Your Body As A Sacred Site

Let's turn within and greet the spirit of the land that holds us so beautifully here.

We've been meeting here for a few years,

So the spirit of the land is quite familiar with us,

And welcomes us each time.

So,

Let's take a moment from your heart to greet the spirit of this land here at the park,

Where our cabin is sitting,

Where the lake is,

The trees,

The rolling hills,

The roads.

And you can feel the width and breadth of the spirit of the land.

There's a certain space that this spirit is responsible for that even includes the roads and the housing developments a little farther out from here.

These nature spirits have domains that they take care of.

And so it's always polite to greet the spirit of the land where you live,

Where you work,

Where you go shopping.

It doesn't matter if it's a mall,

A hotel,

A racetrack.

Whenever humans have decided to create,

There's a spirit of the land beneath it.

That brings us into relationship with the Earth,

Which we may have forgotten.

And it helps us to remember that we're here to be in relationship with the Earth,

To be participating in the consciousness of a very great being.

And it's a partnership,

A love affair,

A school,

A place where we are all evolving and growing.

So when we came here,

The last thing we expected to do was be like little mice scurrying around on the surface of the planet.

Our intent originally was to participate with the planet and not treat it as a platform for our craziness.

So we can shift now,

Remember that.

And it's our first step of coming into right relationship with all that exists.

And what a relief,

Isn't it?

As we make the adjustment from the scurrying to the participating,

There's several creaks and twists that have to occur,

And so we'll be patient with that.

And it's a whole meditation workshop just to make this shift.

And we used to spend months learning how to make this shift,

Which we're now able to do within a few minutes.

And something that helps us right away is to put a smile on your face.

You're not smiling at anyone,

You're experiencing the smile.

And right away that allows you to relax a little,

Be okay with yourself.

Shift out of the striving mode.

Literally turn that frown upside down.

Smile.

Lift the corners of your mouth.

It changes things.

With the greeting of the Spirit of the Land,

We begin in a sacred relationship with the Earth.

And as we develop this sacred relationship,

More becomes revealed,

And more of the unseen is called in.

So now that we've greeted the Spirit of the Land,

The elements are here to be greeted and to greet us.

So we greet the Earth,

And the water,

And the fire,

And the air,

And the ether.

And this is developing a deeper sacred relationship with our bodies and with the Earth,

As our bodies are made up of these elements.

Our bodies,

Our sacred sites.

So let's now greet our body as a sacred site.

You know,

A sacred site,

We think of a place where we go to make pilgrimage,

To honor the sacred,

To seek healing,

To be humbled,

To obtain wisdom,

Because it's a place of power,

It's a place where the Divine has appeared.

And our bodies are all of that.

They're each a manifestation of the Divine appearing at this particular site within our bodies.

We'll allow that realization to set in for a moment here.

And then take a little bit of a breath.

And then take a little journey through your body,

Like you would if you went to a shrine,

Or a mosque,

Or a church,

And you're exploring the different niches and altars within that site.

And possibly kneel before the organs,

The heart.

And notice the sacred sense,

The sense of awe,

That this can inspire.

And then take a little bit of a breath.

And then take a little breath.

And every sacred site has a center where the portal to the dimensions beyond exists,

And by which the sacred site is identified.

Find that place within you,

And allow yourself to stand within that spot,

That area.

And it's different for each person.

Allow yourself to be guided,

Or attracted,

Or invited to that center,

Rather than preconceiving it.

It might be different than what you thought.

And then take a little breath.

And then take a little breath.

And now let's set the sacred site of your being into place within the heart of Mother Earth.

Feel the energy centers in your feet connecting with the energy of the planet,

Of the Mother.

Relax into the gentle awareness that keeps growing and growing as you sit with this.

Gently,

With rolling waves and reciprocal flow,

We'll set the foundation for your sacred site within Mother Earth.

This is an aspect of the embodied spirituality,

That we actually find a relationship between our spirit,

Our body,

And Mother Earth,

As compared to a spirituality that is just about ascension.

This is incorporating both Heaven and Earth into a reciprocal flow that allows us to and promotes the creating of sacred life,

Sacred living.

So the sense of spirituality is brought into the world and into all of our actions,

Thoughts,

And speech.

Our temple moves with us.

So it's the immanent nature of the Divine that we bring to life.

If you're feeling any pressure in your head,

Then drop down to the seat and feet,

And return to that awareness of the exchange of energy with Mother Earth.

All Allow yourself to be weighted.

Wounded downward.

And releasing any further heavy energy that wants to be drawn down into the earth takes a little invitation or permission for that energy to release.

We're not pushing.

We're not shoving.

We're actually opening up and releasing,

Knowing that our heavy energy is her fuel,

Her food.

And the energy that we receive from her is our fuel,

Our food.

This is very important.

If we don't feel like we have channels that,

A place that can receive our heavy energy,

The effects of our living a life in a sacred way,

Then all we're left with a sense of is that we're dirty.

So how we understand our relationship to the earth has everything to do with how we feel about ourselves.

It changes those feelings of guilt and shame and lack of worthiness into the loving flow of life.

It changes our whole worldview and experience.

So whatever the energetic or spiritual process we engage in,

One of the things we want to know is how our energy is recycled.

And are we in a sustainable relationship with ourselves and anyone or anything else?

Can you feel the difference in the two perspectives?

How is that changing how you feel about yourself right at this very moment?

Carolina,

Indiana.

I sense there's no longer a need to take from outside of myself.

I no longer have that wanting to do that or that needing to do that,

To feel something that's inside that would be empty because it's not empty.

I no longer feel like you're dumping.

It's more of like a relationship now that I'd be focused on myself,

Maybe chastising myself.

Now if you don't abuse the dumping,

The relationship opens up.

What would it take to sustain this or remember it more often?

Just a rhetorical question for you to maybe set up some reminders for yourself.

For me it's this vision that I'm having,

Washing my temple floor.

And when I feel heavy and alone,

It's because of the energies,

My own path that I've durdied up or dusted up needs to be cleansed,

Washed,

Bringing the light back into my temple.

Which is really a very nice visual reminder that I feel very fresh,

Very clean after scrubbing and leasing.

In that image,

I'm not hearing the relationship of where it's going.

I'm kind of hearing an old relationship of having to clean up after myself.

It's keeping my path open,

My connection between the aspects of cleansing to me is getting back to Gaia,

Opening the path that she knows between heaven and earth,

The lightness,

The brightness,

The heaviness,

It's all interrelated.

How does the image change?

If you are experiencing the flow back and forth.

The corridors,

Which is interesting because I didn't have many corridors,

I would straight into my heart center.

It's very light,

Very airy,

Very fiery,

And very,

Really more whole when I've done the experience.

Are you having to scrub a floor right now?

No.

There was damage that I had in the beginning to be comfortable in relationship with my relationship.

There's light in all four directions and around me and within me.

In the tradition in which I was raised,

Preparation for First Holy Communion comes to mind.

There was a rubric that you participated in,

In a process,

But it was horizontal.

This is vertical engagement,

Which is different.

Words of an old song came into my mind.

I was trying to figure out what I give to you and you give to me.

True love,

True love.

The word sacred sight and experiencing my body as a sacred sight.

The sacred sight brings me into the space of when I do visit a sacred sight and the experience of the honor and the awe and the openness.

There's an openness of receiving without any assumptions or any preconceived ways of what to expect.

When I use that word on my body,

The same thing happens.

When you sit and find that space inside that connected the heavens and the earth and was that opening,

I first went to the heart and then I thought to myself right before you mentioned it,

Was that automatic?

That's the space that you expect.

There were a couple of other areas of my body that made themselves known and there was one that felt more peaceful than the other two and it wasn't the heart.

I had this thought that is it possible that,

No,

I had this thought that for right now this is the space and that space can change based on where my body meets where my body is at.

That space of connection to the heavens and the earth can change.

If you think about it,

When you go to a sacred sight,

There's a center that's the reason someone found that center that's very powerful and worked with the energy of that sight.

But if you go and revisit a sight,

There will be different places within that sight that you have a connection to at various times and that's your center with the sight.

There is a holy of holies.

There is a central place.

That's why we circumnambulate a sacred spot and discover it.

Let its mystery unfold and speak to us.

Can you see how having just one or two central concepts of how the world works changes your relationship to everything?

To everything.

So the pervading programming really dominates how you think of yourself,

How you relate to everyone else,

How you make your choices in your life.

We are at a time when that programming is changing and that's the planetary and cosmic evolution that's going on.

But we don't have to be limited to the current programming.

We can choose to work with revealed information,

Revealed knowledge,

Rather than what's acquired.

And that means working from within,

Living from within,

In a way that speaks to your truth and what has been revealed to you.

So many of our relationships are negotiated by pre-formed lines of travel back and forth that are basically expectations and agreed upon assumptions.

And at a certain point that can become very limiting.

What was the impulse that pulled you up and out?

It just seems like I can't,

Well it's comfort,

Physical discomfort,

But it just seems like the energy just,

It won't.

Why don't you just adjust yourself?

It's okay,

It can get uncomfortable as it's moving.

But I'm not a good sitter,

I'm a floor person.

And you're as close as you can get.

I used to be a floor person too.

And I love sitting cross-legged.

But in these teachings,

It's really valuable to watch the impulse that draws you to close in rather than stay connected.

I say that for everyone.

I'm feeling the realignment of my priorities to become inner-directed with my relationship with myself and the Earth.

And my benchmark will be how other directed I am.

Because I'm often looking out at the other as opposed to being in that relationship with myself.

So being as my sacred site is a really powerful image of the realignment of what's important.

That's quite an adjustment to make,

Actually.

To think of yourself as a sacred site.

The spiritual teachings all tell us that,

But we don't actually embody that and bring it through to the personality.

In many ways the teachings have said to us,

We're only sacred if we don't have a personality,

And we draw within.

This is showing up in the imminent or present state of being sacred.

So let's start off by doing an exercise,

Sitting with another person or standing with another person and just feeling what it feels like to have a sense of yourself,

Have permission to have a sense of yourself as the sacred site,

Sacred being,

In relationship to another person who is also a sacred site,

Sacred being.

And this is,

You're not going to know how to do it.

You're just not going to know.

And that's why you have to try it.

And you can negotiate it together.

In other words,

You can talk about it together,

Help each other.

Let's play with it a little,

See what it feels like to give yourself permission to show up this way.

And allow yourself the adjustments.

Allow it to be fluid,

And if you forget something,

Just remember it.

If you see you're trying to control the situation too much,

Acknowledge it,

Just kind of watch.

Be very present and we'll literally pair up.

You can sit or stand together and we'll spend about ten minutes with each other,

Seeing what that feels like.

You literally don't know how to do this,

So don't even think you do.

Go into it,

Sensing your way as if you're in a dark cave with no light and you have to feel the walls and feel the floor and know that you're in the dark and see what comes.

Really play with it.

So pair up with someone that you don't know or you know less than someone else.

Because some of you know each other here.

Is conversation part of the experience?

Figure it out together.

Knowing that no one has any idea what they're doing.