Embodiment Part 3
March 31, 2026
Embodiment Part 3
What if your body is not something you have, but someone you are in a relationship with?
The body is our vehicle for moving in the world. It is the sacred temple of our being. It is not merely a container for the soul, but a vast and intelligent brain. This body-brain orchestrates the intricate operation and cooperation of our organs, electrical impulses, chemistry, pumps and valves, hydraulics, gas exchange, and respiration. It knows precisely how and when to bring all of this into motion, even as we sleep.
The body’s tissues, organs, bones, ligaments, fluids, electricity, and trace metals help make our living temple. It carries pain and ecstasy, tension and ease, sorrow and delight. Its intelligence keeps us alive and, often without our noticing, keeps us well and regulated. Yet another aspect of the body is rarely acknowledged or spoken of: our intimate relationship with it.
Think for a moment about how privately and personally you have always related to your body. There may be places on your body known only to you, that hold a delicate sensitivity. You may recognize the rhythm of your breath as a signal of your inner state. You may dry yourself after a bath in a particular way, instinctively remembering tender places, old injuries, or areas that need a gentle caress.
You might speak inwardly to your body, about how certain features or mannerisms remind you of your mother, your father, or of someone you loved. There may be a familiar way you rub your eyes to ease their fatigue, or how your hands, feet, legs, and toes feel to you as you move through the world. We have even more private and intimate relationships with our digestion, heartbeat, and genitalia. These relationships are rarely shared or spoken aloud.
We communicate with our bodies through attention: through nourishment and rest, through grooming and touch, through caresses and care. As the body ages, it speaks to us of what is lost forever, what has transformed, and what mysteriously remains the same. Most of this knowledge is kept quietly within ourselves. We listen to the body, and the body listens to us. Sometimes this relationship is peaceful, but at other times it must endure periods of storm and stress.
From time to time, this thought arises in me: when this life is over, and we no longer need our body, our relationship with it will also be gone. So many of these intimacies are known only to us. Our physical departure would seem to mark the end of an intensely private and profound companionship.
And yet, our body is more than an intimate friend. It is a manifestation of our inner being, our soul, the idea of us that God “thought up” before we were made flesh. If it is true that we began as an idea—God’s idea—perhaps that idea remains after the body dies. Maybe the essence behind both body and soul remains, held within the divine blueprint, beyond time and form.
The more harmonious our relationship with the body becomes, the closer friends we are with it, and the more readily we can feel connected to its wisdom. The greater the peace we experience in our physical being, the more fully we can listen, cooperate, and embody what it already knows. From this place of harmony, we gain easier access to the work of living our soul’s qualities: kindness, courage, truth, love… all through flesh and bone.
Spiritual practice: Spend conscious time with your body. Speak to it. Tell it what you feel. Then listen for what it wants to communicate back to you. Notice what feels harmonious and what feels stormy in your relationship.
Self-inquiry: How receptive is your body to your desire for it to embody the spiritual qualities you seek to live?
Prayer:
Dear God, for the gift of my body, I am grateful. Help me to be a steward of it who pleases You. Amen.
