Our Bodies And The Grace Of Movement

Outside my window, there are four doves in the branches of the tree. Their wings lift and flex, they stretch their necks, and fluff their feathers. Nearby a chickadee scratches himself and a few downy woodpeckers race each other around the yard.

At the suet feeder, three bluebirds sit patiently waiting for the red-bellied and downy woodpeckers to break apart the frozen suet. The juncos walk the ground beneath both feeders thankful for the falling suet and sunflower seeds. The nuthatch hangs upside down to eat; the finches flit everywhere, twittering at each other, while the cardinal pairs take turns flying in for seeds.

Across the ravine, I can see tracks of a deer, the neighbor’s cat stretching, and the squirrels hopping from branch to branch. Where the snow has melted, a few bugs rise up into the air. A spider weaves it web, and a leaf twirls beneath it caught by a single strand, dancing in the wind.

(Del caught a video of this leaf dance last summer.)

It’s obvious when watching nature that everything in the universe is moving, together and independently, each unique but each dancing as One within and as the qualities of Life.

However, when it comes to ourselves we get a little confused. We don’t move. We exercise. Actually, there is nothing wrong with the word exercise; it’s the premise that we have given it that gives us trouble.

Instead of moving, or exercising as an expression of life within the joy of moving, we often are caught up in exercising to make something better.

However, our intent is to remain within the point of view that we are already perfect as the expression of God. So if we exercise aren’t we playing both sides of the fence?

Perhaps we forget that since everything that is present is the presence of God, or Mind, or Spirit then what appears as our body and all its parts is not separate from God. Remembering this we don’t negate our bodies and turn away from them thinking that someday we will vacate them and become spiritual. Instead, we recognize that what appears as a body has its substance in Spirit the same as everything else that we see and experience.

We all get very confused when we divide our world into two parts. Spirit over here, matter over there. In this separation point of view we have to make up rules based on which part of the world we think we are in each moment.

A separation point of view begins with something wrong that needs to be fixed. A spiritual perception begins with the fact that there is nothing wrong now, in the past, or in the future. Everything is perfection because everything is God’s expression.

What appears as a body is not an illusion, it is a misperception of what we are looking at and experiencing. We have all experienced at least one moment when the boundaries of our bodies seems to disappear as the mist clears and in that instant we know the Truth that there is no separation, that dualism is an illusion that is dissolving.

What we perceive as our bodies is no different then what we perceive as a tree, the birds, a flower, our income, or any other object that appears material to us. The key is in the word perceive. As we acknowledge and practice the truth of our being what appears as material to us, is seen for what it is, spiritual, whose substance is the qualities of the omnipresent “force” we call God.

It stands to reason than that acknowledging and enjoying the qualities of movement is an excellent way to begin the experience of our bodies, not as a solid object, or something we own, or something we are, and finally not as our dualist thought perceives them, but as the consciousness of God revealed in another of Its infinite manifestations.

Imagine what a difference it would make if we approached movement from the perception that instead of fixing our body through exercise, we were moving as the grace of God. We would no longer think of movement or exercise as a cure, but instead as a way of being.

We could do yoga, walk, dance, run, climb, leap, swim, play baseball, football, stretch, lift weights – the choices for us are endless. We could do all of this because we are the expression of God, and we could celebrate that fact with each form of movement we make.

Our worldview education shuts us into a tiny, closed-in material thought process, it is necessary that we take up the task of educating ourselves out of it and into the infinite.

The universe breathes with the grace of life. We are one with it. Take a walk with this open awareness of what is really going on. Move muscles, flex joints, stretch out into space, breathe deeply, expand your vision, go within, see the universe and all that it contains, spiritual, moving as One. Experience for yourself the truth of yourself within the grace of movement.

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