Embodied Presence Exploration 5: Soma & Pleasure
We begin by taking a baseline. Notice sensations or what is present in your body. Become aware of your breath without trying to change it. Take a baseline now, pausing the audio or stepping away from your computer if you wish.
Once taking baseline is complete, we attune to Source, simply by intending to do so. Attune to source now.
When you have attuned to Source, ask yourself What is your current desired feeling state - while listening to or reading this material, in this day, in this course? Presence to that desired feeling state now.
As our inquiry grows, we build with the resources gathered in earlier explorations. We approach this session with an awareness of right pace, allowing ourselves to be guided by this flow. We attend to space - what we need to be most fully able to presence to this material and inquiry. That could look like cleaning your physical space before approaching or while listening to this material, or creating physical space around you, or spaciousness in time, to most fully dive deep with this. We presence to grace, through gratitude and integration practices. We give thanks. If it is resonant for you, pause the audio or take a moment away from your computer and give thanks now. And, we are supported by our most recent inquiry into place and elementals. We presence to the literal place where we are engaging this work, feeling its energies or aspects that support us. And/or we can presence to elementals or a physical place in our mind’s eye or embodied memory/vision that supports us in this work. Take a moment to become aware of the physical place where you are, or the elements you are connecting with, that support you in this journey. Perhaps you have created an altar in support of this work or created an energetic link to the central Embodied Presence altar where you are. Connect to that altar or energy now. This altar work can also be done internally - feel free to work energetically here as is right for you.
Presencing Soma
Welcome, again, to our inquiry into Presencing Soma.
Soma is a greek word meaning “the living body in it’s wholeness - mind, body, spirit as one” (Victoria Castle)
The body that we have been given is our primary home in this life. It is an exquisite temple designed to honor and house divinity. We are Divinity becoming ourselves. This body is our primary altar and adornment. Cultivating embodied presence is our primary act of devotion.
As culture has evolved toward a separation between body and the sacred, wisdom around divine embodiment has been obscured. Each choice and each moment offers us an opportunity to remember. The work we have done up until this point has all been in support of this.
Our exploration this week is simple.
What if you wholly experienced and engaged your body as the body of the Sacred?
What does living in your body as if your body is the body of the Sacred look like and feel like?
In what ways are your current practices and your state of awareness aligned with embodied devotion?
How will your choices and acts shift as you choose to perceive your body as the body of the sacred in each moment?
How do you adorn your body, if she is the body of the Sacred? What textures and colors and shapes do your divine body want to be adorned in?
What nourishment do you take into your body, when you are aware that this body is the body of the Sacred? What does your divine body want to eat, and how?
How do you move your Divine body? How does the body of the Sacred want to move?
How do you make love with, through and to the body of the Sacred?
Presence to the possibility that Source is truly in your body, of your body, is your body. Every physical act becomes a practice of devotion, of embodied worship, of embodying worship.
I find myself supported in this practice when I attune to pleasure at the same time I am attuned to Source. Seeking lush experience of ease, flow and beauty that are aligned with the vibration that is most supportive to my divine essence. Pleasure that is of the deepest celebration and service. Pleasure that is delicious both during and after.
In the book, The Trance of Scarcity, author Victoria Castle writes “What we embody, we become. She offers an exercise which she calls “Flexing your pleasure muscle,” which invites us into the inquiry “Without changing any conditions around you, how can you have more pleasure in this moment?” I ask you this question right now. Without changing any conditions around you, how can you have more pleasure in this moment?
This does not assume that your body is already in a state of pleasure, or that you aren’t experiencing a challenge of some kind. Whatever your current state, the question is how can you have more pleasure in this moment?
Presencing Pleasure
In the charge of the Goddess, Dion Fortune writes “All acts of love and pleasure are my ritual.” Sense engagement is a central practice of somatic engagement. I love sound. I find myself supported in being present to the sacred in each embodied act when I engage mantra or chanting of divine names. I am deeply nurtured by resonant touch. Self-massage, sharing touch with others and investing in body-work are all important parts of my somatic presencing. I surround myself with scents that support the state I wish to cultivate. I give myself tastes I adore and I take time to wake up my tongue before I eat, to really allow the tasting full possibility. I gaze upon what I find beautiful, and give that beauty to myself as another form of nourishment.
Even when I experience moments of challenge in my body, and especially then, I find myself supported by rooting first in resource and what is most nourishing. If a particular sense awareness does not meet me with comfort, I become curious what sense awareness will meet me most positively. Perhaps it is sweet scent from fresh flowers or essential oils. Perhaps it is a delicious taste or the sound of a familiar and loving voice. Perhaps it is the soft texture of my favorite sweater on my skin.
There are so many ways to say yes to the sacred that animates through your body.
Reflect on what particular sensory practices serve you embodying the sacred. What are the ways you are saying yes to the Sacred in your body this week? Journal about this.
This body is a culmination of millions of years of evolutionary processes. Your body is so wise. Your body is so divine. Let your body guide you. Let go into this knowing that your body is divine.
Presencing Soma Addendum
Welcome again / anew to Presencing Soma - our exploration presencing to the pulse of our living body as an animation of both mind and spirit.
This is an additional inquiry to this week’s primary practice. If you’ve worked with Presencing Soma part 1, you’ve been engaging your divine body, inquiring into what your divine body wants and needs and presencing to devotion, honoring and somatic reverence.
Our next layer of exploration is presencing to what is in our bodies on a level that is beyond baseline. This is a presencing to how the shape and structure and make-up of our bodies supports and creates our gifts, challenges and experience of the world.
This inquiry evolved for me when a dear friend commented on the amount of hair on my lower legs. We were working with the energetics of hair as antennae, in this case the energetics of the hair on my legs as energetic roots extending toward earth. My friend appreciated that I had such significant support - ie such hairy legs - to help me in this connection. Another way I might understand the gifts of the hair on my legs is in relation to how it supports my creature body. I particularly resonant with primal movement and primal ways and this hair helps me connect to the animality of my body. I can explore other aspects of my physical body in this way as well - how my shape supports the gifts I am here to embody, and how my gifts and story shape by my body. It goes in both directions - as anyone who has experienced dramatic external physical changes can attest - the outer body can be a map for the inner state, and vice versa.
Reflect on the state of your physical body - both in it’s immediate moment and longer term - your core physical characteristics and shape. How does the strength or flesh of your legs, hips, waist, torso, shoulders and arms inform and reflect particular ways of being for you? How do aspects of your body like your leg, torso and arm length and girth impact or align with how you express in your life?
What does the structure of your body teach you about your essence? If these bodies are the temples we are given as homes for divinity, what aspects of divinity are particularly known and served through your unique body temple? In what ways have you been given exactly the body you need to house your particular sacred experience?
Please approach this gently and with an eye to clarity. This exercise is about clear seeing and exploring soma as a gift. So often we are taught to study our body toward judgement and disconnection from the sacred. This inquiry is not that. If you find yourself slipping into that way of thinking, step away from the exercise and nourish yourself. Come back with an eye toward neutrality and compassion. Imagine if you were stepping into a temple for the first time - you would learn much about the worship that happens inside it from it’s structure. This inquiry is that -- what do you know about the worship that happens through your body by the bones, tissue and properties that come together to build this living embodiment of deity that is you?