Carnality

I am becoming more and more aware of the physicality of myself and the importance of movement as I also realize my life style puts me on my back side way more than it should.

I, like so many others, feel compelled to write bits of “my story.”  You see, regarding the “body” -- It was taught to me that carnality was wicked, the body was not to be trusted…  basically a fair amount of disrespect for the body along with conflicting statements that our bodies were the temples of the spirit.  This just meant that we were to deny it carnal pleasure because the spirit was superior.

Well, this attitude hasn’t served me well, and maybe you had similar teachings too that haven’t served you well.  Because of my dissociative identity disorder, and having been on antidepressants for 21 years, I didn't feel like I was really IN my body for much of my life.  Since I didn't know what it felt like to be “in” my body I didn’t understand any difference.  When I started going through therapy and had visualizations I suspected that something wasn’t right when I visualized myself as someone “out there” like on a TV screen.  I somehow knew that the visualizations I was to go through should be more physically direct to me.   I told my therapist about it and she was intrigued and told me that, “no, that wasn't how the visualization should happen.” 

I also didn’t move “spontaneously” throughout the course of my earlier life as even basic movements were pre-meditated.  Other than sneezes and coughs, motions were pre-thought.  Even bringing my hands to my mouth to hold a cough were.  I belly-danced and even those were pre-thought before they became dance form.  At a medicine woman retreat when I was in my early 30’s, I finally found what it was like to move my body without thought.  It was beautiful, liberating, and empowering.  I finally found spontaneity. 

As the antidepressants moved their way out of my body I became more solid with what I felt in my body and it was at times over-whelming to the point of experiencing dizziness.  I remember walking on the campus of the University of Arizona with my sweetheart and I felt like I was actually inside of my body.  It was a glorious experience.  The mindfulness of moving within my body is sacred and holy.

My personal spiritual development has taught me that although we are souls living physical experience, we are also souls incarnate and that our physical manifestations are our stewardship.  Our bodies are not only our temples, but our tools with which to experience the glorious existence of our physical universe.  We should celebrate them, play in them, move, rejoice, dance, enjoy physical pleasures responsibly, and care for them health wise.

I've spent a lot of time struggling with my body.  Telling it rotten things about its inferiority, its lack of beauty and all it has done in return is continue to serve me and get me around.  Going to the gym to get it in to shape, I bullied my body by overworking it.  I love my body.  It has been so forgiving and loving to its host.  No, I’m not a dualist, I just recognize that the life force is a continuum through energy patterns from the deep levels of consciousness on up through coarser physicality.  Like buds on trees, our life force sap from light flows through and likes movement and gets ill with blockages.

True, Samadhi is an ecstatic state, but we are physical and can’t stay in Samadhi all the time while still alive.  I believe that Satori (awakening) needs to happen as we manifest our light from source through the body and the world and back again in healing circular flow.

To do this, we need to not only meditate; we need to take care of our bodies.  My physical health is my top priority this year.  I have been too heavy for too long and the results of that are that I don’t have the energy I want, I have more headaches than I should, and I border on blood sugar issues and hypertension.

If you have issues like this, let’s do it together!  Let’s get physically healthy.  I am so honored to know so many people making positive changes in their lives and I get inspired by such good and encouraging friends who are compassionate at the same time.  It isn't easy, but it is necessary if we want the full and joyful lives we so deserve together.