listening in on the many different levels, from the voices within, to the whisperings of earth or of angels.
• Prayer includes our need to witness, rest, and resist. Each person is entrusted to know what they need and to adapt a form or belief in search of the highest good.

I am teaching InterPlay’s Life Practice Program for Spiritual Formation this coming Spring. SO much fun to ground the InterPlay system in the relationship of body and soul.