Do You Not See Them?

tilting trees
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Morana

There is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our innocence.  — Charlotte Bronte

There is a kingdom of spirits that protects you.  Do you not see them?   –Charlotte Bronte

I wish I could see them—the spirits, the angels that surround us, waiting, longing to help us. I believe—with my mind—that there are such things; it’s consistent with the great saying God is Love which, I’m told, can be found in the gospel of John.  I’m not a big follower of the bible, and I’m not a believer in the creeds of the world’s great religions.  But I do believe in Divine Love—that It’s all around us, and available to us.

I can’t see the ‘angels’ that could easily be around me—around each of us—waiting to help us in our struggles, or perhaps wave some of that fairy dust off their wings onto our aching hearts—at least, most of the time I can’t see them.  I’ll admit that sometimes I do have a sense of the Love around me.  It’s just that it disappears so easily.

Once when I was sitting in silence, I kind of ‘heard’ the saying: It happens right here, right now. And another time I ‘heard’ the idea:  The body is the satellite dish that receives the vibrations of the great Love.  This didn’t come in words, really, the ‘knowing’ came without words, and then the words jumped into my awareness all at once, without effort or thought.  As though I’d overheard it.

I was standing in the meditation hall at the Garrison Institute about 40 miles north of NYC in late August of 2009 when I first heard of an invitation that would help me to—occasionally—become aware of those spirits who are ‘commissioned to guard us,’ and it started with the suggestion to feel your feet.

Really!  Just feel my feet?  One thing led to another and soon we were not only feeling our feet, we were feeling the things in the environment with our feet, and with our legs, with our back. It wasn’t simply ‘body scanning’ that we were being invited to feel, the more recognizable practice used to relax the body, by feeling a body part, tensing it, relaxing it, in order to let go of tightness caused by stress.

No, this practice involved the next step after body scanning:  inviting the body itself to sense the environment around it.  Not with our mind, not with our vision, but through the actual body part.

Someone in the meditation hall might begin with these words:

Inviting our feet to notice the support of the floor beneath them.  Inviting our body to sense the support of the chair.  Letting our back sense the sturdiness of the back of the chair. Letting our sitting bones, the backs of our legs, sense the support of the chair beneath. 

This practice led to two new things.  One, the new awareness that it’s not just my thinking mind that notices things; my body is directly experiencing support from outside itself.  My whole body can do this.  As I sit quietly with this, I begin to notice in a whole-body way that I’m not holding myself up, I’m not holding myself down, I’m not the source of gravity that enables me to sit in this chair without floating away.  Some trust creeps in with this unfolding awareness.  I don’t have to hold myself up quite so intently.

The second new thing is that I’m not as ‘alone’ as I was a moment ago.  Whatever life problem I’ve been struggling with is shifted because at a whole-body level, I now ‘know’ that I am not alone.  True, it’s only the floor—not a fireman to extinguish a fire, or a banker willing to cover the cost of whatever is needed, or a loved one to give me a hug and say, ‘there, there’.  It’s just a floor.  It’s just a chair.

But reality has shifted. I often fall into the belief that I must solve problems on my own.  Now my body has direct evidence that I’m not in this all by myself.  There’s always something outside me supporting me.  I just have to feel my feet to know that’s true.

If I follow this practice to its natural conclusion, if I really take in that my body is—just now in this moment, no matter where I am in the world—getting support, then the next steps seem to me inevitable.  As I sit, I become aware of the vibrancy of the moment, then I become aware of ideas that I’d never thought of, then I become aware, eventually, not just of support, but loving support just waiting for me to notice it.

It was my friend Diana—a friend who also feels her feet—who urged me to read the Bronte quotations, and who drew my attention to the question, Do you not see them? 

 Yes, Diana, sometimes I do ‘see’ them—not with my eyes, but with my whole body.

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5 thoughts on “Do You Not See Them?”

  1. So happy you found a link between my favorite literary quote and WBF. Those spirits are the abundant benevolent energy available to all of us. We only need to become aware of how we are surrounded by this energy. Our awareness of this energy gives us an opportunity to feel loved and supported.

  2. thank you so much for your words that bring this forward so clearly and invitingly! I share this journey.
    and sometimes I remind myself that for me, the invisible may remain invisible while being alive…and that my body acts as a bridge to all of this..

  3. I was touched by this piece and intend to remap my life in this way😘💕💕💕

  4. Elizabeth gives us a physical sense through the magic of her voice, the essence of Wholebody Focusing points to as essential to our wellbeing. We can start with just feeling our feet on the ground or anything else that is out there beyond us that can be physically felt as support to our bodies from the very environment in which we live. It is like plugging into a whole world that exists beside us and suddenly we realize we are not alone but aware of something else, something else is out there and not just me. When our bodies become aware of all that, feel connected to all of that, something seems to vibrate deep inside us. Maybe explore it, and see what is going on there, right inside of you. What is that? Does it feel like a support that contains us in some way? Elizabeth suggests out of her own experience that it can be a loving support just waiting for us to notice it! The key words for me is that I can just notice, it waits for me to notice, and to notice what is there, right there in me! That is all I need to do. Kevin

  5. Dear Elizabeth there is an an expression you say that feels totally new to me and it is significant as it gives me a renewed value of why I have feet! You say ” we are not only feeling our feet, we are feeling of our environment with our feet” That is just what feet are meant to do! Kevin

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