A "Biospiritual" 2024?
And some poetry news!
Many of us have different ways of relating to or marking the new year. Through the Light House community, a contemplative online community for women that I’ve recently joined, I was reminded of the practice of choosing a word, or more than one, for the year – a word to explore, live out, or contemplate.
As I was reaching for what mine could be, I remembered a conversation with my spiritual director Vanessa Caruso. (Spiritual direction is a practice where someone who is trained to companion you in your spiritual questions/development deeply listens to you, often asks thought-provoking questions, and may offer you feedback or guidance on how to tend what is developing in you spiritual life. For me, that looks like meeting for an hour over Zoom typically once a month. It is not a substitute for mental health care, though I love having both therapy and spiritual direction in my life to approach things from different angles!) Talking about some themes that were bubbling up for me, she suggested looking into something called “biospiritual focusing,” a practice of tuning into the body as a part of one’s connection to God. I’ll admit, I haven’t had as much time to explore “biospiritual focusing” as I would like! (My TBR pile needs some attention….) Even so I have been sitting with the word itself – “biospiritual.” Just one word does so much work, to wrap together the body and biology with the spiritual life. When it came time to think of words for 2024, this felt like it had to be one of my words.
Though I haven’t had the term “biospiritual” in my head for long, its essence is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Last year I went to a clergy wellness conference in Richmond, Virginia where we all spent time crafting Rules of Life, expressions of how we want to live our lives and commitments we want to make. Among other goals, I listed desires to tend the body through movement (which I described as “creative” and “joyful”); prioritize “exercising in ways that can be considered play; that do not punish or shame or exacerbate negative assumptions about my body’s abilities; and that take me away from living exclusively in my head;” and seek reminders of “the goodness of the body.”
These goals were lofty for someone whose only regular exercise routine was hula hooping in her apartment in early pandemic days! But I have begun making some small, infrequent, but hopeful steps: every so often doing a Nia dance fitness video at home, getting myself to goddess yoga, trying out (just this week!) my first ever spin class at a new local gym that embraces weight neutrality and a Health at Every Size approach to fitness. While these practices are taking time for me to develop with any regularity, I’m nevertheless excited about the journey.
Early last year, a therapist used the words “highly mentally identified” to describe me, which resonated. In some very formative times of my life, I drew much of my identity from being a good student or writer; I felt others identifying me by those things too. To embrace the body as much as the mind (with the caveat that the body-mind is simplistically/problematically binary in my own right) is to embrace myself as a full, multi-faceted person.
As part of reflecting on this past year, I’ve begun going back through poem drafts written in 2023, to sense themes, threads, and passions. If you’ve read some of my work, you perhaps will not be surprised that there are some “biospiritual” dimensions to what I wrote in 2023. I stumbled across these phrases that have since been deleted in a newer version of the poem: “out of that broken sense of loyalty for anyone / who has ever made me feel present in this body.” Sometimes we feel most present in our bodies through affection or intimacy, which are of course important, but part of the invitation I’m considering in this “biospiritual” year is taking on the responsibility to BE the person that provides that feeling for myself – to be the one who ensures I have opportunities to be present in my body and nurtures my sense of that presence, rather than relying on anyone else to do it for me.
I have felt that agency most powerfully in my few experiences of goddess yoga, a practice that the studio I’ve been going to describes as “a fusion of vinyasa yoga and belly dance-inspired movement” with “rituals that support our journey into awakening the feminine divine.” Initially I attended at the invite of a friend, thinking it would be out of my comfort zone. While it did indeed push me, so far it’s done so in really fruitful ways, allowing me to feel free and present in my body. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the experience of going out dancing with friends – except you can do it all on a yoga mat, and get home by 9 p.m.!
So for 2024, I am hopeful for that a deepening appreciation of the “biospiritual” will help me grow, as a person in general and as a person of faith…perhaps also as a clergyperson, and maybe even as a poet, who knows? Let me know if you have any words you’re traveling with or contemplating this year, or if you’ve otherwise set intentions for 2024! (I know it’s February but we can do things on our own timetable 😊)
Poetry News
If you are in the area or just want to take a fun road trip to Western Mass., I’d love to see you at an upcoming reading on Sunday, Feb. 25th in Holyoke, MA! This will be an open mic where I’m the featured reader, meaning you’ll get to hear a full set of poems from me but also lots of other poems from people attending (and you can read something of your own as well).
Since I’ve last written, I was thrilled to be in Lisa Stice’s holiday book recommendations and included in student book reviews from the Caldwell University Journal Editing Fall 2023 class (which is connected to the fabulous lit mag Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, in which a full-length review of Jesus Merch is forthcoming). If you haven’t yet picked up a copy of Jesus Merch, I hope you’ll learn a little more about it through these reviews!
Jesus Merch is available for purchase directly from my publisher Fernwood Press or through any major book retailer, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Your local bookstore or library should also be able to order it!
Otherwise, I am excited about a forthcoming poem in Rogue Agent Journal this March, which, fittingly for the topic of this post, is a journal dedicated to poetry about the body. Stay tuned for a link to that piece in a future Substack! Rogue Agent has been one of my favorite places to submit for years now. For some throwback poetry, check out “Saturday Night Communion, Senior Year of College” (ctrl + F for Megan McDermott to get to the poem; link goes to the whole issue) published by Rogue Agent in 2019 – a poem very dear to my heart that found its home in my chapbook Prayer Book for Contemporary Dating (which is still available entirely for free as a PDF). Rogue Agent also published a Jesus Merch poem as well – “Faith Arrow Sign - $11.09” in 2022.
Lastly, if you’ve read Jesus Merch or my chapbook Woman as Common from Game Over Books and enjoyed either, please consider reviewing at Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph, etc., or sharing your thoughts on your social media of choice. It means a lot!
Until next time,
Megan