Ecologies of the Spirit
Henna Wallace of EdgeSong seaweed and tidepool gazing on the Olympic Penninsula. Photo by Ben Kunesh.
The body is not all there is and yet it’s exactly what is, and the house of the spirit. I think there is confusion (a place I have certainly found myself) about what healing the spirit means and thinking that it lives outside of the physical form. This is rooted in the myth of mind-body separation (Cartesian dualism) that is rooted in the spread of Christianity (especially the idea that connection with the Divine exists outside of self, within a priest caste), the consolidation and accumulation of power in Medieval Europe, and the severance of the people from the land.
We must come to intimately know the ecologies of our beings, the landscapes that live and breathe inside of us, and where we have dammed, developed, paved over, defiled, or otherwise forgot the sanctity and spirit of place within.
Healing the spirit means going into the body. It is not about leaving the body. It is about the ineffable, the invisible, but sense-able. It is touched by Beauty.
Healing the spirit is elemental and involves aligning with the rhythm and spirit of life, of nature, and of contacting the essential wild nature inside of yourself. This does not have to be a conscious process and truthfully it can never be - it is not a process of the mind. It is a process of the body which is a process of nature which is a process of the wild. When you touch that place, you unvcover what shackles have been placed on your access to this holy sanctum. You will grow in bravery and courage and power as you recognise the ability to remove these shackles lies in your willingness and intent to be honest and touch this wild place we have been frightened of and yet long for so deeply. This space, necessarily, can not be entered without love - for ourselves, and others. This softness is the medium and the message. It is the way in and it is the way, it is the is. It’s a process of becoming to enter, transforming to allow. It will necessarily shift your mind, heart, and way of being in the world. It is the journey of Inanna, casting off everything until she is a skeleton in the underworld. Ironically, touching the holiest of holy places in ourselves requires something of a death. And in that death we find love.
What is your natural process? How does it unfold and where does Beauty come out of you as a byproduct?
