By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

STEPPING into the bathtub, she notices her body, her hands, her feet, as they moved, depending on her will. She touches her face, her neck, her breasts. There’s a difference now, she realizes. There was a time when she didn’t mind about specific parts of her body, rushed into the shower and went to work, totally oblivious of the state of her physical frame.

Today, there’s time to acknowledge the relationship of each part to the whole. For example, she realizes, that when she moves her left arm, there is a sharp sensation on her left face. She caresses it, gently, trying to avoid the flares that ensue with the slightest touch, avoiding the rigorous rub she uses on her other cheek. She checks her breasts, her breasts that prefer to hang free, without the bra that she believed caused some lumps decades ago. The lumps, scheduled for extermination by extraction, left their positions before the operation. They have not come back to claim their space, the way Israel occupied her alleged Promised Land, annihilating its host.

Her feet, her precious feet, although at times, preferring to just amble around the garden or dig itself with the sands on the beach, are gifted with the strength and speed of an African ostrich. This ability brings her to scale the top of hills and forests, whenever there’s an opportunity. Thank you, bones and muscles, she mutters to herself. Thank you, brain. Thank you, spinal cord, without which messages to and from the brain to all parts of the body can get haywire without proper alignment. Love you, my body. I embrace you, with all the unique flaws, scars, warts and misplaced cellulite.

Body love emanates from a philosophy that our bodies are sacred, and that they are temples of our spiritual being, and must therefore be treated with utmost respect.

 

Temple of the tempest (written 17 September 2021)

this body is the temple of my soul
how it dances, how it breathes
its violent storms
scorching fire,
its soothing water
its nurturing earth
its sounds and rhythms
effusive rhapsodies
its odor and taste
its texture – the rough
the smooth, the mounds
the creases and the folds
the shape, the color
the fullness of my lips
the words that form
and lay bare
are all of me, challenging
testing, pushing
the limits of the flesh
the shackles of time
exploring places and spaces
where my soul is truly free

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