Lent is often practiced as a time of waiting. We all have seasons of life that are about waiting. We have seasons that feel like preparation or support for something yet to come. In these times, we can fall into the posture of simply enduring. We live in the resistance of just waiting for the time to pass, for the season to be over. For Easter and resurrection to come. Then things will be ok.
Or we can hold the times of anticipation with an eager hope. With a glorious longing.
Read MoreWhether we be in personal grief or not, we all carry and hold in some way the pain of global distress, crises, and suffering. We have feelings of powerlessness, anger, fear, and sadness. They may be close to the surface or deep within. We carry on with life, for we can only consciously be with this sorrow so much.
The spiritual practice of lament gives us a way to welcome the pain and grief intentionally and allow it to express, rather than trying to keep it contained within. This form of mourning gives us space to let the grief flow however it needs to—as a rushing torrent or a trickling rivulet.
If you are ready and feel able to move in this way, click to read more and move into the practice.
Read MoreFrom the soil of deep belonging can spring the sprouts of new creation.
From the kinship of soulful belonging in the bosom of God can we bear our divine becoming.
From the mercy of wombful belonging can enfold great care and capacity to be with pain.
From the vulnerability of authentic belonging in grief together can emerge deep healing.
From the ground of deep belonging can grow our glorious and holy longings, arising from wholeness rather than lack and loss.
Read MoreMercy in a wombful sense is a glorious way of meeting grief.
A wombful mercy springs forth not from power over, but arises from the depths of sacred Origin. The ever-present beginning-ing that is always happening.
A wombful mercy embraces our grief and holds it in the compassion of deep empathy—with us in the midst of it, from inside the womb. It remains and releases in response to what is embodied here and now. It is able to hold and let go, in the blessedly ripe and right time.
A wombful mercy evokes a more feminine way of meeting pain and dejection, less concerned with fixing or trying to absolve, it stays with us as long as we need in great care.
A wombful mercy is creative and illuminative. It gives birth to new life and wonderous conceptions.
A wombful mercy is communal, helping give birth to a new sense of ourselves. It lets go of “shoulds” for ourselves and others, freeing us into the fullness of our unique, authentic being in divine creativity—held together in communion,
How might you welcome and embody wombful mercy today and this week?
Read MoreA final sharing from Paul Smith
Read MoreThinking alone does not connect us to God. It takes feelings, intuitive sensing, and grounding to the material cosmos.
Whole Body Mystical Awakening practice is not being aware of your body but being aware as the body. Here we learn to “soak” in the bliss, love, sensations, feelings, images, colors, words, sounds, intuitions that arise from deep within—as well as from the spiritual field between us and the other physical and non-physical beings present.
This is the shift from “ordinary consciousness” into a fuller, more integrated consciousness.
Read MorePew research from 2009 revealed that 49% of Americans say they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.” Eleven years later, that number is most likely higher. It has been climbing up steadily from only 22% in 1962. The percentage may actually be greater considering that many may have had such experiences but wouldn’t want to put the term “religious” on it for a variety of reasons.
Have you had a mystical experience?
Read MoreWhat is the purpose of our WeSpace groups? Why do we advocate Whole-Body Mystical Awakening practices?
At ICN, our stated purpose is “Gathering a global community of dedicated mystical practitioners for the loving evolution of Christianity and the world.”
We dedicate ourselves to our mystical practice because it takes us into the pathways of inhabiting and becoming this transformative presence in the world. Because it is how we become conscious participants in the divine, creative work of loving evolution.
Read MoreIf I asked you to think about your body, what comes to mind?
How you look from the outside? What amount of weight we’d like to lose? Our skin and bones. Organs and tissues. Muscle and fat. Cells and neurons.
This is the body from an exterior, objective material perspective. It is true, but it is partial.
Unfortunately, so much of Christian history propagated and reinforced a division of the material and the spiritual. Body and soul apart, despite being the religion of the incarnation, of God made flesh. Combine that with a Western materialism that also tends toward disembodiment, and here we are—many of us disconnected and disassociated from our body as a true aspect of our being, not just an object.
There has been pushback of course. More yoga and tai chi, dance and movement. Perhaps we’ve learned some about our emotional body, our pain body. And perhaps, you’ve already begun to come more into your subtle body—your mystical body.
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