Identity and the Body

I read a book in the 90’s titled “Wholeness or Transcendence”I remember little more than the titleAnd having thought, “Transcendence. Obviously.”Transcendence was my spiritual path to unity with all of lifeAnd conceptually, I could get so closeBut the world and circumstances refused to cooperate.While striving for transcendence, I experienced distinct separation in my body“I” lived behind my eyes and “had” a bodyWhich, while handy for carrying my thoughts through space, rarely behaved as I wanted it toWeight, shape, gracefulness, abilitiesMy mind had notesWhat turned out to be fortunately for me, my body had notes for my mind, tooAnd sort of went on strike through physical disabilityWhich shifted the dynamic dramaticallyThe elusiveness of transcendence and the reality of life in a painful bodyMade me much more inquisitive about wholenessAnd over time, as my body morphed from servant to jailor to teacher to fieldIdentity went from centralized in my head to distributed throughout a dynamic systemI became more of myself. Literally.Intelligence is acknowledged more broadly and has more spaceAnd often, especially when a part of my body hurts quite a bitRecognizing it’s not the only thing happening in the body is quite helpfulAnchoring my sense of self in the multitudinous harmonies that keep me aliveHeart and lungs, stomach and liver, muscle and skeleton all coordinating like sections in an orchestraAnd the conductor, who I previously considered the thinking mindTurns out to be the pulse of life itselfMoving through this gift from earth and ancestorFluent in the ancient languages and the fragrance of the presentI believe the body reads the breath the way the mind reads a newspaperAnd would be fascinated to have cognitive understanding of the multitude of exchanges in each breathBut, it’s too much information for cognitionAnd just the right amount of information for evolutionary participationSo in expanding identification of self throughout the fullness of the bodyDistinction between self and world becomes more fluidI have come to experience identity as a relational exchange more than a structural constantAnd the more I play with itThe more I can notice subtle, unconscious tensing in my calfOr bask in the expansion in my chest when I encounter a flowerAnd how that echoes down to my toes and beyondIt feels ironic that the physical aspect of life which for so many years I considered an impedimentBecame my threshold This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com