The Soul Loves the Body

Embodiment is in the news these days. Hallelu! I feel lucky that I got to play a part in the embodiment movement as I developed InterPlay, an active, creative way to unlock the body’s wisdom. And there’s more. Earth needs us to reboot the ancient soulways if we are going to gather the necessary spiritual intelligence for our time. 

The Body Wisdom of Soul?

In my 20s, a guiding question arose, “What happened to body and soul?” I felt the split in the body and soul of the dominant culture in academia, church, the arts, and seminary. As a dancer who thinks and prays with her whole body, I need body and soul together for mental, spiritual, and intellectual well-being.

My lessons in the Art of Ensoulment began in earnest when seminary professors encouraged me to articulate my theological worldview. Could I say what I knew? That the dance of body and soul is a spacious playground? That life improves when I witness people tune into Soul and dignify “the-me-of-me” and “the-you-of-you.”. That when the motherboard of imagination reboots, we come into balance. Waking up to this will often make us cry or laugh. 

In my 30s, grappling with energy imbalances and injustice, streaming Great Love, and feeling weird, alone, and not knowing how to navigate the world, one day, a voice instructed, “These are your three directives–efficiency of energy, clarity of vision, courage to love.”  I was ready. The path of ensoulment introduced me to the initiations that I now teach in the Three Directives Course.

The Dancing Center

As one rooted in The Dancing Center, a Universe known and organized as movement, my approach diverges from Western models. I’m grateful for indigenous dancing worldviews and take them seriously. Our ancestral ways still demonstrate that embodied spiritual practices bring us together and open up guidance. Meanwhile, if the culture doesn’t support us to be ensouled, we feel crazy. 

Inhabiting the Dancing Center introduces a paradigm shift that rattles white institutional cages. What do we do? We need to belong and get paid by our poorly embodied institutions, so we stick to standardized methods that don’t dance and don’t listen to Earth.

It is said, “Who does not dance does not know what comes to pass?”* Driven by money, property, and prestige, we colonize and dominate others, land, and ultimately ourselves. 

Fair warning: I’ve learned that entering into Creative Source’s earthy, alive simplicity both nourishes our hearts and sets a chiropractic adjustment of body and soul in motion. Our initiations require the undoing of the old practices and histories of dominion. The art of social change happens in one’s personal and collective bodyspirt.

Gifted and Sensitive Bodies

Do you honor soul in body? It can be tricky until we shed old myths that have claimed soul as hidden, higher, hard work, and dependent on higher authority. 

The Art of Ensoulment calls us to reclaim human sensitivity as honorable and normal. Instead of pathologizing sensitivity, ensouled bodies get credentialed as ambassadors of grace. The path and the finale of the Art of Ensoulment are about honoring and credentialing what we notice, know, and offer.

A Course with Words & No Words

The Art of Ensoulment Playbook offers a beautiful map that awakens ensouled thinking. The bad/good news is that ensoulment is not a solo dance. “Wherever two or more gather,” the Holy says, there I am. The time of individualism is over. Spiritual intelligence requires us to learn from body and soul connected to Earth and the Greater Whole. 

In my Courses, I invite participants to experience the ensoulment playground alongside willing playmates. There are ensoulment coaches should you want accompaniment. If you are a spiritual director, ensouled artist, spiritual leader, or therapist, Art of Ensoulment courses introduce an approach you can share with your community. It doesn’t cost to get credentialed to coach the Art of Ensoulment, other than familiarizing yourself with my framework. 

I celebrate your unique path, lineage, and way of being. You are already ensouled and hopefully have the support and wisdom you need. 

How long I can teach live courses is unclear as I manage my energy resources. I offer Zoom courses because it allows us a synchronous, live, body-to-body connection. Although its online, it’s still the most potent learning and teaching experience.

If you’re drawn and are seeking a way to play a part in the changing movements of our time, please join the Fall or Winter course, get your playbook, and bring your wisdom into play. We need you.

Link to enroll and explore