{"id":1017,"date":"2015-02-05T20:13:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T00:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/quakerpagan\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2015-02-05T20:13:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T00:13:33","slug":"embodied-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/quakerpagan\/2015\/02\/embodied-spirituality.html","title":{"rendered":"Embodied Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n
\"Weights.<\/a>
Weights. Chapin-Bishop, 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trudging down the steps into the basement, Arctic air follows me.\u00a0 I park my coat on a hook, grab my water bottle, and head toward the distorted blare of Seventies Rock.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care.\u00a0 Everything I need is here: The room is large, but full of the smell of sweat and iron.<\/p>\n

Mirrors watch me cross the room, but the stranger by the bench press does not; he merely nods as I head to my set.\u00a0 Pushing the pin into the stack, I begin.<\/p>\n

One\u2026 two\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s always a long way to twelve, on the first set of the day, but when I get there, I feel the blood beginning to move through my body, waking my muscles up.\u00a0 Today is a good day; I\u2019ll be ready to add another five pounds soon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pagans talk about \u201cembodied spirituality,\u201d but I notice many of us don\u2019t so much practice it as talk about it.\u00a0 There are a lot of couch potatoes planted along this spiritual path.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not an exception to that rule.\u00a0 At fifty-four, my arches have fallen, my discs are herniated, and my knees and my rotator cuffs don\u2019t love me like they used to.\u00a0 At the end of a day of work, it\u2019s so much easier to collapse on a couch than it is to spend a little time in my body.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way.\u00a0 As a child and a teenager, I lived in the woods\u2013a fact which probably led to becoming a Pagan. In my twenties, my coven and I typically celebrated Midsummer or Lammas by climbing a mountain.\u00a0 In my thirties, I celebrated my honeymoon by hiking with my beloved to a cabin without running water or electricity, and right into my forties, I walked to work and back in all weathers.<\/p>\n

Even when I injured my back six years ago, walking, endless walking over woods trails was the way that I healed.\u00a0 (I am certain that it was the woods, every bit as much as the walking, that eventually let me put away my cane.)<\/p>\n

But it gets harder as the years go by.\u00a0 As much as I want to be the ninety year old on a ski slope, or the eighty year old climbing mountains, that may not happen.\u00a0 Bodies wear out; they break, and sometimes they cannot be mended.<\/p>\n

All the same, there is a joy in living into what we have, as fully as we can.<\/p>\n

My turn at the bench press.\u00a0 Deliberately, I do not compare the plates on the bar with those I would have lifted, years ago.\u00a0 Instead, I compare my lift today with what it was when I found this gym, only a few weeks ago.\u00a0 That I lifted more when I was younger is not the point; that I am lifting now is.<\/p>\n

All the same, it feels good to add a little more weight to the bar.<\/p>\n

Today, I decide, today I will work to failure.\u00a0 Calling for a spot, I begin.<\/p>\n

One\u2026 two\u2026 three\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

At eight, the weight is getting heavy.\u00a0 I dig deep.\u00a0 \u201cYou can do it, you can do it,\u201d the stranger chants: the<\/p>\n

\"Heavy.<\/a>
Heavy. Cat Chapin-Bishop, 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

incantation of all weight lifters, everywhere.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all you, allyouallyou\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019ve got nine.\u00a0 (Nine!<\/em>)\u00a0 The question is\u2026 do I have\u2026(the bar is wobbling, now, and my spotter stands near) TEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

I had ten.\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 Good enough. Removing my plates from the bar, I fill my water bottle\u2013then empty it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, there are Pagans who are disciplined and consistent in their physical practice: yoga, tai chi, tae kwon do.\u00a0 There are Pagans whose bodies are indeed temples.<\/p>\n

But there are also Pagans whose bodies are broken. Fibromyalgia.\u00a0 Myasthenia gravis.\u00a0 Chronic fatigue syndrome, spinal fusion, hip replacements\u2026 cancer.\u00a0 The list of illnesses my friends must share their temples with is long, and getting longer.<\/p>\n

One of the sad parts of being an elder is watching your friends who are elders too show the signs of their mortality.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t the bodies of the spiritually enlightened be healthy forever?\u00a0 Pretty to think spiritual work would assure physical health.\u00a0 But the truth is otherwise: none of us will get out of here alive.<\/p>\n

Pulldowns, wide grip.\u00a0 I adjust the bar across my knees.\u00a0 Though the weight I am using is nowhere near enough to lift me from the bench, I must use my entire body with this machine, in order to keep my lower back completely, entirely isolated from the movement.\u00a0 If I am very careful, if I keep my form as crisp as a military drill, I can do it this one without harm.<\/p>\n

If I am careless\u2026 I can\u2019t be sure that this was the exercise that set me to walking with a cane again, briefly, for a few days last month.\u00a0 But I am careful all the same.<\/p>\n

I cannot trust the resilience of youth to adjust for any errors.\u00a0 But I am old enough to understand: I\u2019m mortal.\u00a0 I need to be wise as well as strong.\u00a0 I bide my time.\u00a0 I use care.<\/p>\n

And, regretfully, though I eye the low-row wistfully, I do not set the pin.\u00a0 Low-row, aikido, Alpine skiing, sparring with boffer swords\u2026 the list of exercises I dare not do is also long.\u00a0 I do what I can, and I do my best to honor the body I actually have, not the body I remember.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI feel like lifting weights is a spiritual experience for me,\u201d a friend said recently.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t even known she lifted.\u00a0 I don\u2019t share her view; not exactly.\u00a0 While I am in the gym, I am not thinking spiritual thoughts.\u00a0 I am not centering, or consciously moving energy, or contemplating peace.\u00a0 All I am doing is trying to get to the next rep.\u00a0 (One\u2026 two\u2026<\/em>)\u00a0 My mind is in my muscles, to the extent I have a mind.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the beauty of it, I suppose.\u00a0 For a little over an hour at a time, I stop letting my thoughts run the show.\u00a0 Asleep or awake, for much of the time, my mind spins on, like a hamster stuck on a wheel.\u00a0 But when I am in my body\u2026 my mind is quiet.<\/p>\n

I remember a day, long ago in the dojo, when our teacher interrupted our drills, unhappy with what he saw.<\/p>\n

He lined us all up, from the black belts through the lowliest white belt, and he made us run, one after another, down the length of the mat until we reached the point where he stood.\u00a0 There, he had each of us in turn execute a single breakfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u2019 he would call, and point to the end of the line.\u00a0 \u201cAgain!\u2019\u00a0 And again and again, each of us ran the length of the mat, threw ourselves into a breakfall, and came to our feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain!\u201d<\/p>\n

And every so often, he would simply say, \u201cYes,\u201d and point that person out of line.<\/p>\n

At last, I understood.<\/p>\n

When it was my turn, I ran the length of the mat. I did not think.\u00a0 I did not plan.\u00a0 For the span of perhaps a dozen seconds, I allowed my body simply to be itself, to be alive, in charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what would happen if I tried a breakfall now.\u00a0 I no longer study martial arts, and I doubt I ever will again.<\/p>\n

But I remember how to be<\/em> a body, and how to live in that body, as fully and completely as if I were a mouse, or a bear\u2026 or a twenty year old, learning for the first time the pleasure of being herself, in a body, for no particular purpose at all.<\/p>\n

I remember, in a way that\u2019s deeper than words: I am alive.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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