Tag — Interviews
Relig-ish: Spirit in the Spice Drawer
Hello Magpies. Today I’m visiting Jo Crawford at Crafting the Sacred. She’s doing an insightful and well-curated series on sacred connections, focusing on everyday sacred moments. I’m pleased as punch to be guest posting on her site, where I talk about one of my right-fit spiritual practices, holiday cooking. I’ve got a blessing waiting for you there. Won’t you join us?
Behind the Mic: Right-Fit Spirituality for Artists
I have about a dozen people lined up who I’d like to interview in our Relig-ish series about right-fit spiritual practices and relig-ish hybrids. But right now the time to ask for and edit those interviews is not accessible to me. Thanks why I’m grateful for Create Hype, who kindly interviewed me about art + spirituality over at their place. It was nice to step behind the mic for someone else. This was my favorite question:
Your community and website focus on spirituality and crafting a belief system that nurtures YOU, just special you. Why is it so important to form such a belief system as an artist?
Curious? Click here to read my answer.
Thanks for being here today.
Much Warmth,
Rachelle
*your magpie girl
Relig-ish: My Right-Fit Spiritual Hybrid with Marjorie Gray
Have you met Marjorie Gray? Marjorie is a teacher, poet, mother, wife, grandmother, volunteer and all around fascinating soul. Today at Behind the Mic, Marjorie is giving us a peek into her right-fit spiritual hybrid — part church, part service, and a whole lot of Spirit. Marjorie, step right up…
A Hybrid Patchwork
by Marjorie Gray
Spirit balloons me, fires my passion and compassion. I’m a child, exuberant at dawn, playful throughout the day, smiling in sleep. Books, faces, trees, the sky, lakes, streams, birds, flowers and leaves call to me. Eagerly, I read, watch, explore, discover, listen and respond. I’m also a spirited grandmother, growing daily in my capacity to drink in wisdom from all ages, from group spiritual directors, prophets, visionaries and sages. My roots are deep and growing deeper, even as new shoots sprout on old and new branches.
Sound like too much hunky-dory gobbledy-gook? Yet as I write it, just as when I write in my journal multiple times a day, someone I call Great or Holy Spirit lets me know it’s actual as well as factual. Granted it’s harder to write the sadness and anger for public view. Even in the journal, gratitude dominates (my alter-ego, clown name is JOYO). But Spirit often actively engages me through tears, rants, and hurting heart cries for HELLP (that’s how I spell it in silent yells and yelps). Yet I am certain that Holy Love blesses and guides me in marriage, family, church and community. In her wondrous, patient peace my jumbled, paradoxical dance finds joyful balance on the arc of hope.
Timely, beyond time, Spirit’s infusions are momentous and daily. Monday, on my way to a used bookstore in Baltimore, she drew me to sit on a ledge beside a woman asking for spare change. Would that I had stayed for conversation instead of only to get directions and give her a dollar. Wednesday she infiltrated our newly forming Resilience Circle at church. Thursday her vibrancy invigorated my body-soul on a trash and recycling pickup walk round Greenbelt Lake. Always available in abundance, Holy Breath comes alive in my awareness of desire, in solitude and silence, in appreciation of children and of the child in each of us.
So my spirituality is a hybrid homegrown patchwork. Seniors and kids and others who ride with me see this sign on the dashboard: 2001 Prius owned by Jesus, operated by Sister Marjorie in his service. I love driving almost as much as walking. When I’m alone in the car, the sign and the wide skies above remind me Great Spirit is human too. I’m neither female nor male then, but pure spirit powerfully embodied.
What about you Magpie? How is it your right-fit spiritual hybrid and how did you discover it?
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Thanks.Giving. Here at Magpie Girl, we say “thank-you” to our generous guest posters by making donation in their honor. Marjorie has chosen to direct her donation to Dayspring Retreat Center.
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Marjorie majored in Art and English at Calvin College, and taught both subjects in elementary and middle schools. She has a Masters in Recreation from the University of Maryland and has worked in various settings with senior adults. She is the author of Mulled Words: A Word a Week from God’s Word and Mulled Psalms: Moving from I to We. She blogs at Mullstream and lives in Greenbelt Maryland.
Right-Fit Soulcare: Knitting as a Spiritual Practice
Have you met Andi Johnson? No, she’s not one of the women pictured here. :-) But she’s carrying on their tradition — knitting! Today at Behind the Mic, Andi is telling us how knitting is her right fit spiritual practice. Andi, step right up…
The Heart & Soul of Knitting
by Andi Johnson
Knitting is an art and a craft. You need some mathematical ability. You need to have some dexterity. You need to have good eyesight. And, if you don’t knit, please, as you read this, substitute the word “crochet”, “weaving”, “woodworking”, or whatever other craft you do.
Knitting keeps me sane. As one who is ADD, I bring my knitting everywhere. It helps me focus and concentrate on the speakers and conversations. And, I suppose I knit for sanity, for stress-relief. Can you be upset when you knit, while you knit? Stressed out about events happening around you? Think about that. How connected do you feel when you knit? With your past, connecting to your present, connecting to your future. When you are thinking the stitches involved in an intricate pattern, turning a heel, or purling & knitting when you should be knitting and purling, how can you be stressed?
Last spring I read The Knitting Way by Janice MacDaniels. When I received the book, I allowed it to take me on its journey through the patterns, deepening my understanding of knitting as a spiritual practice. The spiral is on the cover of the book. I’m drawn to spirals, eternity, the circular pattern of the spiral. I had to knit the spiral. The book explains, “This spiral is a reminder that we are on a journey. As your hands work this pattern, reflect upon where you are along the
journey and be content with your progress.”
After many years’ hiatus, I picked up the needles when I became a caseworker. I brought my knitting into peoples’ homes while I sat and talked with them. If I happened to finish a hat while there, I’d hand it over to the mom, saying, “You need to take better care of yourself, and this is a start.”
A few years later, one of the women in our church began a Shawl Group. It began as a spiritual group, beginning in silence and meditation, with a reading, and just knitting for a while. The shawls would be given to parishioners who had lost someone, who needed just that bit of comfort in their lives during a tough time. And, so we continue with our shawls. Not in silence, and not always together after the service– sometimes in our homes, out in public, and usually in church. I think the connections we make in church through our knitting, whether we knit in a group, or in our homes, make us stronger, and build a better community through sharing skills, patterns and yarns.
We recognize the need for someone to take care of themselves with the finished project as we pass it on. In that way, we connect our spirituality in the work we do.
The colors and textures can be luscious. I’m reminded of sunrises, sunsets, mountains, rocks, flower gardens, oceans…I love perusing yarn shops. When I pick up a skein of yarn, I am awed that I can turn this beautiful yarn into something wearable, something usable, and something beautiful. My heart flutters a little.
When I mentioned to someone about writing about knitting, they said to be sure to tell you that mistakes are okay. We learn from them. They can be corrected, but they don’t always need to be corrected. They can make our finished pieces interesting and creative. And, isn’t that the way life is. Is there anyone here who does not make mistakes?
When you knit, you pick up from the last stitch you knit, connecting the yarn, row to row. And, on and on it goes. You connect the loops. Stories are told, occasions are celebrated and recognized. You are carrying on a tradition that is hundreds of years old. It is a craft passed down from generation to generation, within families, among friends. Connections: yarns to yarns. Connections: women to women, and, even between the sexes. Connections: community.
What about you Magpie? How is it you connect your heart and soul to community?
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Thanks.Giving. Here at Magpie Girl, we say “thank-you” to our generous guest posters by making donation in their honor. Andi has chosen to direct her donation to Lumunos, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people find their calling. If this article was helpful to you, please click here to make a donation. (Thanks, you.)
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Andi Johnson is the Community Manager and Administrative Assistant for Lumunos. (www.lumunos.org) She has previously
worked in human services and hospital financial accounting and patient accounts. She is active in politics, her Unitarian Universalist Church (www.kuuc.org), and sings with Animaterra Women’s Chorus. (www.animaterrasings.org) She lives in Marlborough, NH with her 2 cats and a large stash of yarns.
Right-Fit Spiritual Practices: Surf Pray Love
Have you met Jesica Davis of SurfPrayLove? Jes and I met at Blogher ’11 in the Faith Blogger’s forum. In the group of about 20 women, we were the only bloggers who weren’t involved in institutionalized forms of faith. Jes has a bright smile and an open demeanor, and I think there was something more about her spirit that made every woman in there not only want to talk to her, but to touch her. I watched as person after person approached her and put a hand on her shoulder, or touched a finger tip to her arm. I’m pleased as punch that such an appealing spirit is with us today. Jes is getting behind the mic to talk to us about one of her right-fit spiritual practices: surfing. Jess, step right up….
Surfing as Spiritual Practice
with Jesica Davis of Surf Pray Love
My introduction to formal spiritual practice came when, almost twenty five years ago, a friend introduced me to Buddhist chanting. Raised in an open-minded but non-religious family, I was intrigued and (somewhat) disciplined about it, but I was a freshman in college and other pursuits soon took its place.
Nevertheless, the spiritual path continued to call and, in the ensuing decades, I delved into a variety of traditions. I practiced contemplative reading, meditation, Afro-Cuban dance and yoga. I prayed in Native American sweat lodges, did extensive dream work and experienced shamanic journeys. I also spent over a decade applying (and helping others to apply) the principles of personal transformation as taught by Landmark Education.
And through it all, I was drawn to the ocean.
Almost a year and a half ago I was at a spiritual crossroads. I was about to complete coaching a workshop at Landmark Education and Lawrie, my beloved dreaming and shamanism mentor, was moving to Pennsylvania. Still an avid yoga practitioner and an irregular meditator, the question that most concerned me was: what’s next? When Lawrie recommended that I let spirit be my guide, I knew what I had to do. I had been dreaming about surfing and surfers for a year, so I went with it.
I bought a board and a wetsuit.
With only a few lessons under my belt and only the occasional buddy to point me in the right direction, I began to surf. I’d listened to the wisdom and experience of others for years, but this time around, I had a strong feeling that the ocean would be my teacher – and I have not been disappointed.
So what have I learned through my experiences surfing and why is surfing the right spiritual practice for me now?
- Surfing is a confrontation with unquestionable truths. A wave is a wave. The water is the water. I fall down. I stand up. I fall down again. My opinion does not matter. What’s so is so, regardless of how I feel about it. There’s no room for argument. My teacher is always right.
- Surfing takes me outside the mind and aligns my physical actions with something larger than myself. Meditation is powerful, but can easily become an escape for someone like me who is naturally drawn inwards. Surfing forces me to direct my attention to the interface between my body and the world. It brings me down to earth.
- Like the I-Ching, the ocean is a book of change. Whether it is stormy and grey-green, or calm and crystalline, it remains true to itself. I may get mad at my children or my husband for being inconsistent, but the ocean teaches that I am responsible for my own expectations. I cannot expect the water, or my family, or the world, to be a certain way. I can only be responsible for my response to how it is.
- Though surfing is not easy, it’s fun. Even if I catch nothing – and many times this has been the case – I have a good time. That’s what keeps me coming back to the beach. In this way I’ve learned that passion and joy are the gifts we are given to fuel us when pursuing lives of purpose.
Ultimately, through surfing I have discovered that I am a different self when I am in the water – a self that my ego/identity, aka my “dry land self,” cannot comprehend. Week after week, my “dry land self” would just as rather not surf, thank you very much because, out in the water, it’s not running the show.
There was a time when I was afraid to be at the beach too long because I feared that I would mellow out too much and lose my drive and ambition. Then one day I realized that maybe what I really feared was happiness. It was then that I began to risk the possibility of letting go of old dreams in favor of something which did not yet exist and which I could not identify.
In taking on surfing as my spiritual practice, that “something” has begun to shape my life in a far deeper, more satisfying way than drive and ambition ever did.
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Jesica Davis is a graduate of The University of Chicago Divinity School, a tarot card reader and the mother of two. A year of intensive dream work and her studies at Landmark Education resulted in her exploration of surfing as the ideal spiritual and transformational practice for her. You can read more of her observations and insights regarding surfing, spirituality and family life at SurfPrayLove.
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Thanks.Giving. Here at Magpie Girl, we say “thank-you” to our brilliant guest posters by making donation in their honor. Jes has chosen to direct her donation to the Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting our oceans. If this article was helpful to you, please click here. (Thanks, you.)
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What about you Magpie? Have you adopted a new spiritual practice lately? How did you find it? (Or how did it find you?) What are you learning? (Do tell!)
I’m Jealous of: Danielle Krysa
Have you met Danielle Krysa? I fell for her immediately upon stubling on her blog, The Jealous Curator. Jealousy is one of my ongoing gremlin challenges, and art is my first love. So of course, I was drawn to the confligration of the two on Danielle’s blog. Today in our on-going interview series, Danielle muses for us arond the question: How did you turn jealousy into a super power? Danielle, step right up…..
I love that question. It makes me laugh, or more correctly, it makes me happy. When I started my blog 2.5 years ago, I never would have believed that the soul-crushing, creativity-halting jealousy that I felt toward so much of the amazing contemporary artwork out there could be turned around–but it has. Phew. What a relief – that kind of awful jealousy was exhausting!
Let me step back for a second and explain how I found that relief. As an artist myself, whenever I came across work that I truly loved, I had a 50/50 reaction. The first feeling was always a rush of uplifting inspiration–the kind that made me want to run out, buy ten new canvases, and become the next great artist of my generation. Unfortunately, that feeling only lasted for a few minutes and was almost always quickly replaced with an overwhelming sense of doom. The thought process went a little something like this:
“Gasp! This is amazing, and simple, and I love it! Damn, I wish I thought of it. Well, maybe I could do work like this? Maybe? No? Oh, who am I kidding, there’s no way I could ever be this good.”
See? Exhausting.
I rarely ever made it to the art store to pick up those brand new canvases that were meant to display my life-changing masterpieces. I finally just got so sick of feeling like this, that one day, I think it was a Saturday, I decided to take the power back. Instead of bookmarking these artists, and clicking through their work late at night on my laptop, I decided to celebrate them. Why? Well someone told me, somewhere along the way, that when jealousy is kept inside it becomes toxic, and can poison you from the inside out–but when you actually say it out loud, in a positive way, jealousy magically transforms into admiration. That person was right – 100% right! I started writing every few days, whenever I found an artist’s work that I truly loved. Just a paragraph or two with my gut reaction to the work. I throw a lot of “sighs” and “oh my words” and “sweet jiminys” into my posts because, well, that’s truly what’s happening in my head. I write what I think. Within a few months, I was writing about one artist every day, and before I knew it, people were actually reading! It turns out that a lot of people feel exactly the same way that I do. Who knew?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have “Damn I wish I thought of that” pop into my head all of the time, but now it’s a good thing–it means I have tomorrow’s post! I’ve also realized through being a “jealous curator”, that there is room out there for all of us. I see so much artwork every single day –some I like, some that’s not my taste, but it’s out there. It’s in galleries, in people’s homes, in magazines, and in books. I always knew that art was a subjective thing, but it’s really, really true! Now I know that there have to be people somewhere in the world that will like my work too. But, honestly, the best thing to come out of this entire experience? I finally like my own work. That’s the biggest relief of all.
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Danielle has a BFA in Visual Arts, and a post-grad in Design. In 2009, after years of looking at beautiful contemporary art and thinking “Damn, I wish I thought of that”, she finally decided to say it out loud, and just like that, The Jealous Curator was born! Her curation went from the blogosphere to actual gallery walls in 2011 with shows opening in Washington DC, and Vancouver. She is currently planning two new shows for 2012, a series of art workshops, and is thrilled to be speaking at Alt Summit in Salt Lake City for the second year in a row.
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What about you Magpies? What (or who) are you jealous of? How might you turn that jealous into a super power?
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Thanks.Giving. Here at Magpie Girl, we say “thank-you” to our brilliant guest posters by making donation in their honor. Danielle has chosen to direct her donation to RX Art, a non-profit organization dedicated to placing original fine art in patient, procedure and examination rooms of healthcare facilities. If this article was helpful to you, please click here to donate $5 to RX Art. (Thanks, you.)
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You Might Also Like:
Turning Envy Into Inspiration by Jennifer McGuggian of The Word Cellar
Relig-ish: My Right-fit Practice with Andrea Briggs
Today Andrea Briggs shares with us about her awareness of her connection to the earth helps her create her right-fit spiritual practice.
Andrea Briggs is a designer & teacher of mindful living and the sole creator of Inside Thread, an online portal for conscious living. A yoga + meditation teacher for over 5 years, Andrea’s loving nature and ecological background gives her the edge to teach others how to live, love and serve with abundance.
Rooted in Nature + Blossomed in Love
by Andrea Briggs
What could be more creative, rooted, and authentic than knowing you are connected to everything else on the planet?
My spiritual practices began as a young child when a close knit relationship with the ocean stirred my desire to explore my place within the environment. My loving parents gave my brother, sister and I endless play on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico where my earliest memories had me synced with the vibrations of my living space. At a young age, I realized how all actions where intimately tied into everything thing else. I was a caretaker of this pristine circle of life around me.
This awareness and connection with the environment laid the foundation for what would lead me through my adult years as a I began to formulate my own true authentic spiritual practices.
Like a multifaceted gem my approach to spiritual practices shined in multitudes of directions and encompassed all aspects of daily living.
Now I believe the root of this practice is global oneness. With the Western Society’s emphasis on individualism, independence, and even alienation, the idea of oneness seems far off but this understanding is key how all actions contribute to the whole.
I realized my “oneness” was amplified when I practiced these ideas…
- release + reduce + renew. By reducing my personal belongings to only what I really love and necessary, I freed myself of excessive wanting and gained new appreciation for what I have realizing that my possessions are tools to help me serve others.
less distraction + greater love - consume mindfully When I do buy something, I buy items made well with lasting qualities and are thoughtfully made with respectful to the environment.
- know my place in the environment Everything I eat & buy affects the environment. Therefore, I see my place as on this earth as a single cell and the health of myself affects that of all others around me.
- be of service Teaching others how to live more consciously in the world is how I am of service to others. I employ my background in Classical Hatha Raja Yoga and ecology to help others become less stressed and more conscious of their daily habits.
From this, I constructed a diagram I call the tree of “truth” which models my way of spiritual practice.
- The roots: this is the connection, the roots represent the interconnection of life. Ultimately we are connected to every thing on this planet.
- The trunk: knowledge, the position we take as individuals that builds our awareness and framework. We use the energy of our connection to nurture our growth.
- Strong + stable + bendable nature. Like the inside rings of a tree trunk, each year we grow deeper in awareness + practice + love.
- The branches are the practices. Each branch is a different way to express, a different tool to feel, another way to view and learn. One branch may serve, the other yogic asana, another meditation…relaxation…writing any way which allows to serve one another based in the roots of interconnection.
- The leaves form the love that is given from the practice. Practice in action. Love in action. Serve in action.
- The fruit is the loved shared.
Day to day my spiritual practices lie within every moment. It keeps me rooted to the whole of the planet and helps me see everyone as my spiritual guide. I believe in order to be useful to others we must individual seek our true nature by employing all the facets of living. Through true kindness, gratitude, love, devotion, wisdom and forgiveness we can benefit all living beings including ourselves.
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Ready to pay-it-forward? Andrea supports Greyhound Pets of America, an organization that rescues and cares for racing dogs all across America. On behalf of Andrea, Rachelle has donated $20. Did this piece help you? Please consider making a donation.
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What about you Magpies? How do you stay connected to the earth? What are you rooted in? What is your right-fit spiritual practice? Tell us in the comments below.
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Relig-ish is a new series at Magpie Girl dedicated to exploring a new kind of faith — one that suites Y.O.U. Come along with us as we help each other find a spirituality that fits. Click here to read all the Relig-ish posts, and join the mailing list for additional musings on this (re)construction project.
Thanks for being here today.
Much Warmth, Rachelle
Relig-ish: My Right-Fit Practice with Prime Sarmiento
Today we’d like to introduce Prime from The Gypsygals. Prime shares about her right-fit practice, Oracle cards and her Goddess Isis.
Journalist and traveler Prime Sarmiento helps women craft their own journeys. She blogs at The Gypsygals, where she offers inspiring stories and practical advice to solo female travelers. You can follow her at Twitter or join her growing community of solo female travelers in Facebook
Conversation with a Goddess
by Prime Sarmiento
Here are some of the things that have to be in my backpack whenever I travel – hypoallergenic soap, first aid kit, cash, passport, travel journal and my deck of Goddess oracle cards. Most of those items I need to survive as I travel in an unfamiliar place. But my journal and my oracle cards – I need them to go through my inner journeys.
I find it a bit ironic that the Goddess cards will become part of my daily spiritual practice. In my angst-filled 20s, I spent a lot of time and money consulting psychics, asking them to use their Tarot cards to tell me how to find a career and/or a relationship that will make me happy. I was thinking that if I can see the future, I will have a way of controlling its outcome and give me the happy ending that I was seeking for: a fulfilling job, a kind husband, love, security.
Years later, as I traveled and went through my own spiritual journey, after I read numerous spiritual books and consulted various teachers, I learned to let go. In the process, I also discovered my deep connection with the Goddess Isis – and longed to communicate with her. That’s how I ended up buying a deck of Goddess cards. And this time, I’m not interested in knowing my future.
Raised in a devout Catholic household where I used a rosary and a novena to pray – to “talk” to the Virgin Mary and the myriad of Catholic saints - I needed to hold on to some revered object to communicate with someone higher than me.
That’s how I view my Goddess cards – some kind of device to communicate with the Goddess Isis (and the many Goddesses that represent the universe’s energy). I like touching each card, looking at the colored portraits of Goddesses – Isis, Freyja, Lakshmi, Brigit.
Every day, usually in the mornings before I go to work, I sit in front of my altar, close my eyes, breathe deeply and ask the Goddess Isis to help me to fulfill my mission as Her priestess in this lifetime. After a few minutes of silence, I will get my cards, meditate while shuffling them, and ask the Goddesses for guidance for the day. Sometimes, when there’s a pressing problem in my mind, I ask for help in solving it. Or if I’m really happy because of small blessings that I received, I used that meditation time to send my thanksgiving.
Once I’m finished shuffling the cards, I lay them out in the table, cut them, pick the topmost card and read the message in the chosen card. I will ponder on the card’s message, and if I have time, I write my reflections in my journal and let that message, the energy of the card, be my guide for the day.
There are times that I feel that these cards aren’t enough. That I need to visit a temple somewhere to be closer to Her. Oh, how I sometimes I envy my mom or my sister who can just drop by any Catholic church to hear mass and pray their rosary. In my case, the only way for me to go to a Goddess temple is to travel to Egypt, where Isis temple resides in the island of Philae. There are also no Goddess spirituality groups here in manila, so I don’t even have a support group. Finding The Flock online is for me a beautiful coincidence that must have been facilitated by the Goddess Isis.
I have yet to visit Egypt as I’m still saving money for what is perhaps the biggest trip of my life. In the meantime, I will divine on my cards and let the Goddess Oracle cards take me to journeys within my soul.
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What about you Magpies? Do you use Oracle cards or have a Goddess practice? What is your right-fit spiritual practice?
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Ready to pay it forward? Prime has chosen to support Jenn, the Magpie assistant, and her trip to India this summer. Jenn, an International Development major, is traveling with a group of medical professionals to rural Rajasthan, India for two weeks. She’s raising money for the trip through her blog The Freelance, Unconventional Nun and you can read more in her Magpie Interview. As a thank-you for Prime’s post today Magpie Girl has made a donation in her honor. Did this piece help you? Please consider making a donation.
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Relig-ish is a new series at Magpie Girl dedicated to exploring a new kind of faith — one that suites Y.O.U. Come along with us as we help each other find a spirituality that fits. Click here to read all the Relig-ish posts, and join the mailing list for additional musings on this (re)construction project. Thanks for being here today. Much Warmth, Rachelle
Relig-ish: My Right-fit Practice with Christine Reed
Today we’d like to introduce Christine Reed from Bliss Chick. We ask Christine to share with us about her right-fit spiritual practice. Get ready to move…
Christine Claire Reed is a dancer, an intuitive healing dance educator, and a writer at blisschick.net She returned to dance at the age of 40 and has been experimenting with her body ever since. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and her website.
SoulCare: Caring for the Soul through the Body
by Christine Reed
In some Celtic traditions, they describe the soul as residing outside the body rather than in. They say we are walking around inside the soul. I love the imagery this evokes, and it also matches Eastern beliefs about our aura extending out from the physical body. (There is so much cross-over and exchange between the East and the Celts, but that is for another time.)
When I am leading intuitive healing dance, I emphasize the body as the gate to the spirit and teach that the breath is the key that opens that gate. These three elements are inextricably bound together; we cannot separate them and if we try, dis-ease (of mind, body, and/or spirit) is the result.
For instance, it is a fallacy to believe that it is possible — or even a “right” goal — to ever transcend the body. We are manifested physically to have a physical experience, to grow spirit through sensually attained wisdom.
To take the most excellent care of your soul or your spirit means taking the most excellent care of your body.
To grow the soul, to attain wisdom, we must be firmly rooted in the body and the body must be attended to every day in a gentle and loving way.
Too many of us compartmentalize our body care. For instance, we think in terms of “exercise” and “task” and “goal” and “obligation,” rather than joyful play and experimentation.
We head to the gym and beat ourselves up with machinery. We try to eat “perfectly” rather than for pleasure. We avoid “bad foods.”
The body is seen as a vehicle for the mind and spirit when it is an equal to each of those aspects of ourselves.
And yet…
I think this is what happens in a culture founded by Puritans.
As I sit in Mass a few times a week, I ponder the body on the crucifix. I think about how it is an empty cross that hangs in protestant churches and this makes sense in a culture that sees the body as never good enough or even sinful. The body is the point, the crucifix says to me. The body is the point, most paganism cries out.
Even in some factions of the yoga community, we are dangerously close to throwing the body out yet again. We are dangerously close to becoming Puritanical Yoginis as more writers and thinkers in that community are judgmental of anyone’s yoga which they perceive as too body centered and not “spiritual” enough.
To tend to the soul, we must tend to the body.
How do you tend to your most precious self?
Here is a very basic level practice for intuitive healing dance: Pick a piece of music. Drumming is great. Anything by the avant garde cellist Zoe Keating is amazing for this exercise. Preferably something with which you have no history. Put the music on when you are feeling very safe. Stand with eyes closed and near no mirrors. Start the music and just breathe deeply into the belly. Imagine that you are pulling breath and energy up through your feet as you inhale, and then share energy back down into the earth as you exhale. Keep doing this until movement happens. Do not move on your own. Wait until breath and rhythm compel the movement from the inside. (Have your music on repeat in case this takes many minutes.) Remember to envision your body INSIDE your soul and see your dancing as a way to clean out this critical area and make way for fresh, invigorated, creative energy.
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What about you, dear Magpies? Do you move your body as form of soulcare? What is your right-fit spiritual practice? Tell us about it the comments!
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Ready to pay-it-forward? The kitties need you! Christine supports Orphaned Angels, a sanctuary and adoption center for orphaned cats. As a thank-you for her post today, Magpie Girl has made a donation in her honor. Did this piece help you? Please click here to give to a kitty.
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Relig-ish: My Favorite Right-Fit Practice with Shae Savoy
It’s officially summertime and we’re taking this opportunity to get some new folks Behind the Mic. To help our relig-ish readers find a spirituality that fits, we’ll hearing from a series of guest bloggers about their customized approach to soulcare. Today we’d like to introduce Shae Savoy from Concentric: Observations About Everyday Divinity. We asked Shae to tell us about her favorite right-fit spiritual practice. Shae, step right up…
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Shae Savoy is a poet-priestess and Tarot practitioner committed to helping restore balance to all living systems. She teaches writing at Bent Writing Institute and loves working with other writers to spill their gorgeous voices onto the page. Shae is an award-winning essayist and her poetry appears frequently in We’Moon.
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NEIL YOUNG WITH BIRDS, OR HOW I WRITE
By Shae Savoy
January 25, 2007
Wonder-struck, sandwich in hand, I found myself rooted to the sidewalk on 5th Avenue and Olive. In the pink sky heralding nightfall, a circus troupe of smallish birds wove ribbons among the blocks of concrete and glass. As if of one mind, they gracefully looped into two separate swirling spheres, circling each other, before pulling back into a single column, a flowing ellipsis of feathers. They performed this routine in near silence, uninterrupted by my rapt attention or the flashing lights and whistling brakes of downtown traffic. It was one bird, one moment, one single existence. I watched for an hour, little crunched-up bits of peanut butter clinging to the roof of my mouth, until the darkness finally swallowed the birds.
This is part of how I write: I notice. My Scorpio moon and Virgo sun have endowed me with a deep-drilling curiosity that is unsatisfied with the way things appear to be (often passed off as the ways things are) and a sometimes merciless penchant for detail. But really what I mean to say is I AM IN LOVE WITH LIVING. I write because I want to squeeze out every ounce of nectar and blood and I want to be able to capture the ephemera of moments. Writing is the vehicle of my spirituality. It is my teacher and my lover and it is how I listen.
My best writing happens in my journals with black gel ink. Each journal has a title, signifying whatever I think that chapter of my life should be called, and I fill one up about every 3 months. Right now I’m living the “Faery Emergence” chapter. For a while I wrote in made-in-India embroidered journals with linen-like pages. There was my too-expensive phase of leatherbound journals. Then the famous Moleskine journals, which I loved for the texture of the page, the pocket in the back, and the elastic band that keeps it all together, since I will often stuff loose things into the pages like feathers, postcards, and autumn leaves. Wherever I am, there is a journal with me. It’s partially my way of abating the fear that something brilliant and monumental will occur and having no way to capture it, it will fly away into the ethers, forever lost to me. I am that dramatic about it.
It might be an outgrowth of gluttony, my need to taste and digest, taste and digest these littlest (biggest) tiptoeings of living without end. Writing is for me
about freezing time and unwinding all the tendrils of whole, packaged moments so that each small plucking of the strings can be heard again and again and again. I want to
s l o w the whole band down, like Neil Young (a Scorpio, incidentally) urging Crosby, Stills and Nash to deepen and ponder, to decrease the tempo so that my full-bodied emotions can swell up from the depths of abstraction, so I can sculpt them into solid things to stroke and marvel at. As if they were birds.
So my process involves feeling. It’s visceral. When I want to write about something, I do this centering, coming fully into my body, breathing and picturing the moment, inviting the sensations and feelings to flood me. Then I start letting words drip from my fingers. Writing, for me, is breathing. Long, gusty, rhythmic breaths. Oxygenating my blood.
January 11, 2011
These creamy pages are thirsty for my ink. My pen gliding, gliding like birds, like the pigeons I just made the acquaintance of. It feels good to write. Good morning, healing earth! Good morning, Love!
I’m on the bus on the way to school and when we pulled up to the Starbucks at 23rd and Jackson, and all the white middle school kids with their musical instrument cases piled off, little snowflakes were falling and I had the familiar sadness of knowing it wouldn’t last, that the rain would come and wash away the snow before any snow-people could be formed. Looking out the window, I gazed down upon the top of a battered newspaper machine, upon which someone had left a brown loaf of wheat bran, had baked up this treat and upended it like a gourmet dish for the pigeons busily picking away at it, and as I watched, thinking what a beautiful image I should capture this I should write about it one of the grayish mottled birds rose before me, ascending in slow-motion, a flurry of flapping wings, the sound like the whispered shuffling of a deck of cards. She seemed to float before me, wings outstretched, heart thrust forward, glorying in the goodness of flight. Maybe she was dancing with gratitude.
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What about you Magpies? Do you use writing as your spiritual practice? If so, feel free to share and example or links to blogs in the comments below. Let us know about your own sacred practices.
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Interested in Goddess worship? Shae would like you to check our Gaia’s Temple. Gaia’s Temple is a Seattle-based spiritual organization making a positive impact on the local community. Please consider donating.
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Relig-ish is a new series at Magpie Girl dedicated to exploring a new kind of faith — one that suites Y.O.U. Come along with us as we help each other find a spirituality that fits. Click here to read all the Relig-ish posts, and join the mailing list for additional musings on this (re)construction project. Thanks for being here today. Much Warmth, Rachelle
