The
Expanded Body of Compassion
This exercise uses the concept of the imaginal body from the work of Jean
Houston. The imaginal body is a
reflection of our ability to imagine movement, emotion, size, and position in
our bodies. I like to explain the
imaginal body in terms of the channels we use in guided fantasy.
Visualization is not the only channel operating during a guided fantasy. Just as we can imagine seeing anything in a fantasy that we
could see in reality, we can also imagine feeling anything that we could
actually feel. We also can imagine
hearing things and occasionally even tasting or smelling. The visual channel is the major one, but the channels of
hearing and body sensing are also important.
In the most vivid fantasies all channels are operating, and each is
contributes something different to the experience.
The imaginal body is simply a name for the body sensing channel in guided
fantasy.
Assume a comfortable position for a long guided fantasy, and close your
eyes.... Now tighten the muscles of
your feet.... Now relax them. Now
tighten the muscles of your imaginal feet.
This means imagining that you are tightening your feet and feeling these
sensations without actually doing it.... Now
tighten your calves.... Relax them.
Now tighten your imaginal calves....
And relax them.
Then move on to the calves, the thighs, and on up the body, doing each
segment in turn with both real and imaginal parts of the body.
Make sure not to skip any parts of the body.
The person is actually constructing an imaginal body during this part,
and any parts that are skipped may later turn out to be missing.
Now let your imaginal body feel sleepy.
Feel waves of lassitude and
tiredness fill you.... Now let that
go.
And now feel what it is like to be turned on sexually in your imaginal
body. Feel the desire and
anticipation and the pleasurable streamings....
Now let that go.
Now imagine that you are being nurtured in a very loving way.
Feel the warmth and comfort, the safety, the good feeling in your
imaginal body.... Now let that go.
Now in your imaginal body be a happy, playful puppy. Feel
your enthusiasm, your love for your owner, your energy....
Now let that go.
Now feel yourself in your imaginal body as a tiger prowling through the
jungle. Feel your strength,
your sure-footedness, your agility. Feel
your body as if you were stalking prey, sensing the great power just waiting to
be unleashed in you.... Now let
that go.
Now imagine yourself as a hawk or other great bird soaring through the
sky. Feel your imaginal arms become
wings, gliding effortlessly through the sky.
Looking down with your sharp eyes at the great vista layed out before
you.... Now let that go.
Feel yourself as a large, powerful bear striding through the forest.
Feel the tremendous size of you, the great strength of your arms and
claws, the great power of your body, how confident you feel, how little fear....
Now let that go.
Now feel yourself as a redwood tree, rooted in the earth, stretching high
up into the air. You are a quiet, serene giant of the forest, feeling your sap
flowing slowly through your body, your leaves rustling in the wind.
You are ancient, standing in your wisdom and watching the centuring roll
by, seeing countless creatures live and die, and growing and learning from it
all, in your rootedness.... Now let
that go.
Now let yourself become a whale. Feel
the great size of you gliding effortlessly through the ocean.
Feel very large and at the same time very light, bouyed up by the water.
Now breaching the surface of the water and then diving deep.
Moving with power through the oceans.... Now let that go.
Let yourself become a meadow and feel your warm moist body teeming with
life. You spread out for a distance
and form a rich ground of abundance, full of flowers, grass, earthworms, little
aminals. Feeling yourself speading
out in the warm sunshine full of richness....
Now let that go.
Feel yourself now as a mountain, a great rocky mountain, your firm
rockiness rising out of the earth to a great height.
Feel your strength, your solidity, your agelessness, the great size of
you, the great vantage point you have from your peak....
Now let that go.
Now in a minute when I tell you, your imaginal body will begin expand and
develop in your own particular way, both physically and spiritually.
You may sense your body expanding to be that of a giant, or a large
animal, or some formation from the natural world.
Or It may simply become an extended version of your normal body.
Or you may find yourself stretching to fill the sky, or becoming the
planet earth perhaps, or even the entire galaxy.
Or something entirely different.
[Music:
Horizons Beyond Infinity(second half) from Starmusic by Don Robertson, as much
an needed; grand, powerful tone)]
Whatever it is, now begin to let your imaginal body expand.
Feel yourself extending, blossoming forth, amplifying, increasing on many
levels.... As this happens, feel
the quality of that expanded, experience what it is like to be that large--the
power, the perspective, the reach. What
is it like to live from there?...
Find yourself expanding in the emotional and spiritual sense as well.
Find yourself becoming more developed, more advanced, more mature;
becoming solider, stronger, deeper. Becoming
just naturally invulnerable, not because you are defended in any way, but rather
because you are simply too large, too strong, too evolved to be hurt.
Feel the security in this body, the great strength, the personal power
that is yours. If you chose to act,
who knows what you might accomplish....
And also feel the depth you have in this expanded body, the
deeper sense of purpose and meaning. The things that are truly important to you
may become clear in this place. You may find yourself guided by something deeper
or larger than what usually guides your life. Take a moment to sense this….
[Music:
Pachelbel's Canon (extended version, from Timeless Motion by Daniel Kobialka, as
much as needed; or other heart music)]
Now whatever form your expanded body has taken, it has a heart.
Find the heart of your expanded body, and feel it.
Feel its warmth, its openness, feel the enormous love which emanates from
it. Feel that heart expanding even
further so that it becomes larger, capable of containing great sorrows and
transmuting them to light, capable of powerful healing energy, capable of
warming and supporting great numbers with its love....
Now take a moment to think about the world, our
communities—today, this year, this decade. As we go through this profound
transformation, what things need to be changed in our world? Let images come to
you of situations that need to be changed. What especially calls to you in this
moment?
Pick one of those situations that you see and approach it
in your expanded body. Hold that situation in your arms, or your hands, or your
heart, or cradle it in some way with your expanded body. In this body, you are
large enough to contain all the difficulty and suffering. Your heart is large
enough to hold all the pain with its compassion without breaking. With your
expanded body, hold this situation in a way that brings healing to it. You may
or may not know how to take care of the situation of what action to take, but
let your heart and your holding bring healing to the situation, in whatever form
that takes….
Now we are each going to have a chance to briefly speak out
loud to the group the situations we envisioned and held. When you feel ready
just mention to the group what situation you saw. And each person in the group,
hold that situation in your heart briefly too. Leave a little time and then the
next person can speak when ready….
Remember that we can be enriched by the way we respond to
difficulty and pain. We are larger than we usually think. There are more
resources available to us than we usually know or know how to use. We are deeper
and fuller than we usually know. And we can bring this to the world, each in our
unique way.