Western philosophy is just footnotes to Plato, and the spiritual path is just footnotes to deep resonance with the soma.

When we re-align with direct experience, straighten out knots & interference, and develop a working harmony with the soma, it becomes matter-of-factly clear that our path is right under our feet. Always has been, always will be; all that’s required of us is to notice how that path wants to be walked.

We’ve looked at 3 of the major entryways to Somatic Resonance: de-mediating the body, finding spontaneity, and cultivating exploratory humility. You could stop right here and delve into those, never touching the rest of this course. (In fact, I’d suggest taking a break right here to spend serious time working with each of the practices we’ve looked at, plus your own exploration of each core idea.)

<aside> 💡 “[Jung’s] path then, as he sees it, is to assist individuals in acquiring, in experiencing something in their own way that is authoritative for them but not binding upon others.” —Sonu Shamdasani

I can’t speak for Jung, but this certainly resonates for me. “Authoritative for them but not binding upon others.” One temptation—when we start to hear the soma and feel the wisdom of the path it shows us—is to start projecting this wisdom onto others, insisting that this should also be their path. This impulse comes from a well-meaning place, but is usually misguided. Keep an eye out for it, as things progress.

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Before moving forward, I’d like to take a moment to explicitly tie those 3 entryways together, and hopefully give you a clear picture of how everything else in this course ties back to this cluster of entryways.

To recap and connect:

• Body’s Experience-of-Itself: We usually experience the body through the head, via the Systematic Mode that sees it at a distance, as a separate object from “Me.” We can short circuit this entire Mode of Being from the bottom up by building a reflex for receiving the body’s experience-of-itself, rather than doing awareness-of-the-body.
• Spontaneous Mode of Experience: allowing and receiving the body’s experience-of-itself is one way out of the Systematic and into the Spontaneous, but it’s not the only way. By moving towards the entire Spontaneous cluster—including things like humility, open awareness, & interconnection—we create more space for the soma to share with us; more space for us to receive the soma.
• Openness to Experience: When we rebalance away from the Systematic mind and towards the Spontaneous body, new and unexpected material reveals itself. Real transformation only happens when we allow ourselves to notice and accept the unexpected. And yet, a lifetime of living in a particular one-sided Systematic worldview tends to leave us with a reflex for ignoring or shutting down this unexpected material, even when we’re finally gaining capacity to notice it. The assortment of unexpected material will be different for everyone—it can include images, impressions, life events, sudden prescient healing (or sudden prescient injury 😬), strange interpersonal interactions, energetic sensations… almost anything. Even things we find impossible, distasteful, or destabilizing.
  • Eg. if you’re the type of person who finds talk of angels cringe and campy, you might suddenly have two straight weeks of incredibly powerful dreams about angels. You could ignore it, push it down, write it off as an anomaly… or you could stay open to it, get very curious about what’s happening there, and metabolize the experience.

I hope the full picture of this dynamic is starting to show itself to you, especially in practice.

Getting out of the head and into the body introduces us to Spontaneous experience; recognizing a wider cluster of Spontaneous qualities deepens us into the soma; staying open to the Spontaneous soma allows our experience to speak to us in increasingly complex and colorful ways, which step by step opens us to noticing the life we’re living, noticing the path we’re walking, noticing how the seeds at the core of our lives want to be growing and weaving into the world.

Everything else in this course, from the Trail Guides to the Forest of exercises and explanations, is directed at moving us deeper into this dynamic, troubleshooting obstacles and difficulties, and offering possibilities for nurturing it in particular directions.

SR5 Riff.mp4

please see note on videos; this video riffs on the same material as the text and continues to a few other bits and pieces I want to share before we move on.

I trust you’ll find something evocative to nurture here, and I hope you find practices that light you up with excitement and comfort and depth. Remember: follow the soma; let your intuition walk you through the practices, following whatever you find that makes you want to keep going.

<aside> 🎯 A soulful life begins with deep resonance in the soma, and the experiences that unfold from that resonance. Our three main entryways to Somatic Resonance are: de-mediating the body, finding spontaneity, and cultivating exploratory humility. This course is about exploring these practices and staying open to unexpected experiences that may arise.

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Next:

Trail Guides

Related

Working with the Systematic and Spontaneous Styles