THE BODY LEADS THE WAY

A collection of essays centered around the theme of the ritual.

A ritual encompasses many forms: It could be mundane, like eating breakfast, or symbol-laden, like receiving the body and blood of Jesus at Communion. The experiences that interest Potter are ritualistic acts elevated into life-altering and resonant experiences, leading to a state of liminality—a sense of crossing a threshold or existing in between two separate realities. One way these liminal states can be entered is through physicality, via the body itself. In her first essay, “Between Chaos and Light: Sex, Card Playing, God, Calvin, and Dancing,” the author, who was forbidden to dance during her Calvinist upbringing, discovers that rhythmic yet freeform movement can become a spiritual rite akin to the practice of the whirling dervish Sufi dancers (“their bodies prayers”). In “The Story of a Hollowed-out Bone,” Potter acquires a Buddhist relic for self-protection (a femur, fashioned into a trumpet) that leads her to a shattering discovery about herself. Places can be routes to the in-between state as well, catching us between two worlds. “By the River of 1000 Lingas” explores how a small river in Cambodia with carvings of sacred masculine and feminine symbols (lingams and yonis) adorning its banks mystically links the natural with the human-created. Another essay, “Ever Becoming—Never Being: Dwelling in the Sukkah,” concerns the concept of sukkot, open-sided temporary dwellings some observant Jews reside in for a short period every fall. Sukkot, too, present a duality, acting as both refuge and not-refuge. Potter’s book is tightly organized, with essays divided thematically into four parts. Photos of such subjects as Cambodian temple moonstones, a Whidbey Island labyrinth, and the author’s tallit (prayer shawl) add visual interest, but are almost unnecessary; the prose creates evocative word pictures on its own. (Preparing to write, Potter feels “rushing-spirit brooding over the face of deep, dark, moving waters of what is possible but is not yet born.”) The author describes her book as “an active intuition going for a walk”; Potter’s lyrical essays will make readers want to join the walk, too.

A poetic and inspiring invitation to find ways of dwelling in meaning and joy.