Episode 4 - Embody Yourself Fully
“If you have a body,
you are an athlete. ”
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“
You think differently about your life in a strong body.
”
“I have received some little bit
about the glib divisions which
so lately have occurred to you
as right, as necessary, fit
That the body is something less
than honorable, say, in its
... appetites? That the spirit is
something pure, and—if all goes well—
potentially unencumbered
by the body’s bawdy tastes.
This disposition, then, has led
to a banal and pious lack
of charity, and, worse, has led
more than a few to attempt some
soul-preserving severance—harsh
mortifications, manglings, all
manner of ritual excision
lately undertaken to prevent
the body’s claim upon the heart,
or mind, or (blasphemy!) spirit—
whatever name you fix upon
the supposéd bodiless.
All loves are bodily, require
that the lips part, and press their trace
of secrecy upon the one
beloved—
Yes,
if you’ll recall your Hebrew word.
just long enough to glimpse in its
dense figure power to produce
you’ll see as well the damage Greek
has wrought upon your tongue, stolen
from your sense of what is holy,
wholly good, fully animal—
the body
...”
“I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea”
Episode Resources
Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown
The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
Short Trip to the Edge, by Scott Cairns
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