And I watch/feel my body, and can see warning lights blinking, particularly in my gut area.
And it occurred to me yesterday that persistent thoughts like “I have to”, or “I’m worried about X”, or anything that regularly intrudes, STARTS as a sensation in your body. I feel the connection.
And it occurs to me that without rejecting the importance and primacy of reason as a means of mediating difference, we must also embrace the body, and its exultations and rages and needs, if we are to live happily, both as individuals and as social creatures. This of course is an old dichotomy, between “reason” and Dionysius, to hearken back to Nietzche.
And I feel that the roots of the authoritarian temperament are found in the gut, too. It is found in the sense that the world is dangerous, and that it needs to be placed in a cage. The authoritarian seeks their own security, first and foremost, even if, of course, they often die violently.
But this sense is preverbal. It is largely unconscious. But it exists as a quality of holding, of tension, in identifiable places science will one day track down and isolate.
For my own purposes, I follow the Kum Nye schema, which says that that holding is both nervous system energy, but also subtle energy.
One other thing I will mention: if the primal sense of the sacred was something uncontrolled, something dangerous, something both fearful and alluring, then that role is played by televisions today, which show us scenes of carnage, fill us with rage and fear, give us an unlimited number of “car accidents”–figuratively and occasionally literally–from which we can neither tear our eyes, nor forgive ourselves for the interest.
The TV is a literally, clinically, sacred object, seen from this perspective, which is why it occupies the place of honor in most homes, where one might otherwise put a shrine.
To be clear, I feel spirituality BEGINS with a deep, deep relaxation. I feel all goodness begins with deep, deep relaxation. You BEGIN with peace. You do not end there. But reaching the beginning, of course, is a psychological, not a spiritual matter.