Sometimes, it even feels uncomfortable to speak the word ‘body.’ It almost seems foreign, not part of our comfortable vocabulary. It’s not as though I’m even referring to specific body parts which ‘shall not be named.’ It is unfortunate that for so long I have felt disassociated from my body, and I get the impression that this is true of many friends.
I am slowly reclaiming my body, and it as transformative as learning to breathe under water. I have been stirring up energies in my body that have been under my radar for as long as I can remember. My sensory apparatus is being rewired and reconnected, probably becoming much like it was 76 years ago. When the bell rings, my whole body listens. My taste of food settles into my arms and legs. My mind has reclaimed many of the old nerve pathways that roam through my body from head to toe.
For all the shallow attention we give to our bodies in the media and in shaping our appearance, it is unlikely many of us actually live in our bodies. We live in the abstraction of our mind. The experienced relationship between what we know and what we can sense with our body is so disconnected from who we are.
I now realize what an insight it was for the book to be titled “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” My body is me, and the more it comes back to life, the more I enjoy the energy flowing thru it. My body is enlivened with soaring ideas, my mind tingles with delight with whatever I touch.
It is so unfortunate that human culture has evolved to regard bodies as commodities. As we became disconnected from the energy of the natural world, we seemed to lose the awareness of the reality in one another as well. In so many cultures, relationships were converted into contracts about rights over bodies, ignoring that the parties were people. For many, especially women, their bodies were no longer their own. My culture associated flesh with sin, and I was urged to distance myself from contact with my body.
I’ve turned around, and I intend to go in the opposite direction I was taught. I am becoming more identified with my body, it goes wherever my mind goes, it contacts anything I can relate to. My mind and body are learning how to merge together. I see others as mind and body. No more abstracted persons. Wholly flesh and blood and mind. All are one.