Embodiment: The Head

Dear Friends, It was so touching to see you last night. Braving this nasty winter weather speaks to something very precious arising in each of you. Some call it a call, some a desire or a longing, some call it an inner flame that simply won't go away. It beckons you like the moth to a flame. What burns up are all the obstacles and what is left is the preciousness that is you, mysterious, alive, awake. It is a journey. All we can do is follow this longing, the light of this flame and show up as best we can. We show up, we face the obstacles with kindness, with deepening understanding, and lightness and grace does the rest. We show up, we return, or as Margaret mentioned in an email to me this morning, we arrive. Yes and over and over and over and over. Drawing closer, faith and courage growly slowly. This is about growing not some magical event.

So we are spending our time these days looking at holy embodiment through different lenses. This week we focused on the mind and how the superego rises up and closes us down, in our mind, body and heart. It is an aggressive, cohesive voice. Sometimes it operates loudly but often it operates quietly in the background. When you engage in spiritual work-- which is an invitation for your consciousness to expand and to expand beyond the bounds of the familiar self-- the superego out of habit will rise up to insist that you shrink; that you return to the conditioning that you learned by the time your were five; that you become the familiar self; the self of the young child. It does not see you as grown person capable of functioning in the world, it sees you as fundamentally as a young child. As someone said last night at its core the superego had your best interests at heart. Its job was to help your survive and grow up in the family you were born into in a way that was possible for you. The problem is that not only are you not five anymore but the superego is essentially aggressive. And its aggression can be brutal, or it can be quiet, even unconscious. And the superego may embody adult values, like doing a good job. The problem is the aggression. It is the aggression that causes the soul to shrink, recoil, feel shame, feel anxiety and even terror. This aggression is NOT okay. And that is what we are up against.

We looked at how the superego judges the mind, your thinking  (tell me a way that you judge your mind). And then after the sensing arms and legs meditation we explored what effect being embodied has on the mind. Do you relax, does the superego rush in, do your find a place of not knowing. What happens?

So this week I encourage you to explore how and when you notice the superego. What does it say, how does it say it. What effect does it have on your body, your heart and mind. You may be shocked as you start paying attention to find that the superego is around all the time. Don't worry. This is the case for everyone. Mostly people are simply not aware of this structure in the ego and don't realize its affect on their daily lives. If the presence of the superego makes you livid, hooray. Notice how you believe what is says about you, as though it really knows you as the adult, living being that you are!!!