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Embodiment: A Practice of Tangible Spirituality

January 18, 2019 by Cheri Dostal

Hey all!

I just wrapped an interview with my lovely friend Jo, whom I met in Bali, for her online summit called Sharing Soulful Stories. It’ll be out next month (I will gladly post links!) and I share basically my life story, so buckle up. Some of it I’ve never shared publicly before, and I trust the great Goddess of vulnerability will wrap me in her arms in gratitude for allowing myself to share it.

Prepping for this interview had me journaling and reflecting on my early church going years, the greater mystery that unfolded after my divorce and miscarriage, and the pure magic of being present now in this life, rather than waiting for Sunday morning or a crisis or when I’m knocking on death’s door.

Spirituality to me means being embodied, reverent care for our own needs as a devotional act, and being present to our loved ones and our work. Could spiritual practice be an anecdote for complacent, off-the-hook, mediocre living? I think so.

With the recent passing of a very beloved poet, Mary Oliver, I also have seen my entire feed blow up with her work, which I love – and yet it again makes me wonder – How much do we live with the quality of wonder every single day that Mary Oliver surely embodied in order to write with such clarity, simplicity and invocation? I know I’d like to read her works far more often, and I’ll do so as an homage to her life and love of nature this weekend.

May you feel yourself slow down and exhale, inviting tangible peace and contentment in as you read her words.

Here’s one of my new favorite passages I found last night – see below.

Enjoy, loves,

Cheri 

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)
The spirit likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest at night 
in the black branches, in the morning
in the blue branches of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the
metaphor of the body,
lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; 
it needs the body’s world, instinct and imagination 
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness and tangibility, to be understood,
to be more than pure light that burns where no one is – 
So it enters us – 
in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning,
and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.
MARY OLIVER

Filed Under: Blog, embodiment, emotion, energy, relationships

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