Refresh: The Gift of Embodiment

Summer invites us to unfurl from our winter cocoons. We get to stretch our limbs in the sun, go barefoot in the grass, follow footpaths through forests, swim in clear lakes, bask in the cool shade on a bench. It’s easier to be embodied in the summer. Being in our bodies, even when there are limits to what our bodies can do, brings us back to life. We touch what is real.

Perhaps this is why I have loved this quote ever since I read it. I’m sure I’ve shared it with you before, but repetition is the stuff of learning, so I share it again. Listen to the way Frederick Buechner honours our embodied, human existence:

I DISCOVERED THAT IF you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living on Rupert Mountain opened up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly. …

If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”—From Now and Then and Listening to Your Life

Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy… I like that.

As a doorway into a more embodied life, we invite you to a gentle mix of yoga and meditation tonight at 7:00 pm at Kingfisher Farm (512 172 St).Led by a certified yoga instructor who offers a low-barrier experience for all ages and abilities to facilitate increased embodiment, this is a safe space for us to gather and connect with our bodies, wherever we’re at.

Come with a water bottle, a yoga mat (there will be extra mats available if you don’t have one to bring) and dressed comfortably for the weather and for movement.

Hope to see you there!
Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Church at Southpoint