I wear a lot of different hats in my professional life. One of them is “yoga teacher.” I completed my training in vinyasa yoga in 2013 and have been teaching ever since. Before the isolation portion of the pandemic, I taught between nine and fifteen classes a week and worked on the management side of a studio in downtown Frederick, Maryland. Obviously that all changed when everything shut down, but over the course of that part of my career, I learned a lot about movement and how people approach it.
There’s a spot in many yoga classes when a teacher will introduce a movement or position to experiment with. Yoga teachers sometimes refer to this as “yoga playground” or “yoga salad bar” – it’s the idea that it’s a free space to just find out how something feels. To try something new. To be free to experiment differently than the person next to you in class.
And I kind of wish I could bottle the expressions on people’s faces when they are presented with something new that might feel a little weird.
As adults, I think we’re all comfortable reading about and contemplating new ideas or approaches, but for some reason a majority of adults are reluctant to actually jump in and just try stuff. I don’t know if it’s fear of embarrassment or a shame cycle involved with doing something poorly or “wrong” the first time, or just fear of the unknown, but getting an adult to do a new practice or approach is difficult.
Teaching yoga to children is easy on that front. See if you can balance on one leg! Reach your arms out as far as they will go and pretend to be a starfish! Fold forward and see if you can touch your toes! Kids will immediately try new things, even if they fall over laughing in the process. They’re the ultimate scientists – completely unafraid of the results of experimenting, even if that result isn’t graceful or something they can predict. They’re willing to get outside their comfort zone.
Although there are exceptions to the rule, I think this attitude is one of the big things we lose as adults on the whole. We’re so afraid of looking silly that we never even try. We’re so afraid of doing something “wrong” that we rarely leave our comfort zones. And in my personal opinion, almost everything worth experiencing lives just outside one’s comfort zone.
Another hat I wear in my professional life, and the one that is my primary focus these days, is that of Pagan clergy. I work full-time in the field, which includes supporting adherents of the various religions that fall under the umbrella term of Paganism through pastoral counseling. Here again, I encounter so much resistance to the actual doing of a practice. Many times my clients will sit with me for multiple sessions and talk about where they’re experiencing feelings of disconnect or apathy. My lived experience as a minister is that if thinking about it were going to work, it would have already. Getting someone to understand that in order to reach a spiritual breakthrough they really do have to back up their desire with actions is very challenging. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to motivate someone enough to actually engage in a spiritual practice rather than just contemplate one.
My lived truth is that spirit – in an astonishing number of forms – is available to us almost all the time. It’s a little bit like the air: so present that we no longer notice it. And because we have slipped out of noticing and choosing how we interact with it, we can miss out on deeper opportunities for connection. The physical practice of yoga changes our relationship to the air through changing the way we breathe – a practice known as pranayama. In pranayama we become aware of the pattern of breath once more. We then consciously manipulate that pattern to observe the impact on our minds, bodies, and spirits. In order for spiritual practices to bring us back into conscious noticing of the current of spirit, we must also change some of the physicality – the doingness – of our relationship to spirit. We have to experiment – to manipulate patterns and techniques. We have to be willing to try something that might feel a little weird or silly the first time.
As I mentioned, Paganism is an umbrella term for a large number of different religions. In addition to Unitarian Universalism, my specific religious alignment is inclusive Heathenry – a religion that falls into the umbrella of Paganism and that is rooted in the prechristian practices of ancient Scandinavia, Iceland, and Germanic Europe. Inclusive Heathenry as I practice it can best be described as a Northern European tradition of animism informed by a series of inter-relationships between humans, spirits, and land, and the ethical and moral frameworks that arise from those relationships. One phrase you’ll hear or see within the inclusive Heathen world fairly regularly is “Heathenry is something you do more than something you believe.”
If I could give everyone a useful perspective from my personal religious path, it is that one. The actions that support connection are frequently the priming of the pump for the first UU source: “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” A transcendental experience while doing something normal like standing in line at the grocery store is possible, but most of us really do need a little help getting there.
The arrival of spring and all its hope, renewal, and brightness is often a period of greater energy and enthusiasm for people. Now is a wonderful time to try some new techniques and practices that can bring us into deeper connection with our spirituality.
But what should we try? When I’m talking with someone in a pastoral counseling session, one of the things I ask is “when was the last time you felt a strong sense of spiritual connection?” I’d like you to think about that question now. When was your last transcendental experience? Your most recent moment of feeling connected to something larger than yourself?
What was the context? Were you hiking out in nature? Singing with a group? Holding a baby? At a service or ceremony? Watching the sunset? Praying or meditating?
Many times, our past experience of connection is a guide to what works for us. Transcendental experiences arise from different places for different people. It’s a beautiful example of the UU value of Pluralism in action. If your last transcendental experience occurred while interacting with nature, that is where you should begin. If it occurred while singing or working on a collective action with a group of people, collective experience is one place it lives for you. If it happened at a ceremony or service, ceremony is the initial path to explore.
It’s tempting to relegate transcendental experiences to a sort of “special occasion” category rather than something we can consciously develop more of through practice. One of the good things about approaching spirituality from a Pagan perspective is that many Pagans operate almost entirely from a practice of cultivating mystical experiences. We know that they come in different sizes and intensities, and that different actions can support greater connection and spiritual depth.
But all of that only works when we try stuff. As we grow, change, and go through the hard experiences that are a part of any life, our practice must change as well.
So let’s talk about some spirituality playground. Some spirituality salad bar. A free space to just find out how something feels. To try something new. To be free to experiment differently than the person next to you.
Our UU values offer a roadmap full of ideas for spirituality playground activities. “Transformation” is a wonderful place to begin simply because there are so many ways to experiment with transformation in a spiritual practice. One technique that appears across many Pagan religions is transformation through fire. We’re in fire pit and bonfire season right now, when the weather is beautiful and still cool enough in the evening that a fire is welcome. Through turning tinder into ash and smoke, fire is a bright and beautiful transforming agent. Consider experimenting here. Write down some things you wish to create or experience in the world and then carefully release that piece of paper to the fire, allowing those ideas to transform from concept into intention. Write down a prayer or petition, and send it to the spirit of life in the way you perceive that force through the gateway of sacred fire. Or, seek information, inspiration, or clarity through watching the flames. Fire scrying – the interpretation of images seen in the flickering flame of a fire or candle – is another practice that occurs across many Pagan religions. Try it out. See how it feels.
This form of practice can scale to a smaller, indoor version as well. Consider trying out a candle-lighting practice. Candles can be selected and lit for almost any reason. What do you need? What do you seek? Who do you want to help? Try a practice of lighting a candle and then contemplating the flame within the context of your question. Petitions, intentions, and prayers can be written on small pieces of paper and transformed through fire this way as well.
Our shared value of “Pluralism” is a potential path here as well. Experiment with some techniques that are outside your normal practice. Over the years I’ve taken opportunities to attend many different ceremonies and try practices that are not part of my personal path. In large and small ways, those cross-pollination experiences informed some of my own practice and supported later moments of insight or transcendental connection. I still reference some of what I learned at a temple stay in South Korea over a decade ago. Sometimes what we really need is a new approach, perspective, or technique. Notice what’s available in your local community. What kinds of worship, ritual, prayer, temple service, or meditation activities are nearby? Try something new. Go forest bathing. Do yoga with goats. Attend someone else’s service. Perform an action that reinforces your own pluralism. Step outside your comfort zone.
We know from behavioral science that a deep sense of happiness for most people is rooted in meaningful interpersonal interactions. This is one place where the UU value of “Generosity” can be so powerful. All of us live with limitations. And, all of us have unique capacities and skills. Who needs help around you? Is there a way you can be generous with your time, attention, or another resource to help out someone in your community? Remember to expand this beyond the human world. Do you have half an hour to clean up an outdoor space? Is there a place on the land you belong to where you can plant a native species that supports our local birds and pollinators? Generosity has always meant more than money. Notice if there are ways to help the spiritual polyculture around you whether bird, beast, land, or human.
For those of us with humanist spiritual grounding, the works of “Justice” and “Equity” are hard to overstate in their impact on spirituality. There is so much power and connection in supporting the evening of the field for everyone. Notice if there are some new or different ways to get involved with efforts that support fairness or dismantling systems of oppression. Consider trying this work as a spiritual practice. Bless the letters you write or care packages you build in the name of justice. Think about what building and then tending a shrine to equity might look like. What is a prayer to the spirit of justice? To the spirit of equity? What form does it take? How can we engage with these values in a way that resonates with our deepest selves as sacred?
As a UU Pagan and Heathen, the value of “Interdependence” is a concept I return to again and again in my own spirituality. The animism that informs so much of my worldview inspires the recognition that I am surrounded by beings whose existence is irrefutably interwoven with my own. What impacts one, impacts all. I belong to us, to the vast web of life and sentience in all its astonishing forms. Many parts of my regular spiritual practices are reflections of that interdependence. Talking to the land spirits where I live as I water the garden in the morning. Seeking out new ways to walk lightly on the earth. Honoring my ancestors whether those are bloodline or those whose lives I aspire to emulate. Learning the stories of the land I belong to and its history. Living the value of interdependence in small ways and large remains a regular source of moments of deeper connection for me.
I’ll leave you with one last concept from Paganism that may be useful. We have a phrase that describes supporting a spiritual goal in a practical way. That phrase is “acting in accordance.” It is the real, material, physical way we show up to support a prayer or intention. Wishing for a deeper spiritual connection is simply words on the wind. Acting in accordance is how we bring that connection into reality.
So, pick something. Get a little uncomfortable. Consider what caused previous experiences of transcendental connection and try something similar or related in some way. Or use the map of UU values to point the way. The important practice here is the doing of it, not the contemplation of it. Try a little spirituality playground and see what happens. Life is movement, change, transformation, impact, and interconnection. To live the practice, we must consciously choose to live.
This sermon was first offered to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Greater Cumberland on Sunday, May 17th, 2025.
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