Dwelling in Your Sanctuary Guided Meditation
Let me just say, this might be my favorite member-only meditation yet. Bringing embodiment into my spirituality, into my relationship with God and myself has been transformative.
Last month I caught a brutal stomach bug that kept me in bed for an entire day. One night, my 4 year old son came up to visit me in my room and I asked him to ask God to help me feel better. He said to me, “I’m going to ask my body what you should do to feel better.” He was quiet for a moment and said, “My body said you should take some medicine.” I was so struck by the way in which he located God within his physical body and that he trusted his intuition on what would “heal” me.
When I was newly postpartum with the twins, I noticed that every time I settled onto my yoga mat, strong emotions would arise. At the time I was overwhelmed with daily life and care of two babies while trying to juggle work and the rest of life. Sometimes I’d feel a rush of giddy thrill, a wave of anxiety, or a sudden welling up of tears. It felt like I had been bottling it all in, waiting for a moment to myself where nobody needed me, nothing was required except for me to stay fully in my body for one hour.
Although people have been creating systems for connecting with God since the beginning of time, Latin was the first language that had a word for religion. It’s interesting to think about a time before a named split between religion and life. Perhaps before we had a word to define the concept of religion, all of life was seen as a way to try and restore our connection with the Divine.
Psalm 86:11 says, “unite my heart” or “grant me undividedness of heart.” The word religion contains the Latin root ligar– meaning to join, or link. Religion then, is a way of re-joining the human with the divine. I think it also points to the idea that anything that divides us or causes us to embrace anything other than wholeness with ourselves and with community is not a form of healthy religion. Many religions ask us to split off parts of ourselves or insulate us from the world, but my journey has been one of slowly acknowledging this exiled places, allowing myself to see them and make decisions on how to move forward based on who I actually am, not who I wish I was or who others want me to be.
I leave you with the Asher Yatzar Blessing that comes from Orthodox Judaism. I discovered this prayer when I was researching embodiment. This is a prayer that is to be said after a person goes to the bathroom. Yep, isn’t that fascinating? Everything fits, everything is seen by the Divine.
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many hollow spaces. It is obvious and known before Your Seat of Honor that if even one of them would be opened, or if even one of them would be sealed, it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You even for one hour. Blessed are You, Adonai, who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.