My Body, My Temple
Sustainable Wellness 101
by Cristina Smith
Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.
~Henry David Thoreau
My body is the temple in which I practice the ritual of life. It is the vessel through which I manifest the form and force of the Universe and the vehicle through which my soul enacts this chapter in its evolution. My body is my constant companion; I carry it with me wherever I go.
We have a mutualistic relationship~ when I serve it well, it serves me well. It’s the only place I have to live right now, so I like to listen to it, nourish it and consciously interact with it.
We’ve had lots of interesting adventures together. My body and I have climbed 14,000 foot high mountains, gracefully swam oceans and rivers, viewed earth below from a hot air balloon, and sweated in the Hawaiian volcanic steam vents. We have lived in it as it morphed through pregnancy and childbirth and felt the strangeness of being inhabited by another soul gestating to incarnation. We wake up together each day, joined at the hip among other places, ready to experience this world.
In my work with the body as an energetic healer, I often muse amazedly over the functionality and curative capacity of this soul suit. The human body is a profound network of complexly interacting systems that work without me ever having to think or do anything. Often, the only time you notice this fantastic gift is when it isn’t functioning quite to your satisfaction. That is because the social structure encourages you to spend a large percentage of your waking hours in your head figuring everything out; even to the point where it is expected that you go ahead and work instead of taking a break to be in your body. Guess what though, after so much time of being ignored, your body will demand attention to get its needs met. It will get a headache, feel stressed out, be susceptible to viruses or hurt itself to get noticed and addressed.
Dealing with and remedying these maladies is frequently more painful than spending time everyday in your body. I’ve found it is much easier for me to take a walk for ten minutes as break than power through without it. I walk four minutes one direction and then return. I feel myself breathe. I indulge in my senses, particularly smell. I even smell the flowers in the ornamental planter boxes. Then I go back to the office and smell the coffee; refreshed and more productive. My body, my temple is energized.
