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 Our Spiritual Health
My Spiritual Health
by Jack Yantis
I don't believe one grows older. I
think that what happens early on in life is that, at a certain age, one
stands still and stagnates.
T. S. Eliot
I just found this quote in a conversation
about spirituality and healthcare: an inspired look at aging on the
Spirituality.com site which is
filled with all sorts of inspiring thoughts, prayers and possibilities from
a Christian Science perspective.
Although I am not a practicing Christian Scientist, I remember my
grandfather speaking about Physical Christianity many times when I was
young. He was a dynamic person who, with a 3rd grade education, unified two
small towns in eastern Oregon and became their first mayor. Upon retirement,
which was shortly after leaving his mayoral post, he began coaching youth
sports with almost daily rounds of golf. He was 57 at the time and lived
until he was 93, still coaching young people and playing golf within a year
of his death. He articulated his spiritual health, not by talking about it,
rather by exemplifying it.
Physical Christianity and spiritual health are grounded in the sacredness of
the body, the physical body being the source in this temporal plane for
health and well-being. When I was growing up, this took a low precedence for
me, with my interests in the arts, philosophy, theology and other mindful
pursuits. For some unknown reason, my mind and body were separated at an
early age. It was only when I danced did an integration of being become
possible.
This separation became particularly
apparent in my inability to release emotional stress in healthy, positive
ways. My feelings were often too powerful for my body to transform except
through rare acts of rage or, more often, a smoldering resentment of others.
This great fear of being myself, combined with great frustration with others
attempting to mold me, was my spiritual context for many years.
Yet, my true nature was seeking answers. I explored entheogens, the Baha'i
faith, making dances, performing and reading to get a perspective on “who am
I." I took endless workshops, retreats to monasteries and ecumenical
centers and put myself into more conversations than I can count with friends
and colleagues about the mind/body/spirit connection.
This seemingly inexhaustible and endless
quest took me through the latter half of the 20th century. Now, as the 21st
reveals itself and my being is far more integrated than ever before, there
are some understandings and awareness that help shape my spiritual health.
- Health is linked to the balance
between head and heart, the relationship between our intellectual,
rational sense and our emotions. In systems thinking, health is seen as
a “homeodynamic” condition rather than “homeostatic.” This means that to
be healthy, the organism is capable of adapting to great variability in
its interaction with the environment, be it internal or external.
Robustness is a desirable process that moves between appropriate
exercise, diet, meditation and prayer, and engagement with diverse
communities.
- Spirit, in Latin, means “breath.”
The attention to one’s breath and the breath of the universe, be it
manifest in waves, wind, sunrise or moonset, gives one the capacity to
be fully present. To be mindful of the changes in one’s breath or
developing the ability to breath in community are something that I seek
through chanting and singing. Even noticing my breath while I am
writing this is important and essential to my spiritual health.
- Play has become a crucial component to
my spiritual health. In Joseph Chilton Pearce’s new book, Magical
Parent, Magical Child, he makes the provocative statement that “play is
the natural optimal learning relationship.” Play has the power of
transcendence, of taking us into a place of flow where the timelessness
and spaciousness of being are fully present. It is more than
games, more than win/lose or acquiring points. It is where joy,
exuberance and delight collided into a kaleidoscope of sensual pleasure.
- Pain is also part of spiritual health.
In our pain-denying culture, we have forgotten that pain is the body’s
way of bringing focus to what is really happening. Pain can be the
bell of mindfulness. In tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist practice, one
breathes in “pain” and exhales “ joy and peace.” In this practice,
transformation is internal.
- Dancing is also important to my
spiritual health. Beyond the forms of dance, there is the ancient,
global awareness that dance connects us to the rhythms of the universe,
that it brings us into a dynamic of grace. It may be the pattern
that truly connects.
- Finally, the intersection of movement
and nature nurtures my spiritual health whenever I walk, dance, or run
the labyrinth*. The labyrinths at Grace Episcopal on Bainbridge,
Whidbey Institute (see the
link to the Chinook Center) and Tom Thresher’s back yard are where I
practice the Taoist tradition of spiritual health, which is to return to
the ordinary. Ordinary is something other than our current sense
of dull, routine, or boring. It is nature, the natural world,
where the order of the universe plays out its patterns of in/out,
growth/decay and birth/death with the spirit of inter-being.
These diverse understandings ground my
spiritual health. By developing a balanced relationship between them,
I find myself ready to meet the challenges and unexpected felicities that
life will present me over my remaining years in the true Heaven, our planet
Earth.
* For more information about labyrinths
checkout these websites:
www.veriditas.net
www.labyrinthsociety.org
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