Aside from the relationship I have with my mother there is one physical relationship I have had for the entirety of my life and that is with my body!! Thirty three years and like all relationships we have evolved, fought, loved each other, changed, and grown together. Lately I have become very aware of the relationship I have with my own body and the relationships I see other people - particularly other women - have with their bodies. I realize how my relationship with my body is so dictated by cultural norms that I don't even believe in. I realize how my relationship with OTHER people's bodies is dictated by cultural norms that I don't even believe in.
One night I was lying in bed - going to sleep and thinking about mortality (as I often do as I'm about to drift off to slumber) and I thought to myself "You know none of us know for SURE what happens when we die but we do know with ABSOLUTE certainty that our body is not coming with us (if in fact we are "going" anywhere after we die). So if our body is something that we have to let go of when we die why do we spend SO much of our time focused on it? If, as many of us believe, our soul is the thing that we move on with after we die why don't we spend more time worrying about our spiritual health/wealth? In other words if, as the Beatles say, "the love you make is the love you take" why don't we worry MORE about what kind of love we are putting out into the world and LESS about how much we weigh? I do believe that there is a way in which our spirituality is connected with the way we treat our body but the treatment of our body has little to do with what we focus on when we focus on our body. So much of our SELF WORTH (which should be determined by our spirituality and the love we are putting out into the world) is determined by completely superficial judgments of our body - often which are connected to things of which we have no control. (The topic of self-worth being connected to the body is something I will talk about in coming blogs).
SO. . .inspired by this thinking and some specific recent experiences connected to my body I have decided to start this blog!! I have called it My Vessel - because that is how I choose to look at my body - as a vessel for my heart, spirit and soul. A vessel that will continue to change over the course of time and a vessel that I hope to love and appreciate for its awesome ability to carry the love I want to give the world!! And perhaps one day it will be a vessel for brining another body and spirit onto this planet. I'm writing this blog for myself (a form of therapy/empowerment if you will and for others who struggle with their relationship to their bodies - most especially my soul sisters out there in the world - my ladies!!). I hope that you will all interact with this blog - write comments! Write me personally! Let me know if anything I've written here has impacted your relationship with YOUR body. It's just time for us to start liberating ourselves from the shackles of oppression against our bodies. . .and this, I figure, is one way to do it. I'm looking forward to how it can evolve into other projects be it photographic, theatrical, written, a website, an organization - who knows?!?! I am passionate about this and want to dive into it. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment