Be God's Body

Every woman's body is divine. Every man's body is divine. Be God's body, that is the answer. What was the question?

To honor God in your body is the most radical revolution. To honor God in another's body is political healing.

The gates of paradise are the portals of your flesh. You cannot transcend your body, but you can journey through it to the stars. Each atom is filled with the sky. Angels arrive and depart in your nuclei. Christ is born again and again at the core of a proton. No need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb: you were washed in the blood of your mother's womb. That was salvation.

The sacred practices of every wisdom tradition are techniques of Incarnation. They do not negate, but glorify, our human flesh. The bread of the Eucharist is the body of Jesus. Tribal shamans draw the Spirit from plants, animals, stones. Grace flows, not down from heaven, but up through the soles of the Qi master's feet. The whirl of a Sufi is body-meditation. Buddha's breath is lower than your belly button, in the Hara. The Tree of Life is your spine, growing in the paradise of your nerve garden. Chakras blossom here, on this tree, not in other worlds.

Esoteric paths are not as spiritual as the revelations of your flesh, yearning, sated, whole. All you need to bring to this body is Awareness. The journey beyond is a journey within. The journey up is a journey down, pilgrimage to the sacred mud between your toes. Your weight is a prayer. Gravity is grace.

You are a lightning bolt connecting earth and sky. Axis mundi, cruciform, the nexus of North, South, East, and West, your body is the radiance of the Dark Mother into form. Your body is a temple where angels meet their animal familiars, celestial gandharvas come to learn plant songs, and Holy Spirit glistens through the wish-granting prism of a dust mote. "Therefor glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:20).

Laugh, cry, dance, and meditate. The eye is holy. The nose is holy. Lips and tongue are holy. Holy the
clitoris. Holy the belly and buttocks. Holy each wrinkle of your skin.

The Goddess, who is the supreme power of creation, dwells in your body as this breath. Delight in Her.

Engraving by William Blake