I emphasize the commitment to embodied practice a lot--to myself and to others--because it's so helpful, because it's essential, and because our culture so often resists and dismisses the need for slow, slogging, drudge work in favor of induced epiphanies and quick fixes.
Slow, slogging, drudge work in service of continued wise and healthy formation of body, mind, and soul is a wonderful thing.
Epiphanies feel decisive--yet they often aren't. We, our perspectives, the world (!) can seem fresh and transformed in epiphanal moments. Yet always we come back to the world as it's usually experienced: with one possible (and decisive) difference.
If before the epiphany we were headed in the 'wrong' direction, and after the epiphany we are headed in the 'right' direction, everything IS different.
What, in our deepest and truest experience of life and ourselves, do we love, recognize, and value most? Turning toward THAT is the wisest thing we'll ever do. Life in many ways will still be a slow and steady slog, but now it will be a slow and steady slog slowly and steadily taking us deeper and deeper into wholeness and our heart's desire.
After a decisive turn like this, it's just a matter of regularly checking the compass and reorienting--and our many ongoing epiphanies are mostly just delightful confirmations that we're slogging in the right direction. Alleluia.
