WeSpace with Spiritual Guides
WeSpace with Spiritual Guides

WeSpace with Spiritual Guides

Jesus and His WeSpace Group

The accompanying painting, rather than being called The Transfiguration, could be called a dramatic moment in Jesus’ very own WeSpace group! (Matt. 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36) Like our WeSpace groups, this was a small group of followers of Jesus who shared their lives with one another. They also experienced the presence of God along with other spiritual guides.

At the Transfiguration, the most intense part of the mountain top meeting began as two-centuries-dead heroes of the Jewish tradition, Moses and Elijah, appeared in living, visionary color and sound. In their non-physical, but recognizable energy field forms, they were giving encouragement to Jesus. “They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). Jesus needed some help about his upcoming crucifixion which was weighing heavily on him. Who better to encourage him than two dead guys? 

Read More
Practice, GuidesPaul Smith & Luke HealyWeSpace, Spirit GuidesComment
Becoming Mindfully Whole
Becoming Mindfully Whole

Beaks and minds

I saw standing on the stones of the riverbank

a dark bird with its back to me.

It turned its head to left, then right

revealing a beady eye

and an outrageous orange beak

almost as long as its head.

In some other world

I knew it as an oystercatcher.

 

I have seen different birds’ beaks adapted

in manifold ways to feed self and offspring.

 

I have also seen human minds adapted to their purpose:

displaying stabbing verbal sharpness

or the scattering gloom of anxiety

or the tight gleam of avarice.

 

And I have seen the enlightened mind

intimate with everything

like a soft beak the colours of the rainbow

big enough and flexible enough

to nourish the world.

From: Some Palaeolithic Creature in Me

Read More
Mysticism, BecomingOur BecomingMindComment
The Vibrant, Cleared Mind of Spiritual Knowing
The Vibrant, Cleared Mind of Spiritual Knowing

“We are here to find a dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.”  
– Eckhart Tolle

Sometimes we think of “embodiment” as getting out of our head. Going back into our body and living more deeply in the physical, not always stuck in our thoughts or jumping with monkey mind. Being “disembodied” is sometimes even pictured as a detached cranium, like an old sci-fi cartoon with just a head flying around in a glass container.

The shadow side of the great evolution of our mental consciousness has been to negate the body. But in returning to the body, we certainly don’t want to fall prey to the same error, which would be to negate the head.

The head is part of the body—a pretty important one! And we’re not going to get very far without it.

Read More
Practice, EmbodimentPaul Smith & Luke HealyHeadComment
Walking into Interbeing with Our Feet
Walking into Interbeing with Our Feet

Regeneration of the Divine Earth
–
Integrating Our Mystical Participation as Nature

Regeneration is taking the step from seeing the earth as an object and into experiencing it through our interbeing. Into “humans doing things as nature.”

The incarnation of Christ in the cosmos is the divine interfused in all things, very much including the earth. And so our living into and as the Body of Christ will also be through the divine earth.

We must reimagine and reconfigure our relationship with the earth and the orientation of our consciousness. We cannot and must not “sustain” the way things currently are, but rather we can come into our generative participation in loving service and care for our larger body.

Read More
Mysticism, BecomingOur BecomingFeetComment
The Charged Feet of Embodied & Enlivened Presence
The Charged Feet of Embodied & Enlivened Presence

“Every forest branch moves differently
in the breeze, but as they sway
they connect at the roots.”
– Rumi

Christianity is the religion of the incarnation. Sadly, throughout much of Christian history, instead of embracing the divine presence in all of material reality, Socratic dualism and Greek philosophy became more prominent in the tradition. Misreadings of the apostle Paul did not help in this respect either. Spirit was set apart from and even put in opposition to matter. Many other spiritual traditions, including Christian expressions, further continue to reinforce this immateriality of spirit and separation of the mystical from the physical. 

Thankfully, it is not only a resurgence of animist and shamanic spirituality that is reincorporating our spirituality with our bodies, but also science itself that is beginning to intimate that matter is far more energetic and dynamic than we once thought. This is, as well, in the roots of Christianity that saw God dwelling in flesh, not just in Jesus but in all matter and the whole of creation—which includes you and me.

Read More
Practice, EmbodimentPaul Smith & Luke HealyFeetComment
Becoming Wombful
Becoming Wombful

The Wombful WeSpace of Generativity
–
Integrating the Heart and Womb in Communal Becoming

In our WeSpace groups in ICN, we most often and naturally experience the shared space among us primarily from our heart center. As the heart is our center of relationality, that makes sense. 

The womb center also has a powerful capacity for collective awareness. The WeSpace of the womb is of a different nature, and for many, can be difficult to experience—especially if our attention is caught up in the strength of our heartful connection of love and relationality.

What would it look like to set the intention to directly explore the shared womb space in integration with our heartful connection? 

Read More
Mysticism, BecomingOur BecomingwombComment
The Vitalized Spiritual Womb of Intuition and Creativity
The Vitalized Spiritual Womb of Intuition and Creativity

One of the great things about our mystical body is that we are able to tap into reality that is beyond the usual confines of “ordinary” experience. This includes not only accessing our deeper knowing and wisdom, but also experiential participation in spiritual dynamics that aren’t entirely bound to our physical body—such as our collective body in WeSpace and spiritual realities beyond our biological and physical limitations. 

The mystical body can include but is not limited by gender, race, sexual orientation, or any other category of personal identification.  

Read More
Practice, EmbodimentPaul Smith & Luke HealyWombComment
Becoming Heartful
Becoming Heartful

Poetry as a Portal to the Heart 


Poetry and the arts can be wonderful portals to help us enter into the felt awareness and experience of our embodied centers. They help us integrate our participation and understanding through engaging our mythic and magic structures of consciousness. 

Read More
Mysticism, BecomingOur BecomingHeartComment
The Radiant Heart of Love and Bliss
The Radiant Heart of Love and Bliss

We start with the heart because it is the core not only of our Whole-Body Mystical Awakening practice, but really the core of human beings and the Christian path. Unfortunately, that isn’t functionally always the case when it comes to much of modern, Western Christianity. 


Since we are usually so mind-centric, we may need to give extra attention to the heart. That doesn’t mean we abandon our mind, just that we need more work on the other centers. 


Read More
Practice, EmbodimentPaul Smith & Luke HealyHeartComment