Body Thoughts by: Andrew Strathern

"Body Thoughts" is a book which "takes its inspiration from an essay that quickly established itself as a classic in its field: "The Mindful Body" by Margaret Lock and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1987)." In it Strathern analyzes, from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay between the gross body, mind, spirit, and social body or body politic. The following excerpts are my highlights from the book.

"In the spirit of holism, which they have restimulated in social thinking, Lock and Scheper-Hughes begin 'from an assumption of the body as simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact, as both naturally and culturally produced, and as securely anchored in a particular historical moment' (1987, 7). We have to consider here what is meant by 'simultaneously.' Essentially, they are arguing that the body is a discrete entity that nevertheless carries separate meanings and aspects. It therefore becomes of interest to know not only what these separate aspects are but also, and perhaps more crucially, how they are related to or influence one another. They themselves distinguish 'three bodies,' by which they mean three semantic realms of representation and practice that use the image of the physical body as their locus of reference. The three bodies are the individual body, or the experiencing body in the phenomenological sense; the social body, in the sense used earlier by Mary Douglas, referring to the use of body imagery as a means of picturing social relations; and the 'body politic,' referring to the regulation of physical bodies by political and legal means (1987, 7-8)." (2)

"Once we recognize that there is a mental component in all bodily states and, conversely, a physical component in all mental states, the boundary between mental and other illnesses disappears. Here, then, is a benefit to be derived from the idea of the mindful body." (4)

Poetry

Untitled

For a moment--I dipped my hands
into the golden sunrise,
And feeling the warmth rise along
the horizon, presented myself for
its nourishment, all the while
Resisting the urging wind,
Denying the instinct to fly,
embedding new roots in Nature's flesh
And drinking happiness from her hand.

But now--I close my eyes...

Beginning a new moment in the
Absence of the sun, Where a
chill wind abrades my skin,
Attacking with icy fingers
the warmth that now recedes
along dying limbs.
Starving for Love's nectar.
Emaciated and broken.
No longer able to find you in the dark.

--Anon--

Boy's Life By: Robert R. McCammon

"We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves" (2).

Poetry

"Return me, oh sun,
to my wild destiny,
rain of the ancient wood...

I want to go back to being what I have not been,
and learn to go back from such deeps
that amongst all natural things
I could live or not live; it does not matter,
to be one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone which the river bears away."
--Pablo Neruda--

"Unto This Last" By: John Ruskin

"And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it seems that the kind of existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one; --consider whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future--innocent and exquisite; luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfolded. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be seen through tears..."

"Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior"

"Until we can perceive reality as it is, without all the extras, meanings, and complications, we slumber through our days, dreaming our lives away in a reality of our own creation." (13)

"How different might our own lives look if we could remember that within all the people we meet--no matter how irritating their personalities at any given moment--stirs a soul like our own, yearning for the light?"

"The ignorant are like stones and the wise are like water. Stones do not change, they only break or wear down over time. Yet water remains the same as it adapts perfectly to the shape of its container; even when moving from ice to liquid to gas, its essential nature remains." (32)

Random Quotes

"Let it not suffice to be book-learned, to read what others have written and
to take upon trust more falsehood than truth, but let us ourselves examine
things as we have opportunity, and converse with Nature as well as with
books."
John Ray, 1660, The Wisdom of God

"Forgiveness is a position of power because it frees you from being slave to oppressive emotions."
-Anonymous

"True love hurts, it always has to hurt."
-Mother Teresa

"We are changing--we have to change--we can no more help it than the leaves can help going yellow and coming loose in autumn."
-D. H. Lawrence

"In the midst of winter I discovered within me an invincible summer."
-Albert Camus