The Third Movement of Awakening From Enlightenment to Embodiment to Enlivenment
Awakening the Aliveness of Presence Through Ritual Postures
As a youngster, when I first began exploring expanded states of consciousness, nearly every spiritual tradition I encountered spoke of enlightenment as the ultimate goal, that moment of awakening when one’s awareness merges with the infinite, a realization of unity that transcends time and form. I was captivated by the idea and it sounded so accessible. Stories of sudden illumination stirred something deep within me.
Yet, even as I listened and read, I noticed a subtle gap. Many spoke of achieving enlightenment as if it were a fixed state, an arrival. It was all very alluring intellectually, but few addressed how that realization might live through us, breathe through our movements, and find expression in the very fabric of our daily lives. I began to sense that understanding alone was not enough.
I came to see that the missing link was embodiment, the descent of wisdom from the mind into the body, into the rhythms of breath, muscle, bone, and heartbeat. To embody what we know is to let consciousness take form, to let insight live through gesture, voice, and presence. This is where I think spiritual truth finds its grounding, not as an abstract concept, but as lived experience.
And then, beyond embodiment, another layer revealed itself, what I have come to call enlivenment. This is a deeper flowering of the awakened state. Awareness is no longer something we hold or contemplate, it moves us. It pulses and radiates through every cell, animating our being with the vitality of spirit itself. It is aliveness made conscious, an energy that expresses itself through our words, touch, creativity, and stillness alike.
In our practice of Ritual Body Postures we find a direct doorway into this enlivenment. In these moments of intentional stillness, the body becomes an instrument of ancient memory, a living antenna tuning and connecting us with the timeless wisdom of our ancestors. Each posture carries its own resonance, a specific vibration that awakens certain aspects of consciousness within us.
“The postures are rituals, each one containing its own implicit myth.”
— Felicitas Goodman
In holding these postures, something remarkable happens. The thinking mind softens, and awareness begins to flow through the body’s innate intelligence. Subtle movements may arise on their own, a gentle sway, a deepening of the breath, a tremor of energy. We are no longer merely doing the posture, we are becoming it. In this participatory dance, we rediscover the body not as an obstacle to spirit, but as its most immediate expression.
This is where enlivenment blooms, when spirit and matter are no longer experienced as separate, when the sacred moves through every gesture, and when presence itself feels vibrant and whole.
To move from enlightenment to embodiment to enlivenment is to complete a natural spiral of awakening. The enlightened mind illuminates the path, the embodied heart gives it form, and the enlivened being carries it into the world, aware, rooted, radiant, and fully alive.
When I engage in Ritual Postures, I feel that enlivenment awaken, not as a concept, but as a living current flowing through the totality of my being. This is the living expression of the third movement, where enlightenment becomes embodied, and embodiment becomes enlivened, so that the light of awareness may dance as the aliveness of presence, here, now, within the sacred pulse of life itself.
“To move from enlightenment to embodiment to enlivenment is to complete the circle — to bring spirit fully into the world through the vitality of our presence.”
The name “CUYA” carries with it both history and vision. Rooted in our origins as the Cuyamungue Institute, it now also serves as an acronym — C.U.Y.A. — a guiding symbol that unites our mission:
C — Consciousness: The field of shared awareness that arises in Collective Presence, where the “We” awakens beyond the “I” – moving from the “Me to the We.”
U — Unity: Our alignment with the Cycles of Nature and the rhythms of the cosmos, reminding us that we are woven into a greater fabric of reality. This sense of unity reminds us that our awareness is the shared consciousness that connects all living beings.
Y — Your Awakening: The inner journey of Embodiment and Wisdom, where through direct experience the body remembers. At the CUYA Institute, this awakening is nurtured through Ritual Body Postures and ecstatic trance, where the body itself becomes the doorway to wisdom, presence, and transformation.
A — Ancestral Wisdom: Roots. Our connection to Sacred Lineage, honoring those who walked before us and rooting us in belonging and continuity. Our founder, anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman looked to some of the oldest, most authentic ancestral records we have — the world’s collection of early and indigenous art — and decoded selected artifacts as embodied “ritual instructions.”
Together, the Four Pathways of C.U.Y.A. — Consciousness, Unity, Your Awakening, and Ancestral Wisdom — form a single tapestry of practice. They remind us that awakening is not an abstract idea but something we live: through the body in Your Awakening, through nature’s cycles in Unity, through community in shared Consciousness, and through the guidance of Ancestral Wisdom.
- …. CONTINUE