Peace on Earth

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.

Let there be Peace on earth, the Peace that was meant to be. …

Let Peace begin with me, let this be the moment now.

With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow. 

To take each moment and live each moment in Peace eternally. 

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.

Lyrics:  Jill Jackson

           

When I was a child, growing up in the Methodist Church, “Peace on Earth” was my favorite part of the Christmas message.  I loved singing “Let There be Peace on Earth,” a song that still brings tears to my eyes.  I thought the vision of a Peaceful Earth was beautiful—something to aspire to.  I hold to this day a vivid image of angels bending down to earth to share this sacred message.

I grew up in central Florida in the 1950s & 60s—a child of the Cold War—trained to hide under my desk to save myself from nuclear annihilation.  I was 12 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and vividly remember how terrified my parents were—knowing in my soul that we would be among the first casualties of the nuclear war that seemed inevitable.  I lost high school and college friends in Vietnam and volunteered as a draft counselor during college.  My boyfriend applied to graduate schools in Canada in case he had to leave the country in order to avoid the draft.  As I look back on life, I lived a lot of my formative years in the shadow of war. 

As I come to appreciate how much I was influenced by growing up in the shadow of war, I cannot begin to comprehend the life experiences of the thousands of individuals and families currently fleeing violence, war and religious persecution unlike any we in this country have ever directly experienced.  My heart is bleeds for those who suffer so when all they are seeking is the time and space to live their lives in Peace.

And so I keep returning to the importance of Peace on Earth.  In my young adult years, I pretty much defined Peace as the absence of war.  When I began exploring Earth-centered spirituality—in my case, Celtic Paganism—my definition of Peace expanded to include care for and healing of Mother Earth.  How could there be Peace among humans while we daily raped and exhausted our home—this beloved planet—and showed no respect for other sentient beings?

In the last few years, my definition of Peace has expanded again—this time to affirm the belief that violence of any kind is a breaking of the Peace.  As violence has spread throughout our society, and civil discourse has gone underground, it becomes clear to me that Peace Making must begin at here at home, in our relations with our neighbors (both literal and figurative), in our relations with our families, in our relations with Mother Earth.  Truly, that is the only way forward for ourselves and all sentient beings with which we share this planet.

At this point in my life, as I approach my 70^th birthday, it seems that my generation is destined to live in the shadow of war, or in active wartimes, for our whole lives.  And every year, political leaders around the world give lip-service to Peace as a goal, while simultaneously increasing the war chest. 

Albert Einstein once said that “Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding.”  As we move deeper into this holiday season and begin to prepare for the New Year of 2019, Peace on Earth continues to resonate with me.  And so I affirm my intention to deepen my understanding of all sentient beings with which I share this world—I affirm my intention to let Peace begin with me—to make a solemn vow to take each moment and live each moment in Peace eternally.    Will you make this vow with me? 

May Peace spread like wildfire, igniting all beings with love and compassion.

Weaving Light & Darkness—A Mid-winter’s Night Reflection

           We decorated our tree on December 13.  The next day was New Moon, so metaphysically speaking, it was not an optimum time.  And I had been feeling grumpy and yucky most of the day, due to a recurrence of bronchitis.  But Mark got the tree mounted in its stand and into the house before dark, and after dinner we adorned it with lights and all our favorite ornaments. 

The next morning, when I looked at the tree, it seemed all wrong.  There were many dark places where there were no ornaments or lights.  More lights were needed, I decided, and also more ornaments to reflect the lights.  So I added more ornaments, moved around some of the one’s already in place, and added another string of lights.

Still the tree seemed somehow off to me—I tweaked the position of a few more ornaments and decided to walk away for a bit.  I’m not normally an OCD tree decorator—I like a certain amount of randomness in my visual fields—it brings its own beauty.  So I sat back and tried to figure out what was behind this behavior.

After quiet reflection, I realized that what was bothering me was the balance of light and darkness in the tree.  These days, holiday trees, especially in public places, are always ablaze with light—no dark pockets tucked away near the trunk or in patches of especially thick branches.  This time of year, our souls yearn for light.  This seems especially true here in southern Maine this year, where the days have been gray, foggy, misty and cloudy, with no snow on the ground to reflect whatever ambient light is available. 

Our tree, however, seemed filled with dark places—like swirls of dark matter winding through the universe—places where there are no lights or ornaments or anything but the mysterious depths of tree.  Part of me wanted to illuminate all those spots—to fill them with a blaze of light, and yet somehow, that felt wrong too.  Light is only brilliant in contrast to darkness.

My life is mostly lived seeking the appropriate balance between light and dark.  I revel in the months when the sun is high and strong, and yet always seek shady places to be outside in the summer—tempering the strength of the light with a modicum of darkness.  As the dark winter months approach and the sun is low and feeble, my outdoor time is spent seeking as much direct sun time as possible.

This cycle and seeking of balance seems to play out in my emotional/spiritual life as well.  Light is plentiful in the summer—the time of growth and fruiting—yet for me, summer is associated with the beginning of a series of personal sorrows which layer an element of darkness under the power and passion of full summer.  Darkness is plentiful in winter—short days and dim light make me infinitely more sensitive to sources of light—holiday lights and moon and star light—all crisply vibrating in the cold winter air—and the soul illumination emerging through my dark-time my spiritual work.

I look at the tree again and instead of focusing on my dissatisfaction I try to see the tree with new eyes.  Yes—there are dark spaces.  And there are spaces filled with light.  The contrast is actually rather appealing.  Ribbons of light wind across the darkness providing visual paths for the seer to follow, and pools of darkness provide places for the eye to rest.  Light and dark—balanced and present.  Truth be told, I wouldn’t like a world filled with only light, or only dark.  

Moon Child Blessings

I open the front door and step into the crisp, moist air of a late November night in Maine.  Nike, my toy poodle, scampers down the stairs and shuffles around, looking for the perfect spot for her nightly ritual.  I hear her but pay no attention for I am riveted by the Moon.

     Normally the Moon is not visible from this position on my land, as the huge oak tree on the east side of the house fills the horizon.  But this time of year, the oak is bare and the Moon in all her beauty is now ascending, silhouetting the branches as she rises.  The mist creates a halo around the Moon, fracturing the light as it spreads outward.  I stand, entranced, oblivious to the increasing chill and damp, for I am communing with the Divine.

     I’ve always had an affinity for the Moon.  A Cancer by birth, and thus a Moon Child, some of my earliest memories are of watching the Moon rise out my bedroom window.  When I was five, my parents moved to a house on a street with an east-west orientation.  I can remember standing in the street, watching the Equinox Moon rise at the horizon.  It seemed to fill the street—impossibly big and impossibly beautiful.  Although I appreciated the drama of the Moon landing in 1969, I was really glad that the grandiose plans of establishing bases and colonies on the surface of the Moon never came to pass.  It seemed, somehow, sacrilegious.

     Nike trots upstairs and I let her into the house.  I remain outside, focusing on the Moon—and the mist that surrounds her—and the wispy white smoke created when I exhale into the cold damp air.  The mist around the Moon is made of the same stuff as the mist I exhale—air saturated with water droplets—coming in contact with much colder temperatures.  I feel intensely connected to the Moon at this moment.  I feel her brilliant white light shimmering through the mist—shining on me as a visible blessing—shining on all things around me—the trees and the rocks and the land and the creatures—all are blessed by the Moonlight.

     The Moon played a very special role in the life I created with my first husband and my daughter.  We used to stand on the porch of our New Orleans home and howl at the full Moon each month.  When my daughter became old enough to want to go away to summer camp, yet still young enough to miss her parents, she and I used the Moon as a tool of connection.  I told her that any time she saw the Moon she should know that I was sending her love through the Moon, and she could send love back to me the same way.  It is a tool we use to this day.

     I think of this as the planet rotates and the Moon rises a little more.  It is clear of the oak now, smaller and more distant as she climbs.  Perhaps, I think, the Moon can be a tool for sending something on a broader scale than to just my daughter.  Perhaps it can be a tool for sending blessings throughout the universe.    

      

   To bless is to awaken—to become aware of the presence of Spirit all around you—to acknowledge the grand flow of Beingness that surrounds and supports us in what we sense and what we experience—the primal vital life force.  David Spangler, American spiritual philosopher, writes that a blessing is “a natural expression of the fiery love and inclusiveness of our inner spirit.” Theologian Matthew Fox describes blessing as the theological word for the goodness “inherent in the beauty, wisdom and wonder of creation.”

     When I look at the Moon I feel blessed—a deep sense of contentment and connection.  Moon-watching promotes a further awakening in me—a deeper awareness of the presence of Spirit all around me—a presence I acknowledge with respectful gratitude.  When I look at the Moon I am aware of a beauty and goodness that both humbles and uplifts my soul. 

I stand quietly and let Moon blessings pour over me.  My heart opens and the love and inclusiveness of my inner spirit flows upward on the paths of light created by the Moon.  I send my energy to merge with that of the Moon, welcoming the power of the Moon to amplify the blessings I wish to spread around the world.  Blessings, blessings, blessings to all things covering the surface of this beloved planet.

Holding On, Letting Go, and Awakening

My Tarot card of the day was number 20 in the Major Arcana:  Judgment--Awakening as it is shown in my new favorite deck, The Gaian Tarot, by Joanna Powell Colbert.  She writes that this card is about awareness of a shift in consciousness—an opening up to a life of the spirit.  In discussing the shadow side of the card, she talks about how difficult it can be to release our attachment to old ways of doing things, old habits, and old beliefs, even when these ways no longer serve us and indeed are perceived as negative.

I’ve been in a period of Awakening for quite a while now—opening up to a life of the spirit in a multitude of ever deepening ways. And yet, I am also aware of the difficulty of letting go of some of my old habits—things I know I need to release, and yet somehow always seem to fall back upon in times of stress or distress. I am sometimes amazed at the tenacity with which the vestigial remnants of my old self can fight for what comforts it, despite the many efforts my awakening self makes to shift those patterns.

The last 48 hours have been extremely windy—gusts up to 50 mph where we live. I’ve spent much of today upstairs in the studio, weaving and listening to the wind howl through the trees and make the wind chimes dance. From time to time I’ve gone to one of the windows to watch the trees swaying in the wind. From the east window, I can see the bare branches of a lovely oak tree, which has been doing its share of dancing. My attention has focused on one branch—one broken branch about at eye level—swinging and swaying in the repeated gusts of winds.     

           

This branch was broken during the unusual Samhain snow storm we had this year.  It is visible from the ground, but not reachable with our tallest ladder.  It will have to be brought down as it was broken, by the efforts of Mother Nature.  I have been expecting this to happen all afternoon.

As I have studied this swinging branch, I have come to realize that even though it is broken, it is not likely to fall soon.  The branch is perhaps three inches in diameter.  The top half is broken, and the rest is bent, which is why it hangs down and swings.  But the bottom half is not broken—merely bent with the weight of the branch.  It is still pretty firmly attached to the unbroken part of itself and likely to remain so until Time and Mother Nature slowly dry out the green wood and break the connecting pieces bit by bit.  .

This broken branch no longer serves the mother tree.  Although it may produce a few new leaves when spring comes, it is unlikely to flower or produce fruit.  And yet, it is still firmly connected—still receiving energy from the mother tree, who is not quite ready to let go of this broken branch.

I find this to be an interesting metaphor for the process of releasing and letting go of old patterns and beliefs.  Sometimes in ritual, or therapy, or perhaps both, we identify something that no longer serves our authentic selves and make a determination to release it.  I think ritual and therapy are both important tools in this process.  However, it is probably unrealistic to expect to immediately and completely let go of something just because you say you want to, or have, especially when you are discussing a habit that has been forming for decades or more.

My personal experience is that it takes a while to fully release something I truly wish to let go.  I may break the branch, but parts of my subconscious will continue to send energy to that broken branch.  Vigilance and diligence are required to gradually reduce and eliminate the energy sources of which I am only dimly aware at first.  Slowly, over time—it may take more than a season—the old habit or broken branch will completely dry up and then fall away. 

Observations today have convinced me that the broken branch on my oak tree will likely be there this time next year.  By then, perhaps, it will have lost enough energy sources for its connections to the mother tree to finally be broken. 

I’m taking a lesson in patience from this observation.  Broken habits and branches can ultimately be severed from the mother tree, but it is rarely a quick and immediate process.  Change—even change we devoutly desire--takes time.  That does not mean I cannot continue to grow and evolve into my new authentic self.  The continued attachment of a negative pattern or two does not stop that process.  But it does remind me to be gentle with myself when those lingering patterns rear their unwanted heads.  Change takes time and patience is a virtue.  I think I’ll have a piece of chocolate.

Mardi Gras Madness

           Today is Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday—the last day  before Ash Wednesday when the season of Lent begins.  Traditionally Lent involves a sacrifice of some kind—a giving up of something in preparation for the glorious events of Easter, some 40 days hence.  In many Catholic cultures where Lent is seriously observed, the day before Ash Wednesday became a festival in its own right—a community-wide celebration providing participants the chance to enjoy life before beginning a period of serious sacrifice.  Hence Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday—the ultimate opportunity to eat, drink and be merry.

            In my old life, before I took up residence in the glorious State of Maine, my first husband, David, and I lived in New Orleans for 25 years.  Over those years, we developed our own customs and rituals for observing Mardi Gras, or rather Carnival, the proper name for this season, which begins on Twelfth Night (January 6) and runs until Mardi Gras.  In honor of my friends and family still living in New Orleans, and the many pleasant memories I have of those times, I’d like to share a little about what my life would be like if I were still a resident of that strange and wondrous city.

            We would have gotten up early on this Mardi Gras day, to put the finishing touches on our costumes and get dressed.  The photo below shows David and me the year we dressed as pirates.  After packing up the supplies we would need for a day of walking in the French Quarter—water, sun glasses, band aids--we’d leave the house around ten, stopping a few blocks away to catch the Rex Parade at the start of its run down to the edge of the Quarter.  After Rex passed, we would zip down to the Quarter, taking the circuitous routes necessary to avoid the parades and hopefully get to our destination—the far side of the French Quarter, and find cheap and legal parking—always as challenge—by 11 am.     

            By this time in the Carnival Season, we’ve been to maybe a dozen parades—each following the same basic pattern with distinct and interesting variations.  Parades are put on by different organizations called crewes, many of which bear the names of classical gods—Hermes, Iris, Baccus, Endymion, Orpheus, Muses—and all of which have themes.  Some themes are corny beyond belief, but some crewes specialize in satirical themes, often with a political bent.  Woe be the public figure who pisses the people off—he will find himself skewed in multiple ways throughout this season.  

Mardi Gras parades are not like parades in other cities.  The bands are always excellent and play jazz and R&B instead of marches.  The floats are huge—the Orpheus Parade boasts one float a city block long—and some are lit with neon and other flashing lights.  Each float is inhabited by a dozen or so members of the crewe.  Crewe members are always in costume, are usually drunk, and are surrounded by huge bags holding beads, toys, trinkets and cups which they throw to the crowd.  The crowds are usually equally huge—generally several people deep on each side of the parade route, which is about 5 miles. 

For the more popular parades, people arrive early, bringing chairs, coolers, step ladders for the kids, and bags to carry home their loot.  The Endymion Parade—one of the largest and most elaborate--runs on Saturday night and always has a celebrity guest.  People have been known to camp out overnight on the route for this parade so as to hold a prime spot for parade viewing.  During the day they will be joined by family and friends.  For the locals, parades are family affairs and some families and groups of friends have been meeting at the same location for the same parades for decades.

Throughout the weekend before Mardi Gras, several parades are held each day and night.  People who own houses on parade routes are never lonely during this time, or else they leave town so as to avoid the noise and chaos. 

During our last several years in New Orleans, our Mardi Gras weekend events evolved to include Mardi Gras Balls.  On Friday night, we often went to the Zulu Ball, held by the Crewe of Zulu, the largest and oldest black crewe in the city.  David had a lot of friends among the political elite of the city and was generally able to get tickets.  Mardi Gras balls are always very formal and are basically debutant events.  Thus , if one arrived on time at Zulu, one would sit through the introduction of a dozen or more young women—daughter of XYZ—and her escort, son of ABC.  We learned to arrive around the time the music started—which was generally midnight.  After the first year, I gave up trying to have the most sparkly dress for this event—it was just not possible to out-do the women who had been attending this ball for decades and would willingly wear 12 pounds of sequins in order to out-shine the other wives of crewe members.  Here is a photo of one of our Zulu ensembles.

         For me, the best part of the entire Carnival Season was always Mardi Gras day in the French Quarter.  Early in the day Quarter is filled with costumed locals, many of whom have been planning their costumes since last Mardi Gras.  Some are so elaborate it is hard to imagine how the person moves.  Some are ensemble pieces involving a whole family—Dorothy and her companions from the Wizard of Oz, worn by a group of gay men—or all the impossible colors of mms—orange, green, purple, pink, white—worn by a family with several children.  Often the costumes are risqué, and there is a certain amount of more or less discrete nudity.  I could go on and on, and have boxes of photos, but you get the general idea. 

Casual, informal parades snake through the Quarter this day—always on foot.  Generally there are a couple of musical instruments leading the way—a couple of trumpets and a drum—some professional, some amateur.  Some 2-3 people will be carrying the parade banner, and they will be followed by masses of costumed revelers.  We often joined in these groups, lending our energy to the overall festivities—dancing our way down the street with unselfconscious abandon—taking photos and being photographed—stopping to chat with people we knew, and then dropping to the sidelines for a bit just to watch and enjoy.

This is what the real Mardi Gras is all about—music and dancing in the streets—friends and family gathering to celebrate life—costuming so you can, for a few hours or days or weeks, express your alter-ego.  It is a very different energy from the big parades and the formal balls.  It is organic and of the people.

David and I zigzagged our way back and forth across the Quarter—down to the river front—back up to the crowds—until time to meet friends at the House of Blues for late lunch, as became our custom.  Then we meandered our way to the home of different friends, who actually lived in the Quarter and held an open house.  We’d grab some water, freshen up, and hang out on their stoop, watching the glittering hordes form and reform in front of our eyes.

The party in the French Quarter continues until midnight, when Mardi Gras is officially over and the police clear the streets, sending revelers into the bars for more drink and music.  We always made it a policy to leave by dark.  By then the hordes of drunken guests who have been watching the parades in other parts of the city have poured into the Quarter and the overall energy has changed.  But we have had a lovely day and our desire for revelry has been sated.  We’d wander back to our car and take our circuitous route home—to rest and talk and watch the local news reports of the festivities.         

Lent begins the next day—Ash Wednesday—and I was always surprised by the number of locals who made it to morning mass and carried ashes on their foreheads for the rest of the day.    

My Prayer Practice: Communing with Nature

And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth, --
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
By Dorothy Frances Gurney
 
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
Henry David Thoreau

          A man walks alone on a deserted beach.  Periodically, he stops to observe the movement of the water on the sand and the flow of the clouds across the sky, feeling a deep sense of awe and reverence. 

          A couple hikes a mountain path, stopping occasionally to observe the trees and undergrowth or to listen to birdsong or the rustle of leaves.  They reach the summit and stand, surveying the panorama surrounding them.  Few words are spoken, but a deep sense completion and wholeness is felt.  They hold hands and share this sacred moment.
          A woman works in her garden.  As she plants or feeds or otherwise tends the plants in her care, she is conscious of the amazing gift of life—of the miraculous ability of tiny seeds to grow into plants enriching her life with beauty and nourishment.  She pauses a moment to be grateful for this gift.

          If we combine Angeles Arrien’s definition of prayer as “a way of setting a sacred intention,” with Catherine of Siena’s assertion that “everything you do can be a prayer”, then surely each of these scenarios is a form of prayer.  When I read Maggie Oman Shannon’s book The Way We Pray, I was quite struck by the fact that the author does not include Communing with Nature as one of her smorgasbord of prayer forms.  Communing with Nature has been fundamental in my life as long as I can remember.  Indeed, I think it would be safe to say that Communing with Nature is the oldest form of prayer known to human-kind.

          I am a practicing Wiccan/Pagan and Communing with Nature in a fluid unstructured way is part of my daily practice.  I walk in the natural world—the beach, the forest, the mountains, my own yard—I tend to my companion animals and the plants I nurture—all with an intentional awareness of and desire to touch at some level the Divine Spirit in everything.  Sometimes I am silent.  Sometimes I verbalize a deep and heartfelt sense of gratitude for the beauty of the world and the blessings I experience by being open to that beauty.  Sometimes I dance.  Sometimes I drum.  Sometimes I sing.  Sometimes I select a rock or a flower and stare at it in deep contemplation of its intricacy and beauty.  If I initiate one of these responses to my experience, it is the way my Divine Soul is choosing to respond at that point in time, to the presence of the Divine in the Universe.  I am communing with the Divine as represented by the natural world.

          This spiritual practice has been with me since childhood.  My parents taught me to say my prayers morning and evening and to go to church on Sunday’s.  But the Divine taught me to climb a tree, sit on its branches and marvel at the pattern created by the bark and the miracle of the fruit it produced.  I believe that a spark of divinity lives within me and within you and within everything created by the Divine—plants and animals, rocks and rivers, planets and stars.    

          Many of the pre-Christian spiritual paths that humans followed considered time spent in the natural world as a source of spiritual teachings and healing.  This is certainly true of the surviving indigenous cultures, in this country and others, as well as the contemporary adaptation of spiritual practices derived from indigenous cultures, such as Shamanism.  Indeed, as I recall my Bible stories, many of the Hebrew Testament prophets, such as Moses, as well as Jesus himself, withdrew to the natural world for the express purpose of communing with and receiving inspiration from the Divine Presence.    

          The nice thing about Communing with Nature is that it doesn’t require any special equipment—no art supplies—no sacred text—no words to memorize or create.  All that is necessary is my body and my intention to be open to Divinity.  As such, this form of prayer is accessible to everyone—small children and the elderly, urbanites and country-folk—anyone who is willing to take a few minutes and “combine concentration with wonderment”, as David Steindl-Rast writes.  You don’t even have to go outside, as windows to the sky provide ample frameworks for connection. 

          There are times in the lives of all of us when even the most well-intentioned words and gestures offered by others cannot break through the wall of misery and despair surrounding us.  Several years ago I experienced just such a dark night of the soul and was healed, in part, by time spent communing with nature.  I lived in New Orleans for 25 years.  In 2005, all the supports and props of my life were swept away from me.  Within a 4 month period, I lost both my parents, survived Hurricane Katrina, and lost my husband of 33 years.  I moved back to New Orleans in November and the misery, pain and anguish engulfed me.  The city was dark and dank and my life was dark and dank and I was not sure if I would be able to find a way to go on.  Into this monochromatic existence floated a gift.  The storm waters had planted a seed in my yard and, unbeknownst to me, it had started to grow.  By the time I noticed, it was growing up the side of my deck—huge verdant green leaves branching off a vine I had never seen before.  The presence of such vibrant color was healing in and of itself and I began to pay attention to this plant. 

          Over the next several months, this plant thrived.  And every day, when I got up, I went outside to look at it.  Observing this plant became the high point of my day.  I began to tend to it—dumping soil on its roots and making sure it had water—which was more attention that I was paying to my own physical needs at that point.  As winter slipped into spring, buds appeared, soon followed by giant buttery yellow flowers.  By now, I was spending part of everyday sitting outside by my vine, soaking up its energy, its beauty, and its wholeness.  Gradually, I got the message—I would survive—I too could flourish if I allowed it to happen. 

          Today I have a new life in Maine—a life I could not have imagined 6 years ago.  I have done massive amounts of exploration and healing, but I will never forget that my first step back to wholeness was guided by a single vine.  Such is the healing power of the very simple prayer practice of Communing with Nature.

Earth My Body

My body is a living temple of love.
My body is the body of the Goddess.
Chant from the Reclaiming Tradition

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,

in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

Much of my spiritual work is done in connection with the Elements of Life:  Earth, Air, Fire & Water.  The element of Earth is associated with north and winter.  Since here in Maine winter is in full force, it seems appropriate to focus my attention on Earth.

Earth is basically about physical reality—the material world in which we live, move and have our being.  There are many things traditionally associated with Earth and I suppose that over time I will ultimately write about all of them.  But today, I want to focus on the most intimate form of physical reality that humans connect with—our bodies, and more specifically our relationship with our bodies. 

I have only recently come to appreciate the true miracle of creation, engineering and design a fully functioning human body represents.  The health challenges I’ve faced during the last few years have pushed me to become more educated about how my body works and to say I am awestruck would be a vast understatement.  In and of itself, each system—circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous, skeletal, muscular, reproductive, endocrine—is an amazing feat.  And, each system interacts with the others in a layered and nuanced dance that is beyond imagination.  The Divine was certainly working overtime in creating humans!

Like many women, and some men, I have always had a very conflicted relationship with my body.  A big part of this is the cultural message I received about my body while growing up in the Deep South in 1950s.  The religious culture in which I was raised taught me two basic things about my body.  I was taught that the body was not nearly as important as the soul and therefore was not really deserving of as much energy and attention—after all, our flesh would return to ashes while our soul lived forever in heaven, or hell.  However, even if one could admit that the body in general had some value, since I am a woman, my body is sinful by nature.  I am not created in the image of god, since god is a man. 

This religious message received massive reinforcement from the greater culture which constantly assured me that my body was all wrong.  I was too fat, I smelled bad, and my hair was the wrong color.  All of these problems, however, could be solved by purchasing the right foundation garment or diet medication, deodorant or perfume, and shampoo or hair color.  The bulk of advertising on television today continues spreading the message that something is wrong with our bodies that can be fixed by consumption of the advertised product.  Today’s advertising stream includes prescription medications, but that does not mean the underlying message regarding the nature of our bodies is any different. 

Now, I am an intelligent, well-educated woman, fully capable of seeing through the insidious nature of the messages I received from both my church and the over culture of American advertising.  And yet . . . such messages, received from an early age, are very difficult to repudiate.  “It is astonishingly easy . . .  to be conditioned,” writes Gregg Levoy, author of Callings:  Finding and Following an Authentic Life.  “Imagine the effect on us of a lifetime’s worth of conditioning . . . of the thousands of messages, spoken and unspoken, that have been knitted into our minds ever since we came squawking out of the womb, and which we took on like hand-me-downs, regardless of whether they fit us or not.” 

I was conditioned to see my body as an object of little worth, and thus, I spent much of my adult life taking it for granted and abusing it in various ways.  I ate poorly, seldom exercised, colored and permed my hair and generally treated by beautiful body as a vehicle for carrying around my soul.  Junk food became a primary source of emotional comfort, since, as a dear friend once said, “When you’re dating Mr. Haagen Dazs, he never says no.”  Nothing in my extensive education taught me how to properly care for my body or to appreciate the intricate manner in which it functions. 

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with early stage of colon cancer.  This was a major wake-up call.  If I wanted to live long, which I did, and live that life in a healthy body, which I also did, then drastic measures were called for.  Since then, I have worked hard to improve my relationship with my body—to see it as a sacred gift which will serve me well for many more years if I nourish and care for it and understand and appreciate the details of how it works.  This has required over-coming a lifetime of resistance to regular exercise and considerable study of nutrition.  It is very hard, and requires on-going attention and focus.  Through this, I have come to see my body as more of a special friend than something that just carries my soul around.  

Now I’m not going to pretend that the lifetime of conditioning I received was broken in a couple of years.  When emotional crises arise, it is still second nature to me to reach for chips and chocolate ice cream.  But, slowly, I am reconditioning myself to other responses.  I’m learning to listen to my body and pay attention to what it says it really needs, as opposed the instantaneous response brought on by conditioning.  It is one fo the most difficult tasks I’ve ever undertaken.

I am supported in this task by a shift in my consciousness regarding my body and my soul.  While my body may not be the body of god, it is most definitely the body of the goddess.  As I honor and love the goddess, it becomes easier for me to honor and love my own body, with all its weaknesses.  As I honor and nurture my body, I am honoring and nurturing Earth—the element of physical manifestation.  My body and my soul are not separate and distinct entities but rather a united whole making this journey together.  Although my soul will go on when my body dies, in this time and place soul has chosen to manifest in this body.  To dishonor my body is to dishonor my soul.   

Today I support myself in the complex task of caring for my body by naming that as a piece of my sacred work and part of my connection with the element of Earth.  This elevates the mundane task of doing leg lifts from a chore to a sacred act—an act that nurtures the piece of Earth with which I have the most intimate relationship—my body.