Part Eight: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

“Oh God, how can I help? What can we do?”

From the common prayer of “God, help me” we started with in last week’s article, we move from focusing on ourselves to care and attention on the world, with our neighbors, in the moment right before us now.

From our inquiries of how we might live in resonance and wisdom from divine presence, we then respond to act with/in spirit consciousness.

For Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is not just about sensing or feeling divine spirit alive in us at any and all times. It is also about transforming how we live in each and every moment.

"My being is God, not by some simple participation but by a true transformation of my being." – Catherine of Genoa

Present with the World at Any Moment

Life's horrible tragedies, whether next door or halfway around the world, are always right at our fingertips. We open up our phones and check whatever notification might be calling to us. It could be a hit of dopamine through some affirmation or delight. Or it could be one of the worst things that could ever happen to someone. A shooting. A wildfire. A capsized boat of refugees. The hottest day for the planet in recorded history.

As mere human beings, we have not evolved to be prepared for this sort of global awareness. It’s more than we can bear.

I vividly remember one time I was in meditative prayer with Paul, sitting in my car. We were parked in front of a street with regular traffic and a few construction workers. In the midst of the bliss of deep connection and awareness inside the vehicle, through the windshield came an overwhelming sense of pain and suffering. A few moments were all I could take before I had to close off my presence from the full experience—though it broke open something in me.

If we are presencing authentically to the moment in the fullness of experience, we will meet the pain and suffering of the world. For that, too, is the dynamic aliveness of reality—the presence of death and destruction.

It may not be the final story, but we cannot bypass straight to the love and bliss—though we may at times need to access healing from deeper within.

In truth though, we cannot really be present to all of this. Not individually, at least. We need a larger container than our personal being.

The Will to Act from Love

“If the will can in any way understand God, it can only be through love.” – Brother Lawrence

The immensity of suffering and grief in the world is matched only by the ocean of love that bears and permeates through and around it all.

Alone, there is very little that I can do. And the actions I can take of my own accord, if not connected to a larger presence, to a deeper being, to a more holistic divine authority, will make minimal difference. The whole-body we presence through is more than just our own. It has to be.

I presence through the WE because I need to be more than just myself in order to have the support and strength to bear the waves of this world.

I presence in Oneness because there is an ultimate Reality that is truer than the reality of suffering. We will probably never be able to tap into the great Oneness of love, the ocean of shared feeling, the vast expanse of Mystery, the Ever-Present Origin, the seamless perceiving from interbeing with the same availability as the suffering that can reach us so easily at any moment.

But we can practice responsiveness to these constant and regular tragedies, to the meta-crisis, through Whole-Body Mystical Presencing. We can receive them in the larger container of being than our own singular personhood, held in the ocean of love. Then we can respond from this deeper, holistic presence of God that can bear all things. And can even bear them through us.

Here we will find the will to act. Rooted in immeasurable love through divine presence emerging in the world like a wildflower. Like a field of ten thousand blooms sprouting from the ashes.

Rarely will our actions be grand and wide-sweeping, catalyzing great change and liberation—though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Mostly they will be small and significant, co-creating with God in the present moment to show up differently, meet what is before us with wholeness, and transform our relations and actions into a new way of being, one moment at a time.

This is the divine intervention the world is waiting for. What we do as God’s presence in action. The will to act, stemming from love, is divine presence showing up in the world.

It is the phoenix rising into a new heaven and earth, here and now.

Responsiveness from Presence rather than Reactivity

Reactivity keeps us small. When acting out of our common patterns and compulsive strategies, we participate in life from a very limited presence. We are running scripts coloring the situation with past experiences that usually have nothing to do with the reality of the present moment. Our actions then stem from this narrow, self-contained outlook. This leads not only to unconscious responses but even choices that are less conscious because they are trapped in partial reality.

Instead, in WBMP, we can choose to respond with action sourced in a more holistic presence through a wider and deeper reality. We open up to spirit and respond from a fuller presence rather than our small selves.

This is holistic responsiveness from our embodied enlivenment, from spirit consciousness flowing in/through/as us.

It happens in the immediate. In the right here that is before us at any and every moment. We practice it in response to any situation that comes before us, meeting it with as much of the fullness of spirit presence as possible.

I am currently working on practicing this in moments when the emotional energy of a situation ramps up. With two young children in my house, this happens a fair amount! In my patterned orientation, established at a young age, I generally go into freeze mode when my nervous system gets hyper-activated. I retreat to my head and try to figure out how to manage the situation. I discount my own feelings and betray the fullness of my own presence.

Now, in these moments, I try to consciously presence back into my whole body. I pause, breathe, perhaps place a hand on my chest, and connect down into my legs. I welcome the emotion in me and recognize my own needs in the situation.

Once I’m more present authentically in my non-reactive self, I can welcome the holistic beyond-me presence of spirit in greater truth and wholeness. It’s a work in progress!

(This comes from the psychological and energetic healing work I’m engaging in now, alongside the spiritual development of presence—they go together.)

This is just one example of choosing responsive presence over-reactivity. What might it look like for you?

Initiative into Integral Activism

In addition to responsiveness, we can also take initiative in our action.

Spirit is alive in us as indwelling potential. When we wake up to that dynamic presence and welcome its flow in loving awareness, we will be compelled and called to express—to presence in action the spiritual potential alive within us for the good of the world. The potency of this spiritual energy will give us the capacity and strength to meet the immensity of weight the present moment now bears for the planet—and for each one of us.

We can meet any situation with the in-the-moment prayer of divine inquiry, welcoming acting with spirit as we show up in our divine presence to transform relationships, environments, and other issues we are called to meet. This is co-creative action with spirit stemming from God-presence incarnate—the divine-human indwelling, the Christ presence in/through us.

We can do this in the situational as well as the global. The practice below is a way to do this in our life choices. And we can engage in the activism on a larger scale. How we are drawn to do this through spirit will be multiplicitous, according to our particular calling and expression. In an integral sense, we are open to our actions touching the physical, phenomenal world and the subtle and causal realms of reality.

Personally, I’m currently exploring this through mystical activism, a way of acting in spirit in the fields of consciousness that encompass larger collectives. One example would be what Teilhard called the Noosphere, which encompasses the earth in a manifestation of collective mind. Rather than just tapping into this reality to access collective wisdom, we can seek to impact the collective psyche of global consciousness through our own exertion—acting with spirit.

Crucially, this cannot be done alone, but with others coming together to generate the energy necessary to make an impact. This includes guiding presences in the spiritual realm and a greater connection with cosmic energy in the earth and sun.

Many groups are engaging in this sort of work—one such group doing this integral work of subtle activism is the Gaiafield Project.

All of this may be a little far out there for some, which is fine. Many are drawn more to concrete, on-the-ground work in many areas of suffering, which is crucially necessary. In cooperation with spirit, we are each called to action in whatever way we are to transform our relations with all beings and environments in all realms.

We can close with the words of White Eagle:

“What world do you want to build for yourself? For now, this is what you can do: serenity in the storm. Calm down and pray. Everyday. Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day. Good things emanate, what you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love.”

A Practice of Whole-Body Mystical Presencing:

WBMP is a process that is practiced all throughout your day. It is a turning at any possible moment in which you can remember to do it. These practices do not work if just thought of at random. They take specific intention and dedication to first develop new neural pathways, and then, over time, the grooves are established so that the practice flows more naturally. But intentional, committed repetition is necessary to get to this place.

(I remind us WBMP is an evolution of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, a developmental deepening we experience over time after familiarizing ourselves with WBMA practice. I encourage you to feel the freedom to engage in either or both in response to where you are in your practice.)

Calling forth Initiative from Presence in Life-Style Choices

“Open up to the liberated place within your embodied being where you can be co-creative with immanent spirit, your animating life-potential, in making life-style choices. You open to the inner spiritual and subtle womb, in the belly of your being, where the generative potency of immanent spirit, divine life, dwells. This womb is the locus of your potential, the source and seedbed of options and possibilities. What emerges from it, when you intend to be co-creative with it, are periodic impulses, prompts, innovations, proactions, responses and reminders, about your personal action, development and relationships within the great web of interbeing.
This active participation in indwelling spiritual entelechy, a sacred soil at the root of embodied personhood, may generate specific life-style impulses about: a feel for empowering rhythms and patterns of behaviour in time and space; a sense of fitting and appropriate action within the immediate situation – the content and timing of specific actions relating to personal and shared life-style, social change, spiritual practice and unfoldment, artistic creation, learning and inquiry, the process of inner regression and emotional healing. These life-style impulses arising within are maculate, contingent, relative both to the limiting situations within which they occur and to your shaping and selective framing of them. To be co-creative with this indwelling animation is to shape and frame it as much as it enacts you.”
- John Heron

Or, to put it another, simpler way:

Welcome the fullness of your being through Whole-Body Mystical Presencing, an in-the-moment attuning to the holistic consciousness in your embodied being.

Attune especially to your womb space and what is arising from indwelling potential, spirit energy coming forth with promptings and invitations.

Receive through your spiritual knowing, “What is mine to do?” Know that it won’t always be fully formed, but is responsive and dynamic to our choices, and we co-create with spirit.

Act in the sacred soil of your situational life, shaping your life with the everyday choices that transform self, other, and world.

Integrating Presence Into Life in Action