Embodied Spirit, Conscious Earth – Preface
Our world today is in a crisis ….. deeper and more widespread than any we have known throughout recorded history. Not only is the survival of the human race under threat, but we have created the potential for the devastation of our home, the earth, and all her inhabitants too. We perch precariously on the brink of catastr ophic breakdown as the insubstantial structures of our society groan under the weight of ever-increasing pressures from within and without ….. We pollute the earth, the air, the rivers and sea, the dome of sky that protects us from above, all in the name of progress, when all the time it is leading us into greater global danger. (Hartley 2001: 33)
In January 1990 I began to write Servants of the Sacred Dream and wrote these words. They could have been written today, now January 2024, and each crisis that has arisen in recent years seems to be even worse than the one before it. The crises I was naming then have not only deepened but have also surfaced more fully into collective awareness. The crucial issue of climate change has finally become a mainstream concern, not only of climate scientists, environmental activists and lovers of the natural world, but of politicians and business leaders too, appearing in every newspaper, TV channel, and filling social media with articles and conversations. ‘An idea whose time has come’ – but has it come too late? we are now asking. Can we stop catastrophic climate change and species extinction, including our own?
The polycrisis we are now in the very midst of is collective and multi-dimensional; humanity has entered a collective initiation, a death-rebirth transition, which has long been predicted. Joanna Macy called it The Great Turning (Macy and Johnstone 2012). This is the time when the old way is dying, and we are now laying the blueprint for the new. This momentous transition has been going on for decades, maybe longer, and will take many more to fully complete, but it feels as if we have now entered the birth canal; we feel the pains of labour but are stuck, in the dark, no clear way through in sight. The feelings engendered at the early stage of labour can be of pain, fear, grief, betrayal, helplessness and hopelessness, feeling disempowered. We may feel like victims to greater forces working upon us.
What is needed for the birthing infant, and for humanity in the throes of birthing a new era, a totally new way of being together and with the Earth? Can we accept the loss of the old ways, the pain of what is now, yield into the pressure and know that this is the way birth is? Acceptance of the pain can lead us through. Yielding might help us to discover the strength and power and will to do things better. We grieve for all we are leaving behind even as we must prepare for what is to come, being midwife to a death and a birth simultaneously.
Continued revealing of scientific evidence and ongoing activism will be required to force politicians and large corporate bodies to accept that change needs to come from the top down, to meet the creative and progressive changes from the bottom up that so many individuals, families, campaign groups and communities are already making.
It is thought by those in the intersecting fields of ecology and spirituality that several areas must be addressed in order to make the significant system change that is needed. The first and most fundamental is spirituality and community. Without this, without a deep sense of connection with each other and to that which is greater than all of us, changes in political, social, economic and agricultural systems will not hold.
I ask you, the reader, to hold this context in mind as we enter an exploration of the central themes of this book – conscious embodiment and embodied relational spiritual practice. I see these as forms of sacred activism that can also support and be part of the global movement towards a healthy society and planet. All intentions and actions which look towards a healthy and sustainable future can and must become the norm. We can seed intentions and actions that prioritise Nature over the unnatural, health and well-being over damaging practices, and creative community over destructive industry. And we must. This is our responsibility.
In this book I explore the process and practice of conscious embodiment of movement, which has been the core of my work over five decades of study, practice and teaching. But what does this have to do with the environmental and climate crisis we currently face? My experiences have shown me that when we are deeply connected to our own embodied being, we naturally come into deepened re-connection with the Earth-body out of which we have evolved and upon which we are totally dependent for life. When we listen to the language of our own body and learn from it what we feel and need, we develop the capacity to ‘hear’ the Earth speaking to us. Hearing Earth’s messages, her teachings and her needs, we are inspired to give deserved respect and protection to the Earth and the natural world.
We are interdependent with Nature, not removed from it; we are totally reliant on water, air, sun, and the nutrients of the Earth herself. Without each of these elements, kept healthy, in balance and harmony, we can expect no life at all. In his seminal book The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram (1997) helped awaken us to this reality. Writing about the deep interconnection we have with the natural world, he brought indigenous Earth-based wisdom into wider contemporary consciousness through a deep reflection on “the more-than-human world”.
We are part of Nature. Our bones, the most resilient and lasting tissue of the body, are filled with the minerals of the Earth. Bones are the bedrock of the body, having the strength, beauty and constitution of marble if fluids and living tissue are removed (Juhan 1987: 92-3). Without our boney architecture we could not stand up and walk about on the Earth. Let alone build an aeroplane and fly across the world, or even sit at a desk to write.
Body fluids evolved from the ocean. We are part of the ocean and carry a part of it within us. From the moment of conception, we are bathed and held within an ocean of fluid that is a drop of the great ocean of the world; throughout life every cell of our body is surrounded by and filled with this fluid. It is the medium through which we breathe and are nourished, communicate amongst our different parts – cells and tissues – and maintain health and internal balance. The water of the ocean is our home, our protection and nourishment, and without it we cannot survive.
The oxygen we breathe is also essential to life. Trees and vegetation produce the oxygen that nourishes and energises us; they also absorb the carbon dioxide that we expel as waste and they are nourished by this. We live in exquisite reciprocity with the trees of planet Earth. This miracle of interdependence has genius within it. It is just one example of the complete interconnectedness that we and all species of the Earth partake in.
A tv documentary film showed a marvelous example of this, where dolphins and seabirds had developed a mutually beneficial system of attracting the fish that both feed on. Two entirely different species had learnt to work together to enhance the survival of both. And, of course, examples of reciprocal support are evident throughout Nature. James Lovelock revived the ancient Greek name Gaia for the intelligent, co-operative, interdependent, mutually self-sustaining systems of the planet and all its inhabitants (Lovelock 1991). When we become aware of the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of interconnectedness, it is hard not to see Gaia as an intelligent being with a consciousness of her own.
So as we enter this exploration into conscious embodiment, I invite you to hold this wider context and questions about the consciousness of the Earth herself. Can we learn, from listening to the Earth as well as within our own body, what we each need to do to fulfill the responsibility we hold as custodians of this heart-breakingly beautiful planet that is our home?
Interweaving Arcs
The book will follow several interweaving arcs. Central to it are the embodied awareness practices of somatic movement, somatic dance and the Discipline of Authentic Movement; one arc follows development within this field of work from individual body-mind integration and healing to a conscious collective body that also embraces the potential for planetary healing. My own life and career path follow some of the strands of this field of work and some significant moments are touched upon.
Beginnings and endings of life mark another arc that unfolds from conception to dying. The evolving relationship between the matter of body and the mystery of Spirit through an individual’s life is traced, as the theme of embodiment of Spirit is explored. We might also find ourselves asking ‘where are we now in the arc of humanity’s life in relation to our collective embodiment of Spirit, and of the consciousness of Earth herself?’ A spiritual emergency – a crisis of emergence into a new mode of consciousness perhaps?
Themes introduced in the early chapters will be returned to and explored more fully in later chapters, unfolding in over-lapping waves just as with the development of the embryo, fetus and infant.
Nest
For more than a century and a half the wide and diverse field of somatic movement practice has provided a sheltered place where fledgling disciplines that invite conscious embodiment of movement, deep inner listening and the wisdom that arises from subjective experience, could develop, grow and flourish (Johnson 1995). This movement has often drawn upon ancient roots in global indigenous practices, integrated with modern scientific theory and research.
I think of the field of somatics as a nest within which nascent practices could be nurtured safely, within studios and circles of movers, partly hidden, protected from the premature gaze of unresponsive mainstream cultures. The field is largely peopled and led by women, along with a few significant male leaders, contributors and pioneers (Matthias Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais and Rudolf Laban were notable early pioneers). Qualities often described as the ‘feminine’ have been able to find expression, enabling women and men who embody these qualities to become empowered in new forms of leadership, and these qualities to become more known, strengthened and refined through research and practice. In this context the term feminine refers to relational and embodied modes of consciousness rather than to gender. Qualities include body and Earth consciousness; attuned relational awareness that engenders sensitivity and respect towards others and Nature; re-connection with the natural world and the indigenous perspective of mystical participation with the web of life. Of course, many men participate as deeply as women in this movement, and it is a union of healed masculine and empowered feminine values that we seek now.
In today’s world we need to address simultaneously the climate and ecological crisis, and the re-balancing of feminine and masculine qualities within us and throughout the whole of human society; social and racial justice is part of this, as the dominant white and male culture of the preceding millenia has so often engendered inequality, injustice, oppression and harm to those seen as ‘other’ and to the Earth and Nature. It is time for the somatics fledgling to spread her wings and fly free from her nest, bringing the qualities that have been nurtured over many decades of research and practice more fully into view. They will be needed in both the healing of Earth and Nature from the climate and ecological crises, and the renewal of our human hearts, souls and bodies as we travel forwards. Somatic movement and Authentic Movement, practices that cultivate embodied consciousness, have many gifts to offer in this great work, some of which will be explored in these pages.
January 2024. Norfolk, UK
Notes
See the publisher’s notes from the book on the theme of Transparency.
