Sacred & Scared: Embodied Spirituality 

Hakomi: When the Body Speaks First

This week I had my first Hakomi coaching session, which is a body-centered and mindfulness-based experiential psychotherapy method created by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s. I had a powerful somatic spiritual experience.

The complex truths that arose for me were anything but simple, but hit deep and are still taking me time to process. But what I learned is, for me, being in a physical body often feels scary. As a child, I learned early to outrun my feelings to show up in a way that was acceptable, which made it easy to quiet the signals happening inside my body.

When I was 22 years old, I had an out of body experience, when I was driving on a small-town back road where I was living in the East Bay, listening to a Stephen Halpren album, which specifically said “Don’t listen to this and drive”. I obviously didn’t adhere to the warning label, which I don't recommend.

However, during this experience, I was behind my body and my body was in front of me and I could feel how incredibly heavy it was and what a tiring endeavor it is to wear a human body suit all the time. I saw my body turn to ash and I was snapped back into my body. Whoa!

I wasn’t at all scared then. I felt so much clarity. I can still picture it perfectly in my head, but in today’s Hakomi session, the emotion that arose in me was fear. I felt scared. Why? Because it was a reminder to me that this human body is temporary. That bones break and hearts stop and eventually all of this dissolves back into the earth. To be fully present in the body means remembering that our time here has an end point.

I was feeling tightness in my chest and throat and when the practitioner asked me, “What does your body need right now?” I saw myself outside in the sun. When I feel most joyful in my body, it’s usually outside. In the sun. On a hike. Moving. Adventuring. The sacred feminine in me comes alive when I’m in rhythm with nature, when my muscles stretch and my lungs open and I get to talk to the trees and the spirits.

Another themes that came forward was this idea of buoyancy in water and I saw my pregnant body soaking in a bath to relieve the aches and pains of the extra weight I was carrying around especially in that 3rd trimester. I realized that while I was feeling scared in this current moment, I was also connected to the emotional memory of when I felt real sacredness in my body and its powerful and incredible ability to create life.

Birthing my babies was the most in-my-body-experience of my life. I chose an out-of-hospital birth environment because I knew I needed to create the space that would allow me to surrender into my body’s wisdom. In those moments, the pain and the power were woven together. It was primal. It was scary. And it was profoundly sacred.

For me, the physical level isn’t something that comes easily or naturally. I can live in my head, in my creative ideas, in the spiritual connection to all things. But the physical realm? That’s harder.

The practitioner reflected back to me, "sounds like these experiences are sacred," and the lightbulb went off!

These memories and experiences gave me the evidence that the body is not just physical, but my experience in my body leads me to the sacred, to spirit, to greater spiritual connection.

Sacred Feminine & Sacred Masculine

In many pagan and indigenous traditions, the sacred feminine and masculine aren’t about gender roles the way they are interpreted in western culture. They are about archetypal currents that flow through all of life.

• The sacred feminine is the body, the earth, the cycles, the intuition, the mystery
  
• The sacred masculine is action, movement, clarity, fire, direction

When one out-weighs the other, we end up in distortion. Too much masculine without feminine means the action burns itself out. Too much feminine without masculine and the body collapses into passivity.

But when they dance together, we find balance.

I have found that my masculine spark of action fuels my feminine intuition. The feminine wisdom of cycles roots the masculine drive into my ability to direct my energy and my life with vigor.

(I’ll save my story of being visited by my sacred masculine spirit guide while at a spiritual retreat at Esalen for another day!).

Sacred + Scared Connection

As I was journaling afterwards about my Hakomi experience, I noticed that linguistically 'sacred' and 'scared' are spelled very closely together. But after some research on their etymological roots, they aren’t actually related, but I could see how they are very much related in my life. As I explored my own relationship with my body, I’ve been noticing how close sacred and scared exist there. To be in awe of life is also to realize its impermanence. 

Giving birth, in my experience, connected me to all birthers and birthworkers before me, while holding a quiet awareness of the very reality of life’s edges. 

To hike under the open sky is a place for freedom and expansion while also remembering how small I am in the enormity of it all.

And that’s the paradox in our 3D world. The body is temporary, yes. But because it’s temporary, it’s precious. 

One Meaning Behind A Capricorn Moon

As always, I like to bring the astrological imprint and archetypal resonance into my understanding.

I have a Capricorn Moon. The moon is the body and the Capricorn energy is the part of me that trusts what provides structure, safety and can be relied upon. Saturn (Father Time) rules Capricorn, and Saturn’s realism whispers in my ribcage that there will come a time when my lungs will take their last breath. 

But when I hike under a warm sun and my feet meet the earth and my breath finds a steady pace, I’m practicing Capricorn devotion. Outside movement beckons to me so I can be my best self. I have tendencies to over-function (hello, Capricorn shadow), push past signals and numb out when things feel too tender. Spending time in nature slows down time and when I listen like this, my body stops feeling like it's on a deadline and starts feeling like an altar. It’s where I feel the sacred feminine in my body and the sacred masculine in my stride.

I’m so grateful to be consciously aware of these new learnings, emphasizing that the body is not only a vessel that carries us through a finite life, it is also the altar. And I am feeling called to worship.

So when I do feel scared in the future, I hope I will ask myself “is this feeling of scared just my body’s way of saying you are standing at the threshold of something sacred?”

So that’s what I’m sitting with today. The sacred and the scared, the feminine and masculine, the physical and the spiritual. All weaving together in the miracle of the experience of this temporary body.

Simple, Outdoorsy Ritual for an Embodied Spiritual Hike 

Here is a practice that may help you deepen and ground in when you're outside in the warm sun. Maybe you're hiking too or in your garden or driving somewhere. 

Arrive at the land. Greet it with gratitude. Face the sun. Inhale and say “I arrive,” exhale “I belong.” Feel your feet in contact with the earth.

 See you on the trails!

About the Author

Sam Lee is a spiritual coach, holistic life coach and astrologer serving clients online across the U.S. and locally in Walnut Creek, CA and surrounding areas in the East Bay. 

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