Body, Mind, Soul

I've been thinking about bodies a lot. Thinking about how we're connected to them and disconnected from them, how we use them, how we neglect them, how they talk back sometimes.

Lately, I've been having eye twitches. Right eye. Not all the time, just every once in a while. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to it. It's bizarre. I've been telling other people that I have the twitch, and they've been telling me about their stress-related body quirks. Twitches. Headaches. Rashes. Amazing. Someone told me an eye twitch is bad luck, like a black cat. Some think it's about lack of sleep, others stress, still others accuse me of drinking too much caffeine. Regardless, it's very mysterious and distracting, and makes me feel mildly insane. Like I have Tourrette's Syndrome.

I am sick. Not really sick, just mainly sick in my right ear. (Geez, my right side is revolting!) The sinuses around it are clogged up, and my right ear feels all clogged and achey and weird. Oof. Leading up to this sickness: traveling 4 times in 3 weeks for work. Late night boogying. Working late. Man-related weirdnesses. Vagina Monologues rehearsing and performing. Even though a lot of this has been fun good stuff, it apparently wore my right ear out, 'cause it has rebelled. It is saying enough, slow down, sleep, eat, sleep some more, your dog misses you, and caffeine is bad for you. I think that's what it wants. Oy. I don't have time for this!

A friend of mine said he thought the Vagina Monologues made the mistake of equating women with their body parts. That makes me think of some really bad jokes - remember "synecdoche" from ninth grade English class? (Yes, I just looked that up.) Like "all hands on deck" means "all people on deck," except in this case it would be more like "all cunts on stage." Hah.

Anyway, more seriously, it also makes me think about a passage in Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and of course I don't have the book anymore to quote out of, but basically, the student makes some reference to his arm, and his teacher (who is trying to inspire him to martial arts radness) says, what are you that is separate from your arm? What is your arm if not you? You is you is you is body is mind is soul. It's all you, it's all one. Which sounds almost like absolute materialism, a belief that there is no existence aside from the physical body, no soul.

I don't think it means that, though, I think that teacher is saying something that VM might be saying too with all that "be my clitoris" stuff: that mind and soul and sensation and memory and thought and belief and passion and all that good stuff resides in the cells and chemical processes of our bodies. Our soul's geography is spelled out in DNA, in stomach linings, in twitchy eyes, in muscle contractions, in fluids and smells and the beautiful, beautiful harmony of it all working together in just the right way. They support one another, the body and the mind and the soul, and none of them can really be without the others. They're all part of one whole enchilada that is ME, and so I gotta take care of all of them, own every part of all of them as more than just mine, posessions, objects, but actually ME. I have to know that comfort & health & growth in one support comfort & health & growth in all three; that neglect or shame about part of one creates seriously negative ripples in the other two.

To live in one's head only, to look out from behind one's eyes at the world and to see one's own body as some separate apparatus, it's weird, isn't it? To be so disconnected from something that is not actually distinguishable as anything separate from you yourself?

Weird, but pretty common, I bet. There are days I never take a conscious breath or taste my food going down or touch another person or feel my pulse or consciously feel my feet on the ground, because I'm too preoccupied with thinking, talking, reading, writing, watching, listening, blah blah blah. All in the head, none in the body.

Indiana's a good cure for that, actually. Dogs are very physical, mostly in the body, want to be pet, want to be fed, want to be walked, have to poo, you know?

OK, I just found a Millman quote that I bet is from the same book as the scene I narrated so poorly above:

"Everything you'll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body."

Magic brilliant bodies! Mine knows how to sing and dance and type at warp speed. :) I promise to show it some love by laying off the caffeine and doing more yoga.