Experiencing Our Divine Body
ICN Living Lineages Series – Beloved Community
This week’s rhythm of loving evolution: Becoming
We engage in processes of becoming to deepen the transformative work and play of evolution, participating in our growth from divine being, as God is beckoning us here and now.
The Becoming offerings below invite us into personal and communal deepening in our divine becoming. They can be practiced in WeSpace groups and our daily lives today and throughout the week ahead. Rather than one-time experiences, we encourage ongoing and repeated practice to better support our growth and evolution.
If you missed it last week, we encourage you first to read the Beckoning article informing these processes:
Living in the Communal Body (of Christ)
While we may be drawn to the idea of expanding beyond the trappings of our confined, individual self, coming into this experience may be difficult for many of us. We are so entrained to our separate self, our singular self-referentialism constantly running in the patterns of our mind and personal body. Culturally, especially in the West, so much of what we are surrounded by constantly reinforces the story of separation.
Coming into the experience of our communal body, our collective sense of being, inhabiting more than our selves alone—the mystical body of Christ not just as a collection of separate parts but a living, evolving organism of divine being—is something that will take time, intentionality, and dedicated practice.
If we sense deep within ourselves, we may recognize a soul longing for this way of becoming. An alluring desire to come more into the lived experience of being more than just the single person we are—because we also are this “more” in the truth of our whole being.
And yet, the ego, the separate self who has survived so long on our own, may very well resist. It’s good to notice the objections, the dismissals, the challenges that arise when faced with this invitation. And as we recognize them, we might ask ourselves,
“What is the true longing of my soul?”
And if we feel that, recognize that, we may also come to realize that longing—whatever it is, however it expresses—is not singular, not solely ours alone, but a shared longing of our divine soul to come into a fuller expression of the reality of our whole being, the really real of who we truly are, which cannot exist apart and alone, but only in the deeper, true home of our communal interbeing.
Our divine/human/material becoming, into our holistic, communal body of God.
Centers of Communal Spiritual Knowing
“Consciousness is the ability to survey those interconnections which constitute us: it is a continuous act of integration and directing.”
– Jean Gebser
If you’ve practiced Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, you’ll be familiar with the inner sense of knowing and experiencing not just from your head, but from our embodied centers of more holistic knowing. These centers also provide us with generally more accessible pathways into the consciousness from our communal body. Our deeper centers of knowing are often more naturally connected and open, not only because they have usually been less sequestered and cut off, but because the nature of these structures of consciousness is inherently less individuated.
Here are some descriptions of how we might experience more of our communality in each of our centers:
Feet / Body
While it may be hard to wrap our minds around these ideas of intersubjectivity and communal reality, we may find it much easier to experience through our bodies. For we already constantly operate in this interbeing and our bodies know it. Since we are our bodies, it’s just a matter of bringing it into consciousness, of becoming aware.
This may seem more difficult on the physical level because as humans we walk around and are not permanently attached to anything constantly. Touch is within our control and can be removed when we want to be “by ourselves” (though we are always touching something).
In ICN, we talk about our feet center as our natural connection to material reality. We feel our roots grounding and connecting us to the earth. But the feet center is also the place of our somatic participation in this material reality—not as something separate from the rest of our body. Our whole-body moves in this dynamic web of life and energy.
While things may appear separate, quantum physics is revealing how things are constantly entangled and interrelated in ways that we do not perceive with our eyes. Yet with increasing sensitivity and practice, we can begin to sense this through our “quantum roots.” We can, in the marrow of our bones, begin to feel the pulsing energy of interconnection and nonlocality. We can physically tap into the body of God in nature, in one another, in all things.
In practice, this can look like sensing things in our personal bodies that are coming from another. This is more than just somatic empathy, but a tuning into the underlying energy and physical sensing of our interconnection. We are not separate!
Cultivating this consciousness is one way that we develop in our “feet center” of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, in our somatic knowing and participation with the communal body.
WeSpace Practice:
Exercising the Communal Body can happen in our WeSpace groups. You may want to consider WeCreating a shared experience for your next WBMA meditation. One person may begin: “Here in our Feet, we may attune and attend to …,” activating intraconnectedness in their own words.
(After: continue with other members of the group presencing each center)
Heart
Our hearts also know that we are not separate. When we enter into the space of deep love, we feel as if our heart is outside our body and walking around with that other person. Our heart-senses constantly respond to things that are happening outside of our bodies, yet we feel them within as if we had been physically affected.
Again, this grows to be more than just empathy, but a perception of the heart that connects to so much more.
In the expanded heart space of universal love, we feel the all-encompassing embrace. In the immediate connection of love or heartache, we experience how connected we truly are.
Personally, this comes to form when we turn with others from shoulder-to-should to heart-to-heart. When we open our hearts to the flow of love between us, we are carried beyond our individual heart and into the larger heart in our midst. It can really feel like we are inside of one larger heart.
In our WeSpace groups, we actively cultivate this shared heart field of love that can be felt acutely, even through a screen when we are geographically far apart. This is one of the most accessible ways of tapping into our collective reality. Coming into this heart consciousness is a regular experience in our ICN gatherings.
WeSpace Practice:
Continue the Communal Body Exercise with another WeSpace member voicing for the heart. You may want to allow 3 to 5 minutes of silence between each communal center activation, opening to feel more into it together—as one.
Womb
In the depths of our womb space we find our deepest identity as the inner face of God-Being-Us. This is not just personal, but is the divine source that is the Origin of all. As we sink deep enough, through our ground of being, we may come into an experience of this unified divine identity—the “pre-conceived” being of life before time. The primordial unity of our common heritage from which all life flows. We are all born of God, from God into being.
As we flow forth in our uniqueness, we are not alone. The womb space also helps us sense, through a sort of umbilical knowing, our soul kinship with others. This is the shared womb of spiritual, almost familial-like relationality.
While this can particularize with a select few in our lives, we can also find this experience of our “extended family” together in the womb of God. We are all enfolded and nurtured in this same creative enclosure, gestating and growing together in the creative generativity of life coming to emergence through our relationships and communities.
In our wombs, we may experience this as a warm embrace. As being held in a safe and nurturing vessel. Like a collective soak in a hot spring pool!
This deep belonging with one another takes time, and is a fruit of intentional and regular wombfulness practice with others in intimate community. The soul nourishment of resting in the divine womb with others is rejuvenating and inspiring. And it is a representation of the space of our ultimate receiving, our being continuously created within the larger collective body.
WeSpace Practice:
Have another WeSpace member presence the womb space, continuing the Communal Body Exercise. Feel into the shared Womb of God, beyond the individual perception.
Experiment with releasing self-referentialism anew.
Head
Our head space may often be the most difficult to experience our communal body, as it is primarily the space of our ego and individuality. The mental structure of consciousness is in many ways defined by its separateness, but dividing subject and object.
But we can also experience collective consciousness in the shared mind of higher wisdom. We access this when our mind is open and in tune with others in a space of discovery.
This is often experienced as a mind receptive to thoughts coming forth that seem from a different source. They are not the same as our own, normal thoughts. But have a different flavor or tenor that we learn to sense with time. As we share in this sort of emergent space with others, we can begin to recognize the voice of each other, of our spirit guides speaking to us in this way.
This is participating in the mind of Christ, cultivating the neural pathways that connect into the higher, shared mind of collective consciousness.
WeSpace Practice:
Finish the Communal Body Exercise by opening to the shared head space, and then integrate feet, heart, womb, head. Rest intentionally in the Communal Body. Allow spirit to incorporate and enhance the inflow, interflow and outflow, ending in a “Resonation of the Geyser of Love.” coming from the shared body of God.
Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
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Learning How to Be a We in Any Moment
Practicing Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, experiencing more fully our awareness from each of our four centers of spiritual knowing—personally and communally, most often happens in a specific time of meditation, especially as we are beginning. We set apart a time to intentionally expand and awaken in our being to our more holistic, embodied knowing and being.
As we grow in this awareness, we can come more into the feel and experience of more integrated presence in any and even every moment of our lives. We call this dynamic “Whole-Body Mystical Presencing.”
We are always “presencing” some manner of being, but we know what it feels like when we are more disembodied, disassociated, scattered, distracted, etc. In WBMP, we follow the established, embodied neural pathways of more holistic awareness into an immediate sense of fuller and integrated presence.
We can practice this individually, with our inner awareness and embodied presence. And, we can practice this communally, into our shared awareness and embodied, communal presence.
WBMP Practice into We
Spiritual merging is a practice we can engage in to dissolve the boundaries between our singular self and become one with another. It is an interior, nonphysical experience of deeply coming together into an intrasubjective experience. Given the intensity and intimacy of this practice, finding a safe and trusted person to share in this practice may be a challenge for some.
We can practice this with nature. Go into a forest. Find a secluded beach. Go to a lake and float or stand deep in the water. Or seek out any nature reserve you feel connected to. Let your consciousness go from relating to the environment, to sinking into being nature. It may take some time. Give yourself the space to merge. Nature’s boundaries are often more open than other humans. And we are nature.
Many people also engage in this experience with a spirit guide, as is common in shamanic and many other religious traditions—and increasingly used in psychotherapy. It is also a core teaching of Jesus and the Apostle Paul: that we may be one. That Christ may dwell in us. For us to be in Christ. Merging into this union has been a powerful path for me (Luke) personally.
If you have someone in your life you can practice this with, I encourage you to explore it together. Paul and I met weekly for years and always finished our time with a shared practice, often merging in heart and whole being. We began by putting a hand on each other’s hearts. Even when we met on Zoom we could still easily flow together in our shared being naturally and mystically. It has been one of the most transformative experiences in my life.
Once you have merged with nature, a spirit guide, or another, you can presence to this unified reality at any moment. Bring forward the felt, subjective experience from when you were merged, knowing that it is not something bound in time. It is an ongoing reality that is truer to the nature of who we are in wholeness. Even when you are by yourself, you are not alone. You are more than you alone. Be, now, in this moment, or any moment, who you are with/as nature, as Christ, as WE.
Beloved Community flourishes through healthy and effusive mutuality, as we release self-referentialism, embrace precious personhood, and inhabit deeper connectedness with holistic trust, born out of spiritual intimacy from our communal body of Christ.
Discerning Commitments
Abiding as the field of love,
Attending from the ground of trust,
Here and now in the womb of spiritual intimacy.
WeCreating from the body of God.
Are there any commitments being asked of you or that you feel drawn to make for your communal becoming?
Perhaps:
Choose one center to intentionally engage with in practice, leaning into your perception of the communal body and collective consciousness.
With another person or in a group, set the intention together to explore directly and more fully your shared communal awareness, through a center, your whole body, or more generally. How are you drawn to explore this more together?
Going deeper into the allure of communion, commit to the practice of moving into a time of merging with nature, a spirit guide, or another.
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated by Luke Healy and Beth Biery.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI, according to our AI policy: 0 out of 10
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN using AI