Living in Our Communal Body
The Body of Christ Becoming
Practicing Community – Part Ten
In the experience of our individuality, we often unconsciously adopt living from the story of separation. We separate the external world into subject and object, that which is “in here” and that which is “over there” (we do this within our own internal world too, but that’s another story).
As we begin to awaken to the experience of our shared interiors, of the we-space that constitutes communal energy, mutual knowing, and interbeing on a mystical and very real level—that which is “in here” together—we expand beyond this limited story of individualism. We come into the experience of our intersubjective reality. This is where the subject of the sentence becomes plural: from I to We. Not just as a collection of separate parts, but a real and dynamic collective. How do we experience this?
Often, we awaken first to participating in the reality beyond the boundaries of our own skin through experiences of transcendence. We are lifted beyond ourselves. Carried away by beauty or some grand invitation. We have an “out of body” experience. In these types of experiences, we are drawn outside of our interior confines. Yet, they are happening in our “interior” reality, not in the external physical sense, but in a way that shows us that we are not limited to the individual, internal space within. We are opened to a broader and deeper participation with reality.
These transcendent experiences most often speak to us of the connection we have with nature, with humanity, or with the whole cosmos. This is coming into our participation with the “Cosmic We,” the universal belonging and connection to all things.
As liberating and necessary as this expansion is, it is incomplete if we only come back to continue living our lives as individuals. It will remain amorphous until it can take shape in the form of a collective. Until we particularize into a communal body that substantiates in the here and now.
That’s what mystical community is all about.
The Body of Christ Becoming
Lest we think this is some new age woo woo stuff (which isn’t all bad, we might add), one of the oldest Christian metaphors speaks to this reality—the body of Christ. By metaphor, I do not mean something that is only real in a symbolic sense, but something that is also real in participation with our magic and mythic structures of consciousness, with mystical reality.
We can actually experience our participation in the body of Christ in a mystical sense. Though it may help us come into that more if we distinguish it from some common misperceptions of this metaphor.
First of all, the body of Christ is not the church. Or, at least, not the institution of “church” or what we often think of when we hear that word. Too often, the conception of church and the body of Christ is associated with a separation from the rest of the world. A church body apart from “secular” or nonreligious people.
This connects to the second misperception that can come around the idea of “Christ,” which is the limiting particularizing onto Jesus. Jesus embodied the Christ reality, but it was never limited to only him. His message was that this divine realm (traditionally rendered as “kingdom”) was “at hand.” That is, it was present here and now in us. Not as something we have to join or receive from the outside, but as the fabric of reality in our midst.
God is interfused throughout all things. Christ is the divine manifesting forth in anything that is becoming what it already always is.
To dwell in our Christ consciousness is to inhabit, to embody literally/mystically in our bodies—personal and collective—the divine reality in the world. In our lives. In the body of Christ becoming through us.
We come into the mystical body of Christ when we start belonging to this reality within. In the interior of ourselves together.
Belonging to Ourselves Collectively
We already are participating in the body of Christ and in the inter-related reality of which we are a part. But how much are we consciously aware and intentionally engaging in this larger reality?
So often our general operating procedure is functioning solely from the mindset of the individual. What do I need or want in this moment? What is it that I have to do today? What am I feeling in this moment?
And while this is somewhat natural, there is also a deeper undercurrent of possibility. A deeper will that moves in subtle and intuitive ways. A deeper perception that senses beyond the immediate and personal. A deeper mystical reality that permeates and interflows among and throughout us.
These senses and movements are not coming from a separate being (though they can come through another) like a God in the sky, so much as they are like the firing synapses of spirit that we learn to recognize more and more as we come into our mystical body. Like a child learning to walk, we must learn how to operate in this body and reality that is ours.
It belongs to us. We are the subject of these movements, of these senses, of this will. God-Being-Us moving in embodied, incarnated reality. That is our larger identity.
Let’s consider how we might experience this consciousness in our centers of spiritual knowing, as we come into greater awareness of our participation in this communal body.
“Consciousness is the ability to survey those interconnections which constitute us: it is a continuous act of integration and directing.”
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.
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.
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 familial relationality—our soul family.
While this does 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.
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.
Community as Ecosystem
“A ‘We” is ultimately how spirit experiences itself.” – Ken Wilber
In an integrated spiritual life, we go beyond the limited confines of our individuality and discover that reality is so much more than our solo experience. Through transcendence, we come into the oneness and unified whole of all things (more on that in the following weeks, in the next series from Paul).
And then we also integrate the particular, the form and shape of incarnation in our midst, the expression of the body of Christ in specific and present nature, substantiating in our lives. And not just our individual lives, but the collective life of the communal bodies of which we are a part.
Here, we might draw on the metaphor of an ecosystem. While we used to be more concerned with separating the parts and classifying the various individual plants, animals, and species. Now we are learning and seeing more and more how interdependent and connected it all is. The symbiosis is extensive, and the deeper down we get—on the quantum and mycelial level—things are sharing and interacting constantly.
To interact, there must be the various parts. There must be a mutuality of giving and receiving, a feedback system of communication that flows with information, energy, nutrients, and life. This interflow is what makes life thrive and grow.
Living systems come into thriving health through diversity and cooperation. Through open channels and also through healthy boundaries. These are flexible and changing—they are responsive to the present reality of what is needed and what is possible.
How does a community become more than just a collection of individuals with a common interest or practice?
Through experiencing and manifesting our communal body, growing up together into healthy life and expression. This gestalt is what exponentially expands what is possible and how we might come to evolve into the integral structure of consciousness—not as individuals, which we are and are not—but as new communities of mutuality, learning how to be conscious of and participate actively in our interbeing.
Coming more into being throughout varied and dynamic circles of community: intimate, collective, and universal.
Practicing Community:
How have you experienced intersubjectivity and communality through your body, your heart, your womb, or your head? Choose one center or more to intentionally engage with in practice (best done with others, like in a WeSpace Group), leaning into your perception of the communal body and collective consciousness.
Last call to join a WeSpace Group!
These are the spaces of “intimate we,” where we share together deeply with others in mystical practice of our communal body, of learning how to become a “We” with each other in illuminating and transforming ways.
A few spots left in groups starting next week, so sign up today.