Incarnational Spirituality and Knowledge

Embodied Prayer, by Jeremy Berg

Incarnational Spirituality (IS) accepts all methods of assembling truth as valuable contributions to a larger understanding. This is not because IS would like to be nice to all the other systems and non-confrontational. It is because this system of thought requires it. IS is interested in knitting together wholes not deconstructing self or world. The question for incarnational theory is not so much what is true as when is something true and from what vantage point. Take, for instance, the understanding of the life and function of another species on the planet, say a bat.

One way of learning about a bat is to observe it in the wild. Another is to catch one and observe it in the laboratory. Or we could wait until it dies and dissect it learning all about its structure, biomechanics and the like. In short we could approach it as physical scientists using all the tools of physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, and the like. Note that however we approach the bat from a scientific angle we ourselves have introduced a new, subjective element – ourselves!

We could also take a shamanistic approach and try to communicate with the bat or a bat spirit. This assumes it is a conscious, sentient being with rights and power. This could be done through ceremony or could happen spontaneously through visions or dreams. How might this information be different or complementary to what we had learned earlier? What are the indigenous legends of the bat? What taboos have they inspired?

We might also consult Holy Scriptures to see what they say about animals, mammals, bats and man’s relationship to the natural world. This might give us insight into the ethics of our scientific methods. We could pray to be given insight into the life of the bat.

We could take a mystical view and appreciate the bat as one of God’s creatures and an expression of creative love. What is it saying about the nature of life on planet earth and God? What would deep contemplation of a bat as divine expression reveal?

We could see the bat as an ephemeral arising of itself in relationship to my perception of it. What does it say to me about us, about permanence, about life? Does compassion arise from our sharing of a moment of temporary existence? What would we learn from a lifetime of meditation on a creature like the bat?

Perhaps I take it upon myself to draw or paint or sculpt a bat. What will I learn from the process that I could not gain from any other method? Many a scientist has done just that. What music is inspired? To love the form of a bat is knowledge that cannot be gained in any other way.

And what psychological processes are stirred from seeing a bat? What fears, what joys, what thoughts? What do I learn about myself from seeing a bat on the wing at dusk hunting insects?  

Does the bat teach me anything about manifesting a life, catching my dreams, hunting in the dark, or about adaptability in the pursuit of goals?

Is there a way to see the bat with deeper vision? What does a Clairvoyant see or hear around a bat? Did you know that a single bat mother can find her child upon returning from a hunt in a cave crammed with millions of bats? This was once though impossible but has been proven to be true. How do they do that in the dark amidst the cacophony on radar? What sight are they actually using?

What are the magical correspondences that a bat might conjure? Is it the moon or a planet? Is it one of the vital elements; earth, air water or fire? What is its role in the transformation of consciousness and of matter?

I hope the above stimulates some new feelings for the bat because I want to describe an experience I once had with a bat that changed my view substantially. I do this to illustrate one more way of knowing that to me has powerful implications for creating a more human and sustainable world.

When I was a boy, about 10 years old, I would go out at dusk sometimes in the field in back of our house in Grand Rapids, Michigan and throw a boomerang. When I did so frequently the bats in the area would dive at it, perhaps attracted by the whooshing sound it made as it went through its arced return flight pattern. Anyway, much later, not so many years ago, I found myself in a visionary state first in the fields back of my old house and then following a bat on the wing. Rather quickly I found myself sharing the chase of insects in the air from within the sensorium and consciousness of a bat! This was quite wonderful as the air was like a gel in which I could sense the movement of the insect as if they were connected to me by a string. I remember the moment of catching one of the insects (but not tasting it – probably a good thing as I might have developed a taste for mosquitoes). We landed and I stepped out of the body of the bat and looked back. There stood the “real” bat; as tall as me and constructed of living silver light, like moonlight or starlight. We were in a primeval forest, his mate was nearby and he was giving homage to the giant breathing trees. His life was like a living prayer, a reverent supplication and benediction to the deep spirit of the land, the forest, nature, the earth, and life itself.

Needless to say, this changed my feelings and understanding of bats. I love them to this day even to the point of accidentally bringing one into a cottage at night riding in my hair a couple of years ago in the Canadian northeast woods.

I relate all this to illustrate the possibility of another kind of knowing; that of shared being. 

This experience of shared life and perception is not unique to me. I have several friends, including my wife Freya Secrest, who relate similar experiences. And incidentally, this was one of the many ways in which R. Ogilvy Crombie and Dorothy Maclean communicated with the intelligences of nature around the beginnings of the Findhorn community in Scotland.

Arthur Zajonc PhD an optical physicist in the physics department of Amherst College recommends that we change, “from an Epistemology of Violence to an Epistemology of Love” and lists several key elements as necessary to achieve that end.

•  Respect
•  Gentleness
•  Intimacy
•  Vulnerability
•  Participation
•  Transformation
•  Building – education as formation
•  Insight

He is in the tradition of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who said, in his book Maximen und Reflextionen,

There is a delicate empiricism that makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory. But this enhancement of our mental powers belongs to a highly evolved age.

Here is Rudolph Steiner, a Goethe scholar, making a similar point:

Goethe’s thinking was mobile. It followed the whole growth process of the plant and followed how one plant form is a modification of the other. Goethe’s thinking was not rigid with inflexible contours; it was a thinking in which the concepts continually metamorphose. Thereby his concepts became, if I may put it this way, intimately adapted to the process that plant nature itself goes through.
–Lecture from August 30, Rudolph Steiner, 1921, trans. Craig Holdrege

And one final reference to this identification way of knowing from someone we all have heard about from the Arthurian legends; the 6th century poet Taliesin:

I have been a blue salmon,
I have been a dog, I have been a deer.
I have been a goat on the mountain,
I have been the trunk of a beech tree.
I have been an axe in the hand,
I have been a pin in the tongs...”
–A Constant Search for Wisdom. John Matthews, Lorian Press LLC, 2007

Let me end with the American educator and author, Parker Palmer who suggests that,

We are driven to unethical acts by an epistemology that has fundamentally deformed our relation to each other and our relation to the world.” And that science’s “mythology of objectivism is more about control over the world, or over each other, more a mythology of power than a real epistemology that reflects how real knowing proceeds.

The point is that from an incarnational perspective, all of the methods of appropriating truth can be employed BUT it is important to know when to use what tool! It is important to recognize the consciousness, potential for partnerships, sentiency and moral rights of those fellow beings that are the subject of our study. How different the world would be if we simply followed this suggestion.

Celebrating the Fires of Creativity Together: A Gaian Festival of Wholeness

At the Gaian Equinox Festival in March 2024, we gathered to honor the element of Air and the creativity that can come from our relationship to wind, to sylphs, to inspirations within. We had so much fun being creative and sharing our creations together during our festival time online that we decided to continue our celebration in the same way at our Solstice gathering on June 2lst, by honoring the “Fires of Creativity” together.

Solstice celebrations invoke the element of Fire so naturally. In June, in the Northern Hemisphere, we honor the Sun Fire at its highest and greatest expression of Light at Summer Solstice. We build bonfires outside and bask in the warmth and levity of long hot summer days, blossoms and fruit, the abundance of life. In the Southern Hemisphere we honor the Sun Fire within, burning at the heart of the close and holy darkness of Winter Solstice time. We build fires in our woodstoves and hearths and bask in the warmth of family and friends gathering together, short days, stars bright in the long cold nights of rest and renewal.

It will be a joy to see how our Fires of Creativity will manifest on June 21st, weaving Summer and Winter Solstice expressions together in Gaian Wholeness. Come prepared with art supplies, musical instruments, your voice, your pen, your stories and songs. Come prepared to invoke the Sidhe, our cousins in festival fun, the Fire elementals–the Salamanders, and beings of nature–seen and unseen, who help bring warmth, light and transformation to our lives at Solstice time.     

I include here a taste of creative projects for the Summer Solstice–activities I have done with children and families in my community over the years. 

• Celebrate the Sun as much as possible. Go to the beach, be in the sun in the garden, feel the warmth of the sun on bare skin and bodies. Tell stories about the sun. Sing sun songs. Make a sun cake out of golden corn meal and calendula petals for rays. Get golden things: glitter, gold paper, gold crowns to be Sun Kings and Queens. Wear fiery colored clothes in reds, oranges and golds to honor the Sun.

• Cut spirals out of thick gold paper and let them hang in branches of trees to dance in the wind and the sun. The way the spirals turn mimics the way the energy is spiraling up out of the earth at Summer Solstice time. These are very magical.

• Spend a lot of time with the faeries. Go to special places on Midsummer or Solstice Eve. Read tales of faery, and faery poetry. Make faery houses out of sticks and moss and stones. Leave food and drink out for the faeries on Midsummer’s Eve, milk and honey, and lovely treats.

• Sing songs about faeries, make up dances for the Four Kingdoms. How would a gnome tromp? A watery undine slip and slide? How would a sylph flitter and fly? A fire salamander flicker and flame? Let your imagination soar.

For those in the Southern hemisphere, I include a glimpse of the star festival of Matariki, (the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster) celebrated near the Winter Solstice. Matariki honors the time when the Pleiades are visible once again in the night sky, and is, in its own way, a Fire festival, celebrating the importance of Star Fire in our lives. The festival is being honored once again in New Zealand as a vital cultural treasure and important threshold in the earth’s year. Matariki was made an official public holiday in 2009, which is a beautiful tribute to the Maori people of that land.  

Here's a taste of creative projects for Matariki: Ara Swanney from New Zealand will be sharing more with us in our festival time. These projects reflect the traditional ways that the Maori people celebrated Matariki.

• Go out and view the stars and celebrate the return of the Pleiades in the night sky.

• Make an offering of food to the stars.

• Do divinations with the stars. When Matariki reappeared, Māori would look to its stars for a forecast of the coming season's prosperity: if they shone clear and bright, the remaining winter would be warm, but hazy or twinkling stars predicted bad weather in the season ahead.

• Honor loved ones who have died in the past year. After the forecasts for the year were read from the stars, the deceased were invoked with tears and song in a ceremony called te taki mōteatea ("the reciting of laments"). On the rising of Matariki at the start of the year, the deceased of the past year were carried up from the underworld and cast up into the night sky to become stars, accompanied by prayers and the recitation of their names. 

• String garlands of stars in the trees as a festival of returning Light.

We look forward to celebrating our Fires of Creativity together.  Please join us:

Solstice Gaian Festival
Northern Hemisphere Friday June 21st, 1 pm Pacific Standard Time
Southern Hemisphere Saturday June 22nd,  Varying times depending on where you are 
If you're not a member of the Gaian Commons Community, email Freya Secrest for the link to join us.

Blessings,

The Festival Team
Freya Secrest, Lucinda Herring, Linda Engel and Ara Swanney

Why Do Humans Exist?

Sarah Bush, in our Gaian Commons community, posed this powerful question:

“I was thinking the other day about the fact that insects can live without humans and thrive, but humans can't even survive without insects. That fact doesn't seem to stop the insect apocalypse. And that made me think about how, if humans weren't on the earth at all, all other life would thrive. 

I love being incarnate on planet earth as a human, but that's a hard thing to reconcile. Why are we here as a species, really, when we seem to be doing more harm than good? What is the spiritual logic or experiment? 

As the species with the most (seemingly, anyway) agency on the planet, is the rest of the planet forced to suffer for some sort of spiritual struggle that humans must work through?”

I love this question. I would say yes. But I would reframe the sentence about “the rest of the planet being forced to suffer for some sort of spiritual struggle that humans must work through.”

I think the setup needs to be a bigger picture, one that holds the problem but can see it from a much broader deeper perspective. I am looking for possibility, a perspective of wholeness here, that might be more tolerant and accepting of humanity’s foibles. And — is there a way to explain this differently that leads to new vistas and new action?

Here is one example of an answer that gives a bigger picture, from one of David Spangler’s subtle realm colleagues. (It doesn’t exactly address the insect question though…)

The Earth is unfolding its inherent sacredness, becoming a planet of Light. This is not happening suddenly nor will it happen overnight. It is a process long anticipated, and now we are in the beginning stages. To you it may seem as if the world is plunging into darkness, but to us, it is becoming more radiant.   

To abide this increase in Light, all life on earth must begin to manifest greater love, greater wholeness, greater interconnectedness. This is particularly true for humanity, whose more developed consciousness bears a larger responsibility and need for change.  

This could be seen as the development of a new etheric body for the planet, and a new subtle body for human beings.

When you incarnate, you enter a field of connections as surely as you enter a physical body. This field of connections—the subtle part of your incarnation–is what is changing. 

It must be more finely woven into the other fields of life that make up your world, and the division between the subtle and physical worlds must become lessened, for this, too, is part of this field of relationship.  

In other words, you must become more whole with your world, (meaning more connected and interconnected) with all parts of your world—with the Whole Earth.

The need for this is clear and has been clear for centuries, even millennia. The Christ came in part to set this process into motion.  

Now you have reached another stage in this great work. You can build on what has gone before—the traditions of Light, Love and Compassion that have brought you this far, as well as the tradition of Knowledge embodied, albeit imperfectly as yet, in your science.  

With these as a foundation, you can now reach into the world in new ways to draw forth newer insights to shape how you inhabit the world. 

Incarnational Spirituality is a design project, an exploration into how to make the shift into a body of wholeness capable of incarnating into a sacred world.  

It seems to me that answering Sarah’s great question above is about coming to appreciate how our loud crashing through the cosmic underbrush is actually creating our contribution to this design project. This is a living cosmic experiment that we are part of. Our experimenting to find better ways, awkward and bumpy though it is, is serving this design project. This is what it is for.

I love the challenge posed – to see the bigger perspective of how, what, and why we Humans are learning. And how our learning itself is generating content, redesigning the possibilities of an unknown future, revealing the path of a vast mind-blowing cosmic experiment.

Another window into this cosmic experiment and our place in it comes from David’s subtle realm colleague Sarah (another Sarah of good questions and wisdom!):  

For millennia, Gaia has been a crèche for humanity. It has been like a stage on which you could discover yourselves and try out different combinations of being human, but always you have held yourselves apart. 

But now, it’s time for humanity to become a crèche for Gaia and to hold Gaia within yourselves in a way that allows a fuller nature to unfold for her.  

To do this, you cannot be only human. You must find in yourselves the capacities to be angelic, to be elemental, to be stellar, to be Sidhe, to hold in yourselves the elements that are part of or that contribute to the whole earth. This is what you are calling the new subtle body. It is our task to fashion and to enable this blending to come into being.

….We are exploring how to give birth to a new kind of human, a Gaian human—but also new energies of angelhood, new kinds of Sidhe, new forms of elementals. This is not a project limited just to humanity. All parts of Gaia are seeking how to be birth channels for a new world.

At the same time, Gaia continues in her accustomed ways, for there are many lives that still require the “old” Gaia that can simply hold and nurture.  The new doesn’t eliminate the old, at least not immediately. But the old can prevent the new, if only by its inertia.

This is a profound shift that is occurring, though different, perhaps, from what many have expected. It is asking us to revision much of what has become habitual and familiar. 

We incarnated humans are asked to see the terrible problems that are emerging — and to still go beyond blaming to ask, “What is possible instead? And how can I contribute?”

I believe that guiding our lives with this question will help this profound cosmic re-design to unfold. We are all in this together. Even the insects.

Exploring Subtle Energies, Translating the Earth

Exploring subtle energy feels like a kind of listening curiosity that helps me to create a quiet spaciousness around me. I can rest there and allow myself to become aware of the subtle signals in my energy field as it touches the world around me–a tree, a body of water, a building, an event, a person. I can feel the wonder and magic of a discovery process beginning in me. I am holding whatever is in my attention and waiting for a translation to emerge into my awareness–the world speaking to me.

Musing about how a good translator works….They hear and feel into what the other person is saying, not just the literal words but the felt sense of meaning in the communication. They must somehow stand in the words and presence of the person whose words and intention they are translating. They pause briefly within. The inner feeling of meaning shapes itself into a message in words that the other person can hear, feel, and understand. 

Sign language is an even more interesting example of translation. Our bodies are a bridge for information to flow across, into, and through, transforming as we come to our senses.

We live in a sea of communication from everything around us all the time. I love the growing awareness of my body opening to this constant flow of information. First, I am feeling the physical sensations that I am receiving through my senses. Then I am dropping down inside and inviting a flow into a sense of meaning.

In this quiet spaciousness inside, I feel myself standing on my inner land. I can feel the sensations of the language of the world in my subtle field before it becomes a sensory impression in my consciousness.

Recently I heard someone describe her friend’s supportive comment as 'a warm gentle open hand on my upper back.' So nice! When I feel into this sensation, I sense that it brings me to a deep, stable sense of inner awareness that I have come to know as my “inner land.” It feels inclusive, acknowledging, and welcoming, encouraging me to move forward at my own pace. These are the words that come to me to translate that lovely feeling.

Subtle perception is like having an internal GPS. The more conscious I can become of how my subtle perception works and what it is noticing, the better I will be in making life choices, choosing directions, and meeting the world from a place of standing in what I care about. 

Our Working With Subtle Energies class here is an invitation, a permission, an encouragement to each of us to find our own subtle perception style.

We are learning to understand how the world speaks to us through the “We Space” of our subtle energy field.

This is surely the message of the earth to us: Gaia placing a warm gentle open hand on our backs.

Click here for more info and to register

The Soul's Laboratory

Imagination is not just about creating images or “making things up.” I think of imagination as our soul’s personal laboratory for the study of the life and responsiveness of matter. We are learning how to master the relationships that draw this life of matter into partnership and harmony with the earth and a Gaian imagination. Here is an example from my life:

In the last few years I have been providing nesting spaces for pollinator bees. This is not “bee keeping” in the traditional sense. Pollinators like the Blue Orchard Mason bee and the leaf cutter bee that I have been working with don’t live in hives and don’t produce honey. They aren’t even very social, though they like to work and nest side by side.

My part is a small but engaging way to learn how to harvest the cocoons and add more housing in the most appropriate ways, while managing my role in the process, AND while trusting that Nature knows better than I. This has involved a more intimate, more complex relationship with Gaia than I had known would happen when I began. I am always learning to keep up my end of the conversation—without inadvertently interrupting it, or talking too much. That is harder than it might seem, when I care so much!

Each autumn I collect the cocoons from the two different kinds of nesting sites that I have mounted on an east facing (warmth of the rising sun) wall of our house. Now, yikes, each summer I feel partly responsible for 100s of bee babies, who began their journey the summer before as eggs laid by incredibly hard working bee mothers. Life birthing itself…

Because of the growing plight of bees, providing safe protected places for them to create their larva cocoons is a wonderful way to be part of Gaia’s conversation about the Spirit of Renewal. I like framing this work with the bees through the four foundations, or Hallows, of Incarnational Spirituality. The four foundations are Standing, Holding, Energizing, Co-creating. They come alive for me when I feel into how I use them in any thing I do.

Standing  

I sense how taking up this project is a way for me to stand in and experience my life and intention directly in the work of the earth.  

Standing in the Spirit of Renewal is a concept that I can experience directly in my body. It is not just a beautiful concept (though of course it is that too!). I have the capacity to affect the flow of Life. The more strongly I hold my intention, the more likely I will be able to be helpful to Gaia, and the more alive I will feel. This is what I was surprised by in working with pollinator bees. Surprised by joy, in CS Lewis’ words.

Holding

In David Spangler’s words: Holding is the capacity to support an action, to persist as necessary, to maintain integrity, and to love. Where my bee endeavor of earlier years was done kind of lightly, with interest and curiosity, now I really feel the power of my intent to hold this process together. I can literally feel how my contribution can support the earth.

I need to create and hold space in my life to study what is needed. I need to learn, for instance, how to cut open the 20 or so cardboard tubes that last year’s bee mothers faithfully laid their eggs in, and harvest each cocoon (about 6-7 in each tube) without causing too much damage. I also need to make sure that there aren’t pests and parasites in there. I don’t want to release any bee-damaging pestilence into the world, no matter how much part of the divine order it is!

Energizing

In a way, bees are made out of the sun. I am a sun in my own way. I have the power to be a source, be generative, to supply energy, empower and to nourish.  

I spend a lot of time each summer watching the mother bees (there is no Queen… each working woman bee is a queen mother, and isn’t that the truth!!) fly home, over and over again, painstakingly creating individual cocoons like little rooms, one for each egg, bringing a tiny (to me, huge to her) load of pollen to place in each cocoon for each hatched larva to be nourished by. And surely I am creating a field of blessing for them too.

Co-Creating

This project is a wonderful opportunity to experience partnership. As a human I have the capacity, the *power* to collaborate with the bees, and with Gaia itself, and with the spirit that keeps the flowers and vegetables growing to feed life on earth. I get to feel my personal identity and power supporting creation at its source. What a wonderful privilege.

Looking toward our exploration of Imagination.

---

To deepen into the art of Imagination, Rue is offering a free webinar and a class:
February 22: Free Webinar, The Heart of Imagination
March 7-27 The Living Art of Your Imagination

Using Felt Sense to Create a Good New Year

A few days into 2024, someone asked me what my New Year’s resolution was. It took me aback a bit, because I realized I don’t think in terms of “New Year’s Resolutions” any more!

What I found myself saying to her was that I try to live my life in a way that makes me happy every day. And if there are challenges to meet, I’ve learned I need to take time to re-imagine the situation in a way that begins to reveal its possibilities, instead of any doom and gloom that seem to be settling on me.

Recently I was trying to pick my way through a difficult and painful situation, feeling kind of trapped, held in a small place surrounded by a large heavy darkness. I couldn’t see what to do.

Prayer helped. Not prayer to some outside-of-me entity to come in and make it all better, although that is where we (I) tend to go first with prayer! Our work with Incarnational Spirituality invites us to pause, open new doors, throw open different windows, become curious, let new light in, see with new eyes and new visions, and explore different versions of what might be possible.

So, in that moment, I found myself asking for help to see the situation differently. Could there be a new angle, a different perspective that might light up? In my prayerful holding of this painful set-up in me, I became aware of an evocative image.

In my inner vision, down at the bottom of that heavy darkness, I began to notice a small light. I felt I wanted to cup my hands around it, and shield it from the wind, so it could grow. As I did that, the light began to be brighter. I began slowly to be aware of different ways I could frame the situation. I began asking myself questions, like —Hmmm… if I could create something here that would be satisfying and generative and fun for me to work on and with, what would that look like? What might it feel like? What are the possibilities here?

Framing what was going on this way began to turn me in a more fluid, lighter direction, away from the darkness that had been settling in. Best of all, it felt so much better to hold the issue in this generative way, in my body, mind and spirit. It gave me a sense of agency. Creative ideas began to come to me. I could focus on the emerging chick, instead of the terrible threatening crack in the egg. I continued to check back with this feeling of possibility as new ideas came to me. I realized that I felt the sense of possibility in my body as lightening, as expanding, really like a quiet inner Yes. It felt good.

Using this “Yes feeling” as a guide, I could see how to make changes and shifts in my current situation that would feel better. The situation itself didn’t change, but I found more empowering ways of responding within it. This felt sense became a kind of shepherd for considering new choices, prospects, directions. As I got an idea or felt drawn in a direction, I could measure it against this feeling of Yes in my body, and know if it was right, even if I didn’t quite understand it yet.

This was an important shift for me. It didn’t “fix" anything, but gave me a new, generative frame to hold it all in. It feels so much better to think and feel this way. I want to choose this.

The world as it is right now needs for us to know how to do this! Let’s explore and practice this process together in the Felt Sense class that is coming up soon, starting on January 25th. Learn how to restore your creative power to guide you “through the night” with your felt sense.

Click here for more info and to register