THE BODY DIVINE

By Heather Fraser

I love the thought of my body being a divine instrument. It makes me feel as though music is being played through me, like a flute, or an entire symphony orchestra at times. But I don't always treat my body as such, and so...just more nurturing compassion to be had. I'll get there...eventually...perhaps when coffee and chocolate become extinct! I'm learning though, that what I do to my body, is also affecting the Great Earth Body upon which we live.

Learning to awaken to our natural divine body requires attention. Just like the daily ritual of a cleansing shower or bath, to nurture, adore, and care for our body is to recognize its divinity.

This the ancients did through rubbing their bodies with healing oils, adorning themselves with precious jewelry, bathing in waters scattered with fragrant petals, dancing ecstatically with the divine, feeding it with nourishing foods prepared by loving hands, and engaging in holy acts of sacred sexuality. These were not indulgent rituals saved only for a special occasion, for the ancients knew something that we have so long forgotten….that our bodies feed the body of mother earth, and visa versa.

It is no accident that we were designed with feet to walk upon this earth. From the infinite Oneness above, this energy pours in through the top of our heads. From the magnetic core of the center of the earth, we are anchored here and fed these grounding energies up through our feet. Both energies meet in the middle, at our heart center, where they blend as One, then divide again to form a continuous loop, a never-ending delicious dance between heaven and earth.

Without our body how would we experience ourselves on this planet, or could we? We did choose to have this earthly experience for a reason. We wanted to know what it would feel like to be physical. And of all the infinite possibilities of unknown realities we could have chosen from, there truly is none other than this earth's perfect playground to do just that.

So, while it is a physical experience to pollute our bodies and our earth, it is also a physical experience to have honor and reverence for our bodies and our earth. What we give to one, we are giving to the other. I wonder what would happen if we knew Love had no opposite, and we gave only that?

What if we loved and cherished our bodies, these precious vehicles, to such an extent, that along with heaven and earth nourishing us, WE began the reciprocal dance of nourishing heaven and earth? I think this is what unconditional love feels like.

What we give to ourselves ripples outward in untold waves of either love or fear. Never again can we believe that what we feel isn't having a profound effect on creating the world we live in, and it is only with our bodies that we can begin to experience the immense capacity we have been given to feel pleasure, to feast on and ignite our senses with the rich and sensual banquet of life that this earth has to offer us.

The best news is, our bodies can be so very forgiving. Once we begin loving it, moving it, honoring it, revering it, and all that that means from healthy nourishment, to a daily self-massage with fragrant oils, to laying it down for a quiet moment of rest, or entwining it with another in an act of holy communion, we will begin to feel and see a reversal of heavy, stagnant energy.

I can remember the first time, about ten years ago, when I allowed myself to freely move my body and dance with the Divine. I had signed up for a workshop called Soul Dance. I knew nothing about it except I loved the name. I was scared to death, so much so that my girlfriend and I went in holding hands....we were 38 year old adults! I had never done anything like this before, and yet it took me but five minutes, after the music began, to become completely and utterly at one with myself and everyone around me.

Every fear and inhibition left me as I danced. I was shocked at how free I felt and how little courage it took for me to let go and move. The music awakened something within me that had been aching to get out for a long time. My body became my voice, my expression of every beautiful and every hateful thing I had ever repressed or denied. At times I felt like a goddess — powerful and sensuous, my body fluid, flowing and seductive, and a sorcerer — wicked and evil, my body shaking, pounding and angry, also a child — wounded and hurt, my heart sobbing and vulnerable, my stomach retching.

I'm not sure what connected me so deeply to this form of self-expression. All I knew is that I felt like I was dancing with God, but what was really happening of course, is that I was dancing with my Self. There was nothing left inside of me that day. I felt cleansed, exhausted, connected and lighter. I had dumped a heavy load, all of it graciously accepted and transmuted into love and given back to me. That day was clearly one of those defining moments in my life, when I began to understand how real life happens, in and with, a conscious connection to the body.

This is no different than what the ancient ones did to purify and cleanse through ritual dance. They knew what stories their bodies could tell, and they knew how vital it was to tell those stories.

To remember that our bodies are a vital, living, intelligent organism that thrives on love, adoring attention, and conscious connection, is to understand how all things thrive. To awaken to these memories is to claim the power of our "physical-ness"- our ability to live with attention in the moment, with whatever our body is experiencing, the very vehicle through which our creative life force flows.

As we learn to love our bodies and to listen to the wisdom of it's messages, we begin a new intuitive relationship not only with ourselves, but the world body as well. The body divine is the only make and model we're privy to while we're here. The more we love and adore it, the more pleasurable and sensual experiences we allow it have — the sooner our discovery will be of just how much an intimate, wise and intuitive companion we have in our body, the very vehicle that we came in with — and the one that will eventually escort us out.

Copyright 2010 Heather Fraser — www.sacredscribe.com You may make copies of these articles and distribute in any media as long as you change nothing, credit the author, and include this copyright notice and website address.

About Heather Fraser

About Heather: Heather Fraser has given up all professional titles, labels, definitions, and any illusions of specialness of who she thinks she is. She now lives in a state of what she likes to call The Beauty of Being, where she is transforming and empowering lives through the art and practice of simply being one with life.

You can contact Heather through her website at www.sacredscribe.com