Practice : Body Compass

Jun 26

This is my take on ancient and intuitive sensory experience that taps into the innate intelligence of the human body, a blend of body compass, Zen Beginner's Mind, a shamanic medicine walk and Goethean science.

The practice asks you to find a place in the natural landscape where you could walk undisturbed for some time, and have an encounter with an element of nature. A true act of lifeworld-ing!

I guide you through a short introduction and the instructions. Attached on the website page is a link to the full instructions in PDF, and as per the audio, listed here in much briefer bullets below. I recommend listening in full, then using either of the instructions when you choose to do the practice itself.

FULL INSTRUCTIONS (click to download)

ABBREVIATED INSTRUCTIONS

· Before entering into the natural landscape, you’ll walk to a threshold place, and stop.

· Here you will physically draw a threshold that you will walk across.

· Once you’ve done that, pause, connect with the land, speak your intention, ask for permission.

· Cross the threshold, and start walking towards where you feel a tug. Be conscious of the way your body can intuitively lead the way. Use the senses.

· At some point, you may come across a being in the land that catches your attention. It could be a spiders web, a stone, a patch of moss, a dead bough of a tree, a stream, a blade of grass, truly anything. Approach, introduce yourself.

· Spend a moment in presence with them, in beginners mind.

· Use Goethe’s Exact Sense Perception instructions –then imagine it transforming. Then release to receive. Let it communicate back to you.

· Stay here as long as feels right.

· When it comes to the time to go, thank this natural being and start walking back to your threshold place.

· When you cross the threshold, thank the land and when you’re ready, step across back into the other world.

· Gently wipe out the threshold door and take some time upon returning to digest anything that may have arisen for you.