Relational Inquiry Groups
I am involved in two or three relational inquiries and transpersonal development groups based at my home in Byron Bay. These groups generally revolve around the topic of embodied spirituality — The Word Made Flesh — and are geared to honor the total person. One group meets on Wednesday evenings for two hours, another on a Sunday morning, and a third periodically. The groups are contemplative, supportive and action oriented. While there is always room for some healthy human contact or interpersonal clearing, the central practice of these groups is a form of 'remembrance' similar to what the Sufi's call
dhiker — the intensification of spiritual awareness through disinhibited sounding and movement.
We meet and have a cup of tea and chat about whatever is present... then depending on the mood of the group we do some silent attuning to each other as the Face of Divinity. Again depending on needs we might have a deeper more purposeful check-in round in which we share with each other the trials and tribulations, triumphs, sorrows and joys of embodied existence. The check-in round is an important arena of social support and we don't as a rule give feedback or engage in conversation, rather we keep our attention open and fine tuned to the quality of the 'between'.
We often find that somewhere in the meeting (perhaps because of the quality of attention) what we think of as a 'Tantric Window' will open up between us. At this point we engage in a bit of improvisation that we call 'sounding' which is intentionally aimed at releasing ourselves from any blocking hindrances or internal cramping, into a deeper embodiment of light and presence. Part chanting, spontaneous sounding, and primordial prayer we use this simple process to open to the energy of the dynamic ground (see charismatic training page) and allow its power to animate our gesture, posture and voice. The toning seems to inhibit the ego and fan the flames of presence which is felt as palpable spirit.
The groups have also launched formal inquiry cycles — one of them is as follows: "Co-Creating Sacred Space for the Emergence of Divinity" (in whatever form it makes itself known).
The Conference of the Birds
The Conference of the Birds Is a gentle psychic inquiry into winged creatures and feathered friends and the potential of the human mind and the natural world to co-penetrate. It is part shamanistic, part psychic and part eco-psychology as we create experiments and inquiry cycles into our environment that somehow bring what C.G. Jung called synchronicities into being . This is an inquiry aimed at brining us into close contact with the subtle and psychic realms of beings, the self-world transfiguring depth of the human-divine psyche - and thus far our inquiry has been nothing short of miraculous. We name this inquiry after the great Sufi Saint Attar whose famous poem depicted a group of many colored birds on their way to find the mythical Bird of Paradise — an allegory of a Sufi sheikh guiding his group of followers too the Promised Land.
In the beginning a certain King and Queen possessed a garden which through all the four seasons never lacked for fragrant herbs, verdant grasses, pleasant breezes, and joyously scented flowers; sparkling waters flowed through ponds in which golden fish and green frogs played; and all manner of birds sitting in branches poured fourth songs of every kind. Indeed, every melody that could enter the mind and every beauty that imagination might conceive, all was to be found in the garden. Moreover a company of peacocks, exceedingly graceful, elegant and fair, had made their abode and dwelling-place in that perfect garden.
One day the King laid hold of one of the peacocks and gave orders that he should be sewn up in a leather jacket, in such a way that nothing of the colors of his wings remained visible; and however much he tried he could not look upon his own beauty. The king commanded that over his head a basket should be placed having only one aperture, through which a few grains of millet might be dropped, sufficient to keep him alive.
Some time passed, and the peacock forgot himself, the garden-kingdom and the other peacocks. Whenever he looked at himself he saw nothing but an ugly sack of leather and a very dark and disagreeable dwelling-place. To that he reconciled himself, and it became fixed in his mind that no land could exist larger than the basket in which he was. And he came to firmly believe that if anyone should pretend that there was a pleasurable life or an abode of perfection beyond it, it would be a rank heresy, utter nonsense and stupidity. For all that, whenever a breeze blew and the scent of flowers and trees, roses and violets and jasmine and fragrant herbs was wafted to him through the hole, he experienced a strange delight and was curiously moved, so that the joy of flight filled his heart. He felt a mighty yearning in him, but knew not the source of that yearning, for he had no idea that he was anything but a piece of leather, having forgotten everything beyond his basket-world and his grains of millet. Again, if ever he heard the sounds of the peacocks and the songs of the other birds he was likewise transported with yearning and longing; yet he was not wakened out of his trance by the voices of the birds and the breath of the zephyr.
One day he was enjoying the sounds and scents and the breeze seemed to carry an echo of a far away Lover. For a long while he considered where these sweet voices and fragrant zephyrs might be coming. He could not understand; yet at such moments an involuntary happiness he felt as if Laylah herself had greeted him and though he be as Majnun in his tomb he would greet her with the great joy - even if it sounded like the screech of a Gull. His ignorance of where these drafts of happiness issued was because he had forgotten himself and his original homeland. Every time a breeze or a sound or the scent of a flower reached him he was moved with longing, yet he did not know the reason or realize the cause.
For many a long day his bewilderment continued. Then one day the king ordered his servants to bring the bird and unbind it from its leather cage releasing him into the Garden. For it is said that when the heart is truly open the tomb is overcome and death is only the path to the Presence of Your Forgotten Lord. When the peacock came out of the veil he saw himself in the midst of the Garden. He saw the fountain's living waters. He beheld the luminous colors of his feathers, the hues and scents of the flowers, the garden, the various forms, the world's expanse, the wide arena to wander and fly in; he heard the voices and songs of every species, and he was seized with wonder at his own estate. And the Great Peace came upon him and behold he saw for the first time the radiant splendor of the other birds in garden and rushed to them to rejoice, converse and enjoy their good company 1.
1 The neo-Platonic doctrine of the descent of the soul into the human body was given expression by Avicenna's poem of the soul and was retold by Shurwardi and recalls the great Conference of the Birds by Attar. This version is from the introduction to Attar's Memorial of the Saints translated by A.I. Arberry apart from the odd word or phrase changed to give ease of reading.
The Word Made Flesh
“Once we overcome the dualism between matter and spirit, the human body can no longer be seen as a ‘prison of the soul’ or even a ‘temple of the ‘spirit’. For, example the Christian mystery of incarnation never alluded to entrance of the spirit into the body but spirit becoming flesh [John 1:1, 14]; therefore it may be more accurate to imagine that people come into being by participation in a transmutation of spirit into fleshy forms”. [i] However, our fleshy form is also heir to a web of wounds, frustrations, and socialization processes which have created a subject-object split that can stand in the way of our taking our place in the Garden of unity. To fully incarnate, to come-into-being, as a total person means that we must restore our body’s own revelation of its participation in a subtle, spiritual realm — this world.
“There is another deep split in the Western psyche which has historically taught us to find our solace elsewhere — the magician Pythagoras laid his faith in a higher world beyond the so-called ‘taint of mortal life’ and his ideas would profoundly affect the great Western philosopher Plato. In his stead Plato would perceive the source of truth and beauty in idealized forms beyond the sensuous world existing in a state thought not only to be pure, eternal and transcendent but ‘outside all bodily apprehension’. For Plato’s Academy true, genuine, reality is projected elsewhere — certainly a kingdom not of this world. As these ancient Greek ideas mixed with other cultures of the Mediterranean, including the monotheistic culture of Israel, a new model of eternity was wrought: the Christian afterlife. For many these transcendent realms and dwelling places beyond the stars hold primacy over the earthly realm.
“Yet there is a forgotten world of breath-taking unity at our feet, at our finger tips, and on the tip of our tongues — an Eden, a Secret Garden, a Paradise, (the word Paradise coming from the Persian term for an enclosed Garden) which has the fabulous and magical quality of being the ground of all otherworldly endeavours and which is none other than the world in which we live and breathe. The sensuous world is a realm that resides at the heart of all others, the world of the body, sound, speech and contact. This fleshy zone long derided by religious traditions as inconsequential is, rather, an inexhaustible field of unmediated experience.”
Excerpted from G.A.Lahood's article
Relational Spirit, Collective Buddhas, and Sacred Bodies (Revision 2007)
