What a brilliant series of joining thoughts, thank you so much for that! I have been thinking a lot about our bodies, and the way modernity estranges us from them and how tragic that it is. I spoke with a young woman recently who described her body as a "meat prison" and it left such a feeling of sadness hanging in the air.
I've been taught that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. In other words, being in the body is the reason we're here at all, and only an embodied experience can give us what we need before we return to spirit. And we have such a short window of time to make the most of it...
I love the irony that I fought so hard with one of my 12-step sponsors (who therefore qualifies as a godsibb) over how much of a defect of character “gossip” can be 😝
I love your words. Lolling Therapy in particular made me lol.. I realised that for many years I have been cheerfully lolling comfortably and therapeutically… aka ‘tree hammocking’ (clearly meant to be a verb), between and amongst tall beings, in different and hidden parts of woods almost every day, with a cup of hot tea, dogs and special friends, especially fellow taiji players.
I believe that we can only be truly and vibrantly alive in spirit when we are fully incarnate and can relax into contact with our environment and those sentient beings we encounter. This involves observing and listening deeply, feeling and accepting the support being offered. Then tuning in to what is needed to enter into the deep, open taiji space of balance where we can unconditionally offer the same.
I once heard someone say that the body is on a journey. It kind of de-centered “me”, in a way, so I could respect the body as having its own journey, it’s own personality even, as well as me having mine. Of course we are journeying together, each needing the other. Sometimes we’re getting along great and sometimes we just have to put up with each other.
Every day, at some point, Holly (the dog who lives in the same house as us) will roll on her back and indicate that it will be of great benefit to both of us for me to spend ten minutes rubbing her tummy. She is quite correct. This is the Wisdom of Dog.
I listened to this essay this morning while sipping my coffee. It is beautiful, Caroline.
I am 50. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37 (a BRCA2+ gene mutation). I had four months of chemotherapy, bi-lateral mastectomies plus a prophylactic vaginal hysterectomy; I experienced what doctors casually refer to as "surgical menopause." It was life-altering. There are few words to describe instant reversal of all you believed you were...
I am so grateful you not only take the time to write, but to record (in your calming, lovely voice) what so many of us need to hear. Your use of the term, anhedonia is especially welcome. I had no idea such a concept exists. I remember the period of post-cancer so well. Society kept demanding I feel blessed. I felt nothing. Pink feather boas and charity 5Ks are not my idea of celebrating survivorship. For a long time, I felt very, very little. And then one day...I began to feel again. It happened in the forest. Walking with my five-year-old son, exploring the fields and forests of Pennsylvania, I began to feel again. Joy returned.
Mar 2, 2023·edited Mar 2, 2023Liked by Caroline Ross
Some have said the modern political religions that try to bring heaven down to earth are further derailments of late medieval and protestant radicalism rooted in the Nevi'im Akharonim (later prophets) and unhelpfully filtered through the street Platonism of late antiquity: the body corresponds to earth/nature and the soul to heaven/divinity. The original Hebrew material actually tends toward the formulation that "we are bodies" — with *breath* — an important detail, as you know. Add that and you get what became "the soul" too.
I like to think in the archaic terms still used by aircraft and ship captains not least because saying how many souls are aboard briefly and indirectly differentiates the living and the dead with a quiet dignity. "We are souls" but "having bodies" is not it — the kind of possession attributed to spirits is doubly wrong. The soul doesn't own or inhabit a home, like a haunted AirBnB.
Maybe souls are gifted to become persons? I am searching for the higher logic of poetry, not doxic symbols used for math and logic. I resist the language of embodiment but want to set these symbols together in a tenuous balance.
A related thought: the restoration or recreation of the world as a fully mortal and, as you say, entropic paradise is a wonderful and necessary, impossible hope. "People did not ask to carry the burden of Zion," yet there it is — without taking it up, any ideal of perfection becomes naive, fundamentalist, and totalitarian. We'll set up idols for others to admire and want to murder them if they find faults.
Thank you for this. Just pausing on the somerset levels, putting to one side cold fingers from cycling and bathing in the grey stillness of the sky and the quiet ancient landscape of the levels. Grumpiness around cold fingers and toes doesn't have to be the last word!
What a brilliant series of joining thoughts, thank you so much for that! I have been thinking a lot about our bodies, and the way modernity estranges us from them and how tragic that it is. I spoke with a young woman recently who described her body as a "meat prison" and it left such a feeling of sadness hanging in the air.
I've been taught that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. In other words, being in the body is the reason we're here at all, and only an embodied experience can give us what we need before we return to spirit. And we have such a short window of time to make the most of it...
Caroline, I sincerely appreciate your outlook on life. D
Ah, sanity. Thank you.
I love the irony that I fought so hard with one of my 12-step sponsors (who therefore qualifies as a godsibb) over how much of a defect of character “gossip” can be 😝
I love your words. Lolling Therapy in particular made me lol.. I realised that for many years I have been cheerfully lolling comfortably and therapeutically… aka ‘tree hammocking’ (clearly meant to be a verb), between and amongst tall beings, in different and hidden parts of woods almost every day, with a cup of hot tea, dogs and special friends, especially fellow taiji players.
I believe that we can only be truly and vibrantly alive in spirit when we are fully incarnate and can relax into contact with our environment and those sentient beings we encounter. This involves observing and listening deeply, feeling and accepting the support being offered. Then tuning in to what is needed to enter into the deep, open taiji space of balance where we can unconditionally offer the same.
Many of us could do with a tonic!
I once heard someone say that the body is on a journey. It kind of de-centered “me”, in a way, so I could respect the body as having its own journey, it’s own personality even, as well as me having mine. Of course we are journeying together, each needing the other. Sometimes we’re getting along great and sometimes we just have to put up with each other.
So nice to be able to listen now!
Every day, at some point, Holly (the dog who lives in the same house as us) will roll on her back and indicate that it will be of great benefit to both of us for me to spend ten minutes rubbing her tummy. She is quite correct. This is the Wisdom of Dog.
I listened to this essay this morning while sipping my coffee. It is beautiful, Caroline.
I am 50. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37 (a BRCA2+ gene mutation). I had four months of chemotherapy, bi-lateral mastectomies plus a prophylactic vaginal hysterectomy; I experienced what doctors casually refer to as "surgical menopause." It was life-altering. There are few words to describe instant reversal of all you believed you were...
I am so grateful you not only take the time to write, but to record (in your calming, lovely voice) what so many of us need to hear. Your use of the term, anhedonia is especially welcome. I had no idea such a concept exists. I remember the period of post-cancer so well. Society kept demanding I feel blessed. I felt nothing. Pink feather boas and charity 5Ks are not my idea of celebrating survivorship. For a long time, I felt very, very little. And then one day...I began to feel again. It happened in the forest. Walking with my five-year-old son, exploring the fields and forests of Pennsylvania, I began to feel again. Joy returned.
Some have said the modern political religions that try to bring heaven down to earth are further derailments of late medieval and protestant radicalism rooted in the Nevi'im Akharonim (later prophets) and unhelpfully filtered through the street Platonism of late antiquity: the body corresponds to earth/nature and the soul to heaven/divinity. The original Hebrew material actually tends toward the formulation that "we are bodies" — with *breath* — an important detail, as you know. Add that and you get what became "the soul" too.
I like to think in the archaic terms still used by aircraft and ship captains not least because saying how many souls are aboard briefly and indirectly differentiates the living and the dead with a quiet dignity. "We are souls" but "having bodies" is not it — the kind of possession attributed to spirits is doubly wrong. The soul doesn't own or inhabit a home, like a haunted AirBnB.
Maybe souls are gifted to become persons? I am searching for the higher logic of poetry, not doxic symbols used for math and logic. I resist the language of embodiment but want to set these symbols together in a tenuous balance.
A related thought: the restoration or recreation of the world as a fully mortal and, as you say, entropic paradise is a wonderful and necessary, impossible hope. "People did not ask to carry the burden of Zion," yet there it is — without taking it up, any ideal of perfection becomes naive, fundamentalist, and totalitarian. We'll set up idols for others to admire and want to murder them if they find faults.
Thank you for this. Just pausing on the somerset levels, putting to one side cold fingers from cycling and bathing in the grey stillness of the sky and the quiet ancient landscape of the levels. Grumpiness around cold fingers and toes doesn't have to be the last word!