Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
“Make me present to whatever is significantly real at each moment of my existence.”
— THOMAS MERTON—
Our primary, core practice in ICN is Whole-Body Mystical Awakening. It is a waking up to the embodied reality of our divine participation in this life. It is a practice to transform our consciousness into a more integrated, holistic enlivenment with God.
Focusing on our four primary centers of spiritual knowing—head, heart, spiritual womb/gut, and feet—we practice our awakening to the dynamic flow of spiritual energy, the arising of holistic spiritual knowing in its various forms, and the blissful, loving embrace of our divine being coming forth within and among us. It is a meditative prayer practice that brings us into union, communion, and flow with God.
The fundamental way that we open to this awakening is through meditation practice. We use guided meditations to help individuals and groups come into this experience of mystical awareness and spiritual knowing in our bodies, personal and collective. Over time, as we become more familiar with the dynamics of the practice, we can move into self-guided or spirit-led practice—following the flow of awareness at any pace and as we are drawn in the moment.
“Practice” is just a word to indicate going beyond merely thinking and learning about spiritual matters to enacting and engaging with the substance of spiritual becoming. All of life is our practice field, and every moment is our performance. The more we practice, the more we hope to see the integration of the work we do in meditation transform the way we live from moment to moment.
Once we are awakened to these ways of feeling and sensing, we can move more into a practice of attuning in every moment, without the need to do a long practice to get there. This attunement is a way of more fully presencing ourselves into more of the fullness of our being. We consciously and intentionally engage our more holistic perception and energetic presence from our divine being. This moment-to-moment practice is what we call “Whole-Body Mystical Presencing.”
The more familiar and comfortable we are with opening to our embodied being in a concentrated and focused time, the more we will be free to access this state of being more easily and naturally at any moment.
WBMP also creates a form of practice more accessible to those who do not have the space in their lives for one or two long meditation times a day. I (Luke) am a parent of young children, and this stage of life has different energetic and practical realities to it. There is a reason why meditation is practiced most in monasteries. Many of us living “in the world” struggle to adopt practices that were primarily designed in and for a monastic context. No matter our life circumstances, we all need the integration of our spiritual practice into our every-moment lived reality.
Embodied Mystical Practice in Any and Every Moment
Heartfulness
“The heart is like an instrument whose strings steal magic music from Life’s mystic frets.” – Gerald Massey
As we cultivate our heart consciousness, we come alive to the energetic presence of love and connection through our hearts. In heartful attunement, we can sense with our relational enlivenment in the dynamic field of the heart, which extends out beyond our physical bodies.
In any moment, we can experience openness of heart with others, with nature, and even in the bliss of universal embrace. In the sensitivity of our tender heart, we can be conscious with our personal needs and healthy boundaries. And in the strength of our divine heart, we have the fortitude to bear and bless any and all things, for the source of love is inexhaustible and surges forth with every swell we draw upon and presence in our lives for this moment.
As your heart pulses steady, so may your heartful presence beat with the rhythm of unending strength and steadfastness.
Wombfulness
“From your innermost being (womb) will flow rivers of living water.” – Jesus
As we come into our wombfulness, the deep awareness of being cradled in the present, we are held in the divine embrace of holy nurturing. The more we center down into this space of deep being, the more we live tapped into the Eternal Source within.
At any moment, you can come home to yourself in this deep way. You can find rest within, anchoring into your deepest being. Here, you are rooted in the intrinsic value of the very essence of your being. The immortal diamond of your divine identity. The more you sink into this, the more you will be able to keenly feel this deep being as a living dynamic of your presence.
From this connection, the wellspring flows forth with the fresh arisings of your ever-present becoming in uniqueness. Your deepest understandings, your most resonant truth, your creative impulse, your intuitive knowing, your courageous vigor, your living vitality. The current of new life at any and all times, ever-flowing with no end, rising up with fresh life energy for this moment.
As the waves reach the shore and return to the deep, may the flow of your being be held in ease and power.
Bodyfulness
“Your body, immaculate and divine,
Is all radiant with the fire of your divinity.”
– Symeon the New Theologian
As we welcome our bodyfulness, we are embracing the fullness of our material being, our holy incarnation as matter, as flesh. No longer a separate object to notice, attend to, control, and care for—but a living and pulsing consciousness of being through which we experience all of life.
At any moment, we can feel into our material participation with nature, with energy, with life. We choose to “touch” life, to be directly engaged with the here and now, this time and place, joyfully immersed in the immanent present. Not standing back but rooted and grounded in the beautiful particular of our situated, sacred presence.
In this immediacy, we move and flow in the mutual indwelling of Christ presence, which is a larger “body” than our individual permutation. We can presence through the porosity of being, through the permeation of matter that is intricately connected and divinely entangled. Our greater embodiment manifest in interrelated divine consciousness, which is a radical mutuality and mystical entwining of bodily presence beyond our singular body.
As the pulsing energy of life vibrates with immediate potency, may the living soil of your body be fertile and lush, sprouting and blooming forth into this beautiful now.
Mindfulness
“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything” – Julian of Norwich
As we practice mindfulness in integration with the rest of our body, we actively presence our mind—our knowing—beyond the brain and the head, holistically embracing the neural pathways throughout our entire being.
At any moment, we can open our mind into the posture of receptivity and lucidity to the wider field beyond our usual thinking. We can gather up and bring forth from all our ways of knowing, surveying and integrating through our embodied structures of consciousness. This is not so much a filtering as a welcoming and sharing. A breathing spaciousness in the freedom of integrated knowing.
It is not passive, but receptive. It is more than focused attention, but also conscious engagement through the knowing of our hearts, our wombs, our feet and body. We are not trapped in reactivity or regulation, enacting compulsive protective ego patterns, nor detaching as we search our knowledge for the right answers, trying to figure it out. Our head comes alongside, serving as an integrated participant in holistic knowing and embodied mindful presence.
As the wind blows and breezes as it will, may you breathe in and out through spirit in each moment, receiving and giving in wholeness, full of wisdom, divine insight, and joyful delight.
Embodied Enlivenment – The Integral Whole of Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
"My me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself [sic]" – Catherine of Genoa
Presence comes into fullness when we are wholly present. We are wholly present when we are living in the flow of integrated aliveness. All of our ways of being and knowing, our various structures of consciousness, are “online” and contributing.
In Whole-Body Mystical Presencing, we practice the any/every moment participation in holistic presence.
Not our ideas about the present moment, but the engaged partaking of the here and now, through conscious participation in embodied enlivenment—heartfulness, wombfulness, bodyfulness, and mindfulness playing together in harmonic delight.
As we live and move and have our being in divine wholeness, permeated and intertwined throughout our entire being: personal, collective, and universal, may we presence in fullness with our whole-body being at any and all times, with whatever life brings to this now.
From Whole-Body Mystical Awakening to Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is an evolution of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, a developmental deepening we experience over time after familiarizing ourselves with WBMA practice. You can engage in either or both in response to where you are in your spiritual process.
It is a practice to enter the everyday reality of Christ consciousness, a moment-to-moment permeation of divine spirit—God is already here in our midst and within us at any and all times.
WBMP is not a meditation practice, but rather, a way of being.
This continual way of being takes seriously the Christ reality, the interfusion of the divine and material in all things that is always present. Our spiritual calling is to live into this loving reality in our daily lives.
To become Christ alive in us.
We seek to live from this consciousness so that we may be active participants in the divine nature, involved in the loving evolution and becoming of this sacred world. As such, it is essential our primary forms of practice don’t funnel to the margins the most essential and vital aspects of our humanity and generativity. But rather permeate and invigorate our lives with divine energy and loving presence.
“Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditation. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.”
— THICH NHAT HANH—
Questions for Reflection:
1. What appeals to you most about WBMP? What seems the most challenging?
2. What are some ways you can attune to spiritual awareness in the midst of your daily routines?
3. How have you become more present to the divine in your everyday life?
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN