Why does this bother me?

It’s 6 am and I’m sitting on the floor, Mita, my dog companion, sleeping next to me. I begin my meditation by gathering my thoughts into my body, drawing with my attention a thread from my heart to my womb, in connection. A slight ache in my belly is arising, like someone lit a candle.

A thought pops up : “Why are they having pictures of men in that temple? Why is there no face of a woman?” 

Probably because those men are the only ones that did something grand enough to be considered enlightened. But what about Magdalene? If they worship faces (and the energetics of those images) of enlightened people, why are they not displaying faces of enlightened women? They certainly existed even though we had centuries of patriarchy, I definitely can pull up some women who held energies of creation, empowerment, love, kindness and peace.

Why am I having these random thoughts? Why am I bothering with this? 

There’s a spiritual community nearby where many people go to pray, gather and be in community, that many of our friends frequent. I’m quite annoyed at myself for questioning this Spiritual community. I have no business in being so annoyed.

However, I’ve always trusted my gut feeling: if I felt that someone or a place held some unclear energy, I’ve always trusted my impulses to dig into discovering what that feeling wanted to communicate. Every time I’d focused on finding answers to those unclear energies, precious and life changing insights have unravelled.

When we moved to this area 5 years ago, we got to know some people who we can consider friends. Many find it very inspiring to gather in that community. With some we still hangout on a regular basis while with others we don’t much.

Everyone is busy. Right?

The other day, a dear friend told me she and her partner were planning to go to the ceremony they hold every Sunday in that temple. 

I fiddled with my hair and didn’t say anything.

“You really don’t like it there, do you?” She quizzed me while looking into my eyes.

“I’m not into it, there’s nothing wrong, some people like tennis, others like swimming, everyone likes what they like”. I replied, slightly defending myself.

Now I know the beginning of the reason why this “topic” popped up in my mind and body during my morning meditation. It’s because I wish I said something truer to my gut, like “I’m annoyed at the fact that they preach to ascend from the body while they hang images of faces of deceased enlightened men.”

I know that would have opened a debate I was not ready to take since my intention is not to provoke or challenge a huge community’s practices and beliefs. And, most importantly, I don’t know exactly how to communicate what my intuition is asserting.

But I know what is quite clear to me: I experienced incoherence there.

A while ago I participated in a ceremony, sort of a funeral of a woman I got to know. She was the owner of a small organic food store I really liked. She loved knitting and liked to sell some yarns there too. I’d go there once a month, mostly because of her joyous attitude and because of yarns too. We’d go to the section where all the colored skeins were laid with care and she’d show me the garments she made with the soft and luscious yarns.

She had long beautiful white hair and a generous figure. Her smile was genuine and welcoming. She and her husband were struggling with the bills which during and post the pandemic increased exponentially. So they decided to close the store. 

She got ill and died within some months. I don’t know why, I didn’t know much of what happened.

Back to the funeral ceremony. It was held in the temple of that community and it was full of people.

Many friends and family shared words of love and memories of her they held dear. The ceremony was simple and heartfelt. What I felt was left out was grief. It’s hard to let grief take the stage so I completely understand. Many highlighted the fact that she finally was not bound to the body anymore, no longer experiencing pain, she was finally free from the flesh she once inhabited. 

I’ve had some conversations with some community members and still could feel this general desire and intention to not dwell on the earthiness of the flesh, rather ascend from it. 

We diminish, devalue the body’s expression, (pain, pleasure, sensations, attunement with the environment and conditions its in) desiring to ascend from the physicality and earthiness of the flesh, as the the obstacle to "enlightenment", but then we hang images and statues of faces and bodies of men who are no longer here because they held a specific frequency of sanctity. Well, that’s incoherent. 

I don’t have anything against praying over pictures and images of humans who remind us what Love is, yet it’s important not to make an idol of them. And I believe that it is very important to include the sanctity of the body as well, with its expressions of pain, pleasure and all that our nature brings forth to adapt to life's circumstances. The body is the temple our spirit chose to incarnate and become One with it and value that is the very first step to deeply honor the life we are given. 

I believe that diminishing the flesh is a disservice to the sanctity of it, of the divinely orchestrated temple we are gifted to experience this life.

Ok, these are my opinions, let’s see if I can break down what bothered me. 

Putting up pictures and statues of gurus, initiated men, chosen ones or “advanced souls” creates these spiritual hierarchies. Any belief system that divides humanity into the "enlightened" and the "ignorant," the "chosen" and the "ordinary," the one who managed to ascend from heartily matters and the one in the wildness of the flesh, breeds cruelty and division. Division of any kind, whether religious, economical, nationalistic or spiritual, is the root cause of many wars.

Moreover, as soon as you put up a picture of one specific person you don’t know but believe represents something you value and venerate, you’re excluding others who might embody the same frequency of the very one you’re adoring. 

That’s why I asked myself why aren’t there women up there? And I realized something that is beyond the gender topic.

My questions here are: Would we want pictures of ourselves to be worshipped because we acted compassionately? If yes, why?

Are we sure we desire to be put on high pedestals when all of what we hold dear is down on the Earth? 

What do we value? What are we in service of? What do we hold dear? 

My mind wandered this morning to find the truth of what my heart wants to see in the world.

I want to be in and create communities where every member is respected and honored in their imperfect, unique human self, where no one is made an idol of because everyone is fundamentally sovereign. As soon as we make an idol out of ourselves or others, we’re renouncing sovereignty. And our sovereignty is anchored in our bodies which are in constant communication with the environment we’re in. It lies in the practice of aligning our inner experience, intuition, and nervous system with our actions and boundaries. 

What I’m interested in is understanding our everyday relationships with our body, with our emotions, with others, with our desires and ambitions, not in pretending we are above them because we follow a "higher" path.

Well, it feels like there can be a lot more to unpack here but I’m done thinking about this.

The sun is out and I want to be outside.

I’m glad I got to write down what was cooking inside me :) I got more clarity and found more truth.