Enchanted Embodiment
Despite the many theories about the nature of reality, what I experience as most real, is being a creature with a body. Being Here means arriving in this animal body, acknowledging my corporeality fully, feeling it as deeply as I can. Being Now means participating in this continuous process of life as it unfolds within, and all around; witnessing it in all aspects and subtleties as it takes form in the endless moment of Right Now.
To me, this is the baseline reality that I can relate to at all times when the frantic mind takes over. It is the antidote to a disembodied consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large today. Our world is composed of narratives. It is all too easy to get lost in this groundless territory of identity, language, social roles, ideology, religion, philosophy, economics, and politics. These are all purely mental constructs, existing only in the mind. When we realize this to be true, our identification with this mental construct crumbles and makes room for the felt presence of direct experience.
We step into a new realm of spaciousness and unfolding potentiality—the actuality of life as a continuous process, as felt by our somatic perception. Then we experience sensory impressions: The visual and auditory field, the feeling of our feet touching the ground, sensations of pressure, weight and tension, the air going in and out of our respiratory system, the beating of the heart and the pulsing of blood. That’s it. That’s more or less the totality of life minus narrative. And this space of living presence is a place from which we can truly create.
This state is synonymous with health and well-being. It is the human potential we ought to develop — our capacity to feel and to perceive. As much as possible. I see this as the uniquely human role in this big play. Not to understand, but to stand in awe before creation like a child. This is as true as it gets. This is Presence.
This curiosity about our human potential has always spurred my inquiries; what stops me from living life to the fullest? How alive can I feel when all false identifications are dropped? How lightly can I walk this earth when there is no armour weighing me down, no mask obstructing my vision? How does it feel when I am aligned with my natural state and life can flow freely? What are the obstacles I face on the way? And what are the techniques of realizing this purest state of wellbeing as a human?