“Grant that I may give thee choice gifts, three lighted and dazzling torches– my spirit, my body, and my soul.” Maronite prayer
Times are not easy. To be in my body can be excruciating when the land, our neighbors, beloved beings and sometimes we are under attack, out of balance, or made to act in ways that aren’t true to who we are.
How are we to live, love, and be beautiful in this life?
Let’s ask soul. Soul does not give up on us, nor does Love. Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya, knew this. She was a Sufi saint who grew up a slave. Having spontaneously achieved self-realization Shaikh Hasan al-Basri asked her how she discovered the secret, she responded:
“You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.”
What is the How of the How-less way?
How-less-ness is to go beyond skill, knowledge, and effort. It is born in a spacious grounding, a vital contact experienced inside and outside the body. It’s an invitation that undergirds all invitations.
When I was 15 years old I was paralyzed around my peers. I sensed something important in my destiny but didn’t know how to let it out. That summer on a church backpack trip my social pain hit a breaking point. Neither the alpine beauty of the Sierras or the congenial support of leaders helped me feel like I belonged. I felt locked up inside of myself. I hated myself.
One afternoon I retreated to my tent and picked up a thin little graphic book that had been given to each camper, Good Ole Plastic Jesus by Earnest Larsen. As I poured over the poetic text and images my soul drank in a message about a love that isn’t rooted in status, role, or money. Somehow the next day, hiking down the mountain, I felt different. Self-conscious struggling was nowhere to be found. I felt loved by something bigger. Was it a cosmic accident? I didn’t care. I was infused with grace for a whole week. When the self-consciousness returned I knew a Love and belongingness that is unconditional.
Sill, I struggled, unable to talk, think with clarity, or feel peace. I was often frustrated and awkward. My gifts didn’t correspond with what I was learning in school. My energy was erratic. I felt pulled to something but didn’t know what or how to express it. Dad was an engineer. Mom worked for the telephone company. Who was I? All I could figure out was to “be good” and “do what I am good at doing.”
What do you do when you desire the Way of Love and long to be guided by Love each step of the way for the rest of your life?
Could I unlock the full measure of Love in my life? Could I bring this to others and to the world? Could I live and be moved by a sacred energy in service to the sacred in all things? Can I do this in a world that appears brutal, money-centered, and energetically overwhelming? I wanted to try.
I soon discovered that anytime I mimicked or forced love, the gift of love veered away. Less so when body, mind, heart, and spirit were free to dance in the most organic way possible. In the arts, particularly in improvisation, I discovered magic. The lights turn on when I play with life; intuitively collaborating with whatever is around. If I accept my limits and possibilities it is a pleasure to move, breathe, think, and riff off of the harmony and dissonance of life everything opened up. Is this the How-less way?
The challenge is that culture, institutions and economic forces prescribe that people act in certain ways, ways that infect the fiber of my being. I can become anti-body, anti-love, anti-spirit. It takes great intention to stay attuned to the dance of life, to let my freewill interplay with the freewill of others.
I began to long for cultural wisdom that supports the dancing spirit in all beings, wisdom I found among first peoples, in rituals, and sometimes in the arts. Whenever I experienced the collective body move in a sacred way I took it as a sign that I was on the right track.
To do what we are meant to do naturally, to follow the hidden way that has no words, a way that is easy, fun and magical, requires community, tools, and support for our initiations.
The course I am about to offer offers a way to explore the wisdom of body and soul, what I can ensoulment.
What do you know of Love? What are you tracking with your body and soul? Who is your spirit team? Would you like to increase clarity, efficiency of energy, and courage to love as deeply as possible? Do you listen to your voice of guidance? How do we know what to trust?
Next time I’ll share my greatest fear and the answer that came from a Trustworthy Unseen Guide.
Learn more about my upcoming Course, Ensouled! Blessed Instructions and Initiations for Body and Soul starting January 25th. You get monthly installments of my curriculum with or without coaching sessions. Best yet is to travel with a small group and me. I comp you if you bring 4-5 others into your own monthly group.
