"Allowing" Earth/Body as the source of intelligence
Photo: Barbie Robinson
I am the fire of digestion that dwells in all Bodies
Through the flow of breath, I digest all food.
-The Divine teacher Krishna’s words from Bhagavad Gita (about 200 BCE)
Intelligence/wisdom abounds, we just need the “eyes” to see it. Wisdom is ancient because its nature is that it becomes alive when we encounter it with a state of consciousness that is free from the known. Therefore, wisdom is ever renewed, flowing, and moving.
Ancient texts have stated that they are merely signposts, not be encountered as absolute, linear, and dead collections of information. Many of them, including the Natya Shastra text on ritual dance, explicitly invite space for manifestation of its wisdom in contemporary and relevant ways to the time, when encountered without self-interest. This wisdom is always radical and not about affirming pre-existing “knowledge” and paradigms—hence the need to approach it without self-interest and Hubris.
At the heart of this encounter is the Body/Earth constellation. And this is also the essence of the nonduality of this encounter. It is impossible to translate the relationship of Earth/Body to the unfolding of wisdom/intelligence because it is an alchemical process.
Texts like the Bhagavad Gita invoke the process of digestion, an alchemical function of the Body, as the nature of this encounter. Just as our Bodies digest food and extract what nourishes us and remove toxins, so also our Bodies hold the inherent intelligence to encounter Reality and extract the intelligence that supports us in aligning with the unfolding movement of Truth/Reality. As part of this, our Bodies remove what is not necessary for this alignment.
Alchemical intelligence is also the essence of Rasa philosophy in ritual dance. Rasa or “taste” comes from another alchemical process—cooking. In Rasa dance we bring together diverse sensations and cook them in the pot of the Body to release its essence as taste.
The Earth is the macrocosmic Body that distils the intelligence of Reality in all Her manifestations. She brings into form what nourishes and supports the constellation of Truth/Reality and removes what is not necessary in this time. This mirrors the digestive process in our microcosmic Bodies.
The wondrous constellation of connection through function is the heart of nonduality in this wisdom. We dismiss the simplicity of this kind of intelligence as primitive and obvious. Yet, function, shape and movement, form the bases of ancient wisdom traditions and hold the experience of nonduality as material expressions. And that is what matters to Truth—its material expression and experience at individual levels. When Truth is an ideology or theory or inaccessible through direct experience by everyone, then it remains unreal.
Dance begins with invoking Earth into our Bodies. Our feet are “Prathishta” or foundation— grounded, and that which holds our weight and presence through attachment to Earth. Our Body is Earth’s geography as directions, oceans, mountains, sunset and constellations of stars. The fire in our Bodies is Earth’s fire of digestion. We digest Reality through our Bodies, and our expression of this Reality is through our mental consciousness that is nourished and messaged by the Body. This is “Vac” or words that emerge from the digested wisdom of the Body, the domain of Goddess Saraswathi.
The ancient invocation of Saraswathi included a constellation of at least three other Goddesses—Ila, Mahi and Bharathi. Each of them is associated with Earth. Expression/sound that is Earthed/Bodied is that which aligns with Reality. This expression is primarily poetic/symbolic because it is nondual and nonlinear. Hence wisdom in Saraswathi’s cosmos is artistic/creative insight. This is not poetic as a personal creative vision, rather it is the poetic vision of Truth itself, and is the intimacy of the cosmic within us. The movement of the divinity of the mind is from the (cosmic) poetic towards the linear.
The ancient Goddess/Body is teacher, lover, and mother in equal measure. She calls to the Mind to allow the flow between them in all these constellations. She needs the Mind for expression and manifestation as form, just as the digestive process in the Body is to support the Body’s activity and expression in the world. There is no hierarchy in this flow, simply the Yearning to connect and dance together.
The Body, like Earth, is not mechanistic. Rasa is the invocation of Earth/Body as sensation, beauty, movement, and renewal. Everything in Reality is necessary and nourishing when we work with the alchemical intelligence of the digestive functions of Earth/Body. When we allow this alchemy, we can rely on that intelligence to distil Reality and remove what we no longer need to navigate our lives in each unfolding moment.
Our Bodies are central to our lives—it seems so absurd that this must be stated! And yet, we have narrated the Body out of existence, including in our theories about Body. The Body has become a mechanical domain, to be controlled and mastered. The experience of Body as Earth is an entirely other sensation. This Earth/Body is what holds the gift of nourishing intelligence that can allow us to be part of Reality, the unity for which we crave and which we seek all our lives.