An embodied practice for 2025
from Rev. Lauren Spivey Levwood (they/she), UUMFE Board Chair

Dear Ones,

As we leave 2024 behind and enter a new calendar year, as we navigate a changing political landscape in the United States and an upcoming Presidential inauguration, as we ride the rhythmic seasonal changes of our Earthly home, I invite you to take a moment, now, to pause. Turning your attention to your body, notice the three dimensional expansion of your lungs, filling and releasing. Notice the natural, reflexive deep breath that sometimes occurs when we turn our attention gently inwards. Welcome another, fuller breath, if that feels good. Notice how your body is always in motion, in this ongoing dance of filling and releasing, of inviting newness and letting go.

Earth ministry is body ministry. Earth is our embodied home, the place where we live out our days. From wherever you are, take a look around and connect with your natural world. What is the weather like outside your window? Are the trees gently swaying, as they do? After you’re done noticing the outer world, reconnect within. Notice that, even in apparent stillness, your body is in perpetual motion. Your heart is beating. Your lungs are breathing. Within, and without, life is a dance of rhythms. The trees reach and sway, the water flows and the breeze blows, and we are moving, too. In this way, Earth is not merely our home. We are Earth.

If you are so moved, please share your experience of this embodied meditation with your UU Ministry for Earth community. Or, you might consider sharing with us your dreams for the year ahead. What do you desire for people and planet? How might we, as a collective of dreamers and doers, co-create magic in the coming days? Feel free to share your thoughts here.

My prayer for us in the year ahead is to connect with our inner and outer sources of guidance, to pursue radical justice, and to care compassionately for ourselves and our planet, including most importantly the vulnerable among us. May we be the dreamers of the dream; may we be the ones to make it so.

In Love and CommUUnity,

Rev. Lauren