3.30.2010

Spring Equinox... The Body As A Temple... More Food For Thought

I'm a people watcher by nature. I dig how technology has made that easier for me, via Twitter and Facebook. I like to watch trends and see how humans naturally react alike during different times of the season and Moon. For example, I pick up real easily when the Moon is about to change because everyone's statuses change and people begin reacting accordingly.

These past few weeks, I've seen a good amount of people really pay attention to their diet and exercise routine. Most have taken it up a notch, myself included - The Master Cleanse and recently having taken up running. Naturally, seeing this common trend, I looked up the Moon's path this week and checked the weather too! Feel free to call me a hippie about now (haha) because guess what: Spring Equinox occurred on March 15th!

The Spring Equinox is one of the four great solar festivals of the year. Day and night are equal, poised and balanced, but about to tip over on the side of light. In many traditions, this is the start of the new year. Last weekend's Spring Equinox, naturally brings a renewing and replenishing kind of energy, hence, everyone's sudden urge to get in healthy and back into shape. With my experience with body cleanses, its the Ayurvedic tradition in which this is the main times to do a full body cleanse, so it makes sense how Spring brings on this sudden urge to "shed the old" for anyone. This all brings me to my current thoughts for today about my body and how I care for her.

I feel pretty healthy, yet, my relationship with my body has never been my strongest relationship. For me it's not that I hate her, it's that I forget about her. Like I can go months without looking at my unshaven legs (lol), feeling my calf, or noticing that I have this appendage called an arm. I eat well, yet, I take my body for granted, as if she is always going to be there to be the workhorse I have always expected her to be. As an achiever I have driven her past the brink of exhaustion on many occasions to 'get the job done' and the truth is that I have treated her more like a piece of machinery at my beck and call than as the temple that she deserves to be treated as.

The other truth is that without her, I would be nothing. I don't exist on this planet without her. My spirit needs this form to be on this Earth. None of the passions, missions, dreams I have can be accomplished without her. And although I like to think that I am in charge of her, the truth is that very quickly, if I don't adore her the way a temple deserves to be adored, she will be in charge of me, and I won't be able to do a darn thing about it.

Last month for example, I was extremely slowed down with a crazy case of bronchitis/ pleurisy. I blame myself for that one actually. I had spent months going back and forth between low and high elevations, hot and cold climates - without properly resting every time I felt "under the weather" or exhausted after each Flagstaff to Phoenix trip. All that combined congestion settled into my chest. Even then, I refused to go to the doctor until the last moment when my left lung hurt and I could barely manage a breath out of it. I'm better now but wow, it really slowed me down in the end.

It makes sense. Just think about any time you didn't feel good physically -- from a canker sore to a cold to a much more serious condition - you were at the mercy of your body, and the only way to change the situation was to treat her well.

Well, what if we treated her well before she revolted and got sick?

What if we treated her well, despite our judgments on what she 'should' be?

What would it be like if we treated our bodies like temples, and everyday that was the lens through which we made choices?

Some more food for thought...

Be blessed...

1 comment:

meabfly said...

Love how you talk to the reader and then yourself. LOL just like you.