I teach the female body as Holy Ground–and of course the male body is holy too. In 2019, I am expanding my teaching into the realm of Sacred Sexuality. As part of my preparation for this, during the last Christmas season I looked more deeply into the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ–the Divine in Human Form.
I get into these “theological” issues because I have a strong background in this, and I am aware that the beliefs of the religions in our cultural background still influence our culture today. Even if we consider ourselves entirely secularized, the beliefs of these background religions have formed our culture and continue to influence it, even if that influence is unconscious. So I aspire to examine those beliefs and sift through them to find the aspects that support life versus the aspects that need to be rooted out or seen from a deeper perspective. Because, if the false and destructive elements are not recognized as such and re-framed, they can cause and/or perpetuate horrific damage to our cultural psyche. Collectively, we need to heal destructive beliefs on the deep, inner levels of our religious and spiritual systems in order to open the way forward and guide the cultural evolution that is needed in our time.
So here goes!!!
Conventional Roman Catholic Christianity seems to believe that Jesus and Mary were the only human beings to incarnate the Divine without “original sin.” The Catholics think that both Jesus and Mary were conceived by “immaculate conception”–i.e., without physical sex–and this is what makes them free from original sin. [Sex = Sin, though it can be “OK” if done for procreation only.] Protestants eliminate Mary from this two-person roster of Divine humans, with the implication that only the male form is worthy to embody the Divine.
What about human beings in general? Does modern science have any light to shed on this Mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine that might be relevant to the rest of us (who are not Jesus or Mary)?!!?!
Physics tells us that “matter” itself is actually 99.999999% empty space. The nucleus of an atom is like a golf ball in the middle of a football field, with the tiny electrons circulating at the edge of the football field. We experience the physical level of life as solid objects ONLY because of how human perception works, and how humans infuse meaning into–or detect the underlying meaning in–their perceptions. So the physical level of life is not actually as “solid” as we perceive it to be.
Chemistry tells us how the physical elements are constituted on the atomic level and how they interact with each other on the molecular level. The Periodic Table of Elements is a glorious and amazing illustration of Sacred Geometry, the archetypal patterns of creation. It is clear that even “non-living” physical reality is an expression of Divine INTELLIGENCE–NOT something that is inherently opposed to the Divine and NOT simply “worthless matter”!
Biology shows us how Cosmic Intelligence expresses itself in living beings. DNA is the molecular “alphabet” that functions as the blueprint for a particular life form–the underlying Intelligence that gives it both form and function. Our human DNA is the culmination of not only millions of generations of human ancestors who came before us, but also the unfathomable number of generations of the non-human ancestors who came before the human species! For example, the Krebs cycle describes how aerobic metabolism functions in almost all animals–including us. The DNA that controls aerobic metabolism first arose in much earlier life forms. Through our DNA, we are connected not only with our families, and not only with our human family, but also with the entire web of life on earth!
We are talking about the body as an expression of Cosmic Intelligence–literally the Word (DNA) made Flesh, as Jesus’s disciple John describes it. [“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth… (John 1:1, 1:14).]
I believe that every human being is an Incarnation of the Divine, the Word made Flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. Your Holy body is Emmanuel, God with You–the expression of the Divine that allows you to experience the Divine in its multidimensionality from Abstract to Expressed-in-Form, and in the Awe that is the natural response to Wholeness/ Holiness!
If there is an “original sin,” it is the sin of denigrating the expressions of the Divine as non-Divine. “Original sin” has nothing to do with sex! In fact, sex in its sacred context is among the most powerful expressions of the Divine—an enactment in human form of the Divine Union along with the Divine Polarity of opposite values (masculine and feminine energies).
This re-framing of our belief systems and intellectual understanding is useful in its own right. It opens us to new possibilities for experience and new foundations for how we live our lives. However, when I work with clients individually or in workshops and retreats, my focus is really to guide people into a direct embodied experience of what I am writing about here–such as experiencing the essential holiness of your own body.
When we experience our human bodies and our other deepest soul gifts as inherently Holy, damaging cultural stereotypes fade into insignificance. The old patterns lose their power to distort our feelings and behavior, and we are much better equipped to shift to more empowering and joyful patterns of living!
In these dark times, I wish you the wOneder of wHolyness pervading all your days and nights!
