Posted by Benjamin on: 05.10.2007 /
So one thing I’ve never been super good at has been taking good care of myself, being gentle/kind to myself, etc. Rachelle posted this Healing Rite with Hot Stones last week, and it struck me as beautiful and gentle and, well, healing. I wish I had been at the meeting of Monkfish when she did it. I want to try it out with my lovely wife Megan quite soon.
I realize that some proportion of our readers, like me, are not Christians, but it seemed to me that this Rite could be fairly simply adapted to anyone’s spirituality.
I’d love to hear how you practice compassion to self.
Healing Rite with Hot Stones
Note: I used special “facial massage stones” which I paid a ridiculous amount for at a migraine-inducing essential oil and massage supply shop. What a scam! Just find some small flat stones in your local river-ish type place, wash them, line your crock pot with a few washcloths, pour in some water, and heat away. Do test them before you hand them out so no one gets burned.
Healing Meditation
Getting Settled
Get in a comfortable position, sitting of lying down. If you are seated, let your spine be grounded and centered. You can do this by aligning your sitting bones with the earth, shifting back and forth slightly to find your most grounded seat, and then allowing your weight to sink in to the earth. If you are lying down, let your body sink into the ground, allowing the earth to support your head and shoulders, your upper back, your lower back, your hips, your legs, your ankles, your feet, your arms, and your wrists.
Let you shoulders drop away from your ears. Relax your wrists by giving them permission to sink into their resting place. Drop your jaw slightly and wiggle it back and forth. Swallow to relax your throat. Let your eyes be soft in their sockets.
Now, if you are seated let the crown of your head float up lightly towards the sky, as if your cranium was slightly filled with helium.
If you are lying down, let your neck be long and soft and gently extended.
Now allow yourself to breathe at a natural fullness – not necessarily your deepest breath, but beyond your unattended shallow breath. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth, making a soft “ha” sound as you exhale.
As you continue, try to deepen your breath slightly, lengthening your exhale a few beats longer than your inhale. You might count the number of beats it takes for you to inhale, then count again on your exhale, exhaling two beat more than your inhale.
Continue this deeper breath for a few more cycles. If you attention wanders away from your breath, just gently invite it to come back. It might help if you imagine the breath coming in and out of your body like waves at the shore, following the path of the wave in, and out of your body. Or you might want to ascribe a color to your breath, imaging a cool blue light coming in with your inhale, exhaling a warm red light on your exhale.
The Invocation (read over the course of a few breath cycles)
Light of the World, light that is in the world, we welcome you to this space. We welcome the healing power you have embedded in the earth and in our bodies. We welcome the healing history of Jesus. We welcome the healing presence of Spirit. We welcome the healing power of God.”
Meditative Body Scan
We’ll begin now to scan our bodies for any places of pain or discomfort—not to rectify or problem-solve by our own power or will, but simply to acknowledge and observe our living reality.
With your mind’s eye or your heart’s awareness, scan your body for places of pain beginning with your feet and your legs; your torso and chest; your arms and your shoulders; you upper back and lower back; your neck, head and face; your scalp, your finger tips, and your toes.
Wherever you find pain of any kind—emotional or physical—pause and let your awareness rest with that reality. Then ask your self and the spirit within you,
Does your pain have a shape?
Does your pain have a texture?
Does your pain have scent?
Is there an emotional component to a physical pain?
Is there a physical component to your emotional pain?
Without trying to problem solve or to find a solution to your pain, let your attention rest on its shape, texture, color, and scent.
(At this point I walked around the room touching people’s hands and placing the warm rocks in their palms)
Now, with your mind’s eye or your heart’s awareness, create a space like a bubble around your pain. Not to create more space in which your pain can expand, but to create a space where healing can arrive. Invite light to rush around this pain, bringing healing. Envision God’s healing energy being held by the heat in these stones, and invite that healing energy to travel to your place of pain, bringing warmth and restoration into the space you have created.
Hold on to these stones and receive their heat as a symbol of the light, love, and power that is available to you for healing, that comes to you unbidden or undrawn—just as the heat sinks into your palms without any effort or requirement on your part. Turn these stones over in your palms as I read these words several times to you.
(I read this four times, which is our standard lectio divina practice.)
A message from the high and towering God, who lives in Eternity, whose name is Holy.“I live in the high and holy places, but also with the low-spirited,
The spirit-crushed,
And what I do is, I put new spirit in them,
I get them up and on their feet again.Peace to the far-off, pace to the near-at-hand,” says God—“and yes, I will heal them.”
Is 57 (abridged)
Closing
May God bless you and keep you
May God make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May God lift up her face towards you, and give you her kiss of peace.
In the name of the God who birthed and created you,
The Son who is your brother and friend,
And the Holy Spirit, she who is your guide.
Amen, go in peace.
Comment by: joe
1Seems a tad too touchy-feely to me.
Ben - I’m curious why you think this would be appropriate if you don’t believe it. Or maybe you mean using the idea without using the liturgy.
In which case… what would you say?
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
2Joe,
Yeah, you’re right, it is kind of touchy feely. I guess as I’ve grown older I’ve realized I need to allow myself to embrace the touchy feely even if it might feel a little uncomfortable for me.
Your questions are really great–they’re making me ponder quite a bit. I have a close friend who is somehwat postmodern like I am, who says that it seemed to him, at one point, that he needed to decide, either Christ, or not Christ, even though it didn’t make sense to him. I understand what he’s getting at. But I’m more into the idea of just sitting in that tension, and being okay with that. So truth be told I’m still some percentage “Christian”. Probably quite small–…. 10%? But as Pi Patel put it, in speaking about his Hinduism–Christianity informs the landscape of my spirituality–it’s where I grew up, so the colors, the geography, and the weather all make a certain sense to me. So I can kind of gently tell the 90% to “shush”, and trot out the 10% to partake in a rite like this.
Conversely, I think I could pull of the same thing with a hindu rite, a buddhist rite, a muslim rite, and perhaps even a flying spaghetti monster rite. As long as I didn’t feel I was being offensive to the writer/leader/other partakers in the rite. I mean if they were making it clear “You must sign our statement of faith before you do this”, well then I wouldn’t do so. Rachelle and company at Monkfish don’t take this tack.
I guess I see what you mean that it migth be hard for a … full on atheist, or perhaps a … fundamentalist atheist? … to do this rite. Is an atheist allowed to make room for something which is somewhat spritual, and seems kind of beautiful, even if they don’t actually believe there is a god? My sense is that atheists aren’t that different from other people, and they have deep longings, deep hurts, and … a deep appreciation for beauty. So it seems to me that perhaps a postmodern atheist might be okay with doing this rite even in it’s current form. Or to perhaps rewrite or cut out the bits of the liturgy which they find most unpalatable.
Hope that makes some sense.
Must off to school
Thankyou for asking!
Benjamin
Comment by: Staci
3Benjamin, I agree that this could be easily modified. In fact the above was probably modified for Christ followers from something else. Those who practice yoga have told me that chants or mantras can be replaced with whatever a person finds meaningful. That could be a quote, poem, proverb, etc. So, those who don’t connect with the verse above could replace it with a poem or other words that they do find meaningful.
To make it less touchy-feely you could do this on your own wo/a group and just start with the “getting settled” portion, breathing deeply in that position for 5 or 10 minutes.
Compassion to myself… good question. My husband and I have started walking together in the early morning a couple of times each week. It is so quiet and fresh at that time and it is amazing how much that encourages our conversations and boosts my attitude throughout the day.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
4Staci,
the morning walks sound so lovely and perfect. I don’t know how well they would work for me, in reality, since I am *so* not a morning person. At one point in our marriage my wife and I used to have a rite of a “customary walk” in the evening, which has kind of fallen by the wayside, and which we have been meaning to pick back up. Thankyou for the encouragement in this!
Comment by: Rachel
5Benjamin, one way that I have learned to practice compassion to self is to say NO. I have fibromyalgia so I have had to learn to limit my activities. And I have also learned that I do not owe people an explanation when I say no, I do not have to give a reason that will meet their standards.
Some other compassion to self practices for me: asking my hubby for a foot rub, going to acupuncture, savoring a cup of decaf & a sweet treat in the evening, heating blankets & heat wraps, tending my flower boxes, ignoring piles of laundry to take a nap, being honest with people when I’m hurting and need help with certain tasks, hot baths, buying a special mattress pad for my bed.
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
6Rachel,
Way to go with learning to say NO, and not having to explain it. I had to learn that too, after growing up in the toxic sect and dysfunctional family in which I was raised. Did you know that Sinead O’Connor had fibromyalgia, and also had to learn to say no to some things?
I think learning to ignore piles of laundry and other household chores is a great step in the right direction, and one that is enormoulsy difficult especially for women in our society. Megan sometimes asks me to command her to leave the housework alone and just relax today, which I am generally glad to oblige. Now if I could just get her to submit to all my commands so happily =). (Nothing quite like two firstborns being married to each other =))