The Potency of Presence | A Homecoming

Written by Koa Kalish

There is a luminous Presence that surrounds us.

Every being in creation — from the birds, to the bees, to the rain, to the trees — is praising this Presence in every moment. Call it our Maker, Creator, God-Source, Great Spirit, Mystery, the Beloved. When we awaken, opening our eyes and all of our senses to receive this Presence, the potency becomes tangible, palpable, and completely undeniable.

In these moments we are blessed with such remembrance. And, how quickly we forget. When we feel triggered and try to protect ourselves, often our energy goes outward to our periphery. We extend our arms, our hands firmly signalling “STOP! Do not enter.” We harden our shell around us. We learn to build walls. From very early on, this patterning begins to imprint us. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

As children, these were often valid, necessary survival skills which we needed. But many of us continue to spend most of our lives in this patterning, disassociated and disembodied. When we finally realize how disconnected we are from our selves, we spend the rest of our lives trying to come home.

A healing crisis points the way. We may have developed an auto-immune disorder, chronic fatigue, depression, anxiety, ADHD, OCD. The ailments and diseases have many names, yet the cause is one: an imbalanced, disregulated nervous system.

We must learn to build the capacity in our nervous systems to be able to be with all that has happened to us in our lives. All of the loss, violence, trauma and grief over countless generations that was never able to alchemize. When we meet these darknesses with enough love, attunement, safety, and truth, transmutation happens naturally. True healing becomes possible for me, us, you.

Embodiment Exercise:

Find a place to sit comfortably, and become feelingly aware of your sit-bones on the ground. Take three deep breaths, noticing where they land inside — in the deep belly, high ribs, somewhere in between?

Sense into where your energy is automatically directed. Does it go outwards toward the edges, or outside of your body completely? Does your attention go to the past or to the future? Can you feel your body at all? If so, where, and how?

Continue to breathe.

Gently turn your vision inward, coming in and down. Notice the sensations here within you, for a few moments. Do you feel heat, cold, numbness, tingling, density, spaciousness? Be with these sensations ad your breath as much as is possible without making a story about them, or trying to change them.

Can you listen to these body felt sensations and receive them as information?

Can you risk being soft-bellied and tender-hearted in this moment?

Can you dedicate your sensitivity and care to your embodiment?

This is the journey of coming home — to this body, this breath, this heart. Every chance we get, this is where we must start. When we do, we begin to be touched by something greater. It is a gentle, quiet radiance. It has its own potency: it is the luminous Presence. The truth is, it has never left us. It emanates from deep within.

“All sickness is homesickness. All healing is homecoming.”

---