its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.Many of us are told as children that our bodies are temples of God, houses of the Holy Spirit, and that within our very beings exists a spark of the Divine Itself. Following this joyful pronouncement, we learn that our bodies are dirty, shameful, not to be touched, enjoyed, played with. We’re taught to deny ourselves pleasures, to fight temptations, to hold back, go without, resist carnal connection.

The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas ? Kempis, was first published 500 years ago and remains in print today. It has been translated into nearly every language and has a reputation as being second only to the Bible as a guide and inspiration. In the latest version, we read: “Sometimes you must use violence and resist your sensual appetite bravely. You must pay no attention to what the flesh does or does not desire, taking pains that it be subjected, even by force, to the spirit. And it should be chastised and forced to remain in subjection until it is prepared for anything and is taught to be satisfied with little… You must know that self-love is more harmful to you than anything else in the world. You should give all for all and in no way belong to yourself.”

It was this contradiction, this kind of training, that kept me confused and disembodied for the better part of my life. I grew up reading The Imitation of Christ every night before bed, from age eleven through thirteen. I was trying to be as good a Catholic as I could be, and I thought if I read that book I’d end up being more Christ-like. But its message only helped me sever my soul from my body, kept me from tuning in to its urgent, loving messages, fortified a fear that all light was outside me and all darkness within.

It’s not specifically a Catholic upbringing that will do this, for this mentality pervades our whole culture and it has for hundreds of years. Cultural anthropologists tell us that there was a time when humankind honored its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.

ago and remains in print today. It has been translated into nearly every language and has a reputation as being second only to the Bible as a guide and inspiration. In the latest version, we read: “Sometimes you must use violence and resist your sensual appetite bravely. You must pay no attention to what the flesh does or does not desire, taking pains that it be subjected, even by force, to the spirit. And it should be chastised and forced to remain in subjection until it is prepared for anything and is taught to be satisfied with little… You must know that self-love is more harmful to you than anything else in the world. You should give all for all and in no way belong to yourself.”

It was this contradiction, this kind of training, that kept me confused and disembodied for the better part of my life. I grew up reading The Imitation of Christ every night before bed, from age eleven through thirteen. I was trying to be as good a Catholic as I could be, and I thought if I read that book I’d end up being more Christ-like. But its message only helped me sever my soul from my body, kept me from tuning in to its urgent, loving messages, fortified a fear that all light was outside me and all darkness within.

It’s not specifically a Catholic upbringing that will do this, for this mentality pervades our whole culture and it has for hundreds of years. Cultural anthropologists tell us that there was a time when humankind honored its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.

red for anything and is taught to be satisfied with little… You must know that self-love is more harmful to you than anything else in the world. You should give all for all and in no way belong to yourself.”

It was this contradiction, this kind of training, that kept me confused and disembodied for the better part of my life. I grew up reading The Imitation of Christ every night before bed, from age eleven through thirteen. I was trying to be as good a Catholic as I could be, and I thought if I read that book I’d end up being more Christ-like. But its message only helped me sever my soul from my body, kept me from tuning in to its urgent, loving messages, fortified a fear that all light was outside me and all darkness within.

It’s not specifically a Catholic upbringing that will do this, for this mentality pervades our whole culture and it has for hundreds of years. Cultural anthropologists tell us that there was a time when humankind honored its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.

, and I thought if I read that book I’d end up being more Christ-like. But its message only helped me sever my soul from my body, kept me from tuning in to its urgent, loving messages, fortified a fear that all light was outside me and all darkness within.

It’s not specifically a Catholic upbringing that will do this, for this mentality pervades our whole culture and it has for hundreds of years. Cultural anthropologists tell us that there was a time when humankind honored its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.

its oneness with the natural world and lived in peaceful, full-bodied harmony with nature. During the time when the Goddess, the Mother, was honored as the source of life, fertility and abundance, there is no evidence of warfare, no weaponry, no relics of battle. But there are statues made in the image of the Mother, figurines of fabulously abundant bodies with huge breasts and hips, the image our early brothers and sisters had of the One they looked to in praise and supplication.

But as broader social organization developed, as religion became codified in language and in hierarchy, and as the intellectual became dominant over the physical, we began to separate our souls from our bodies. We forgot we were sparks from the same Flame, waves of the same Sea, that as much as the Divine is around us, the Divine is within us, experiencing Itself through every sense in our bodies. The journey of our lives is a journey of remembering and reconnecting. It is a journey of joy and discovery, a chance to feel and reveal the Radiance Within. The spiritual path leads inward, for the Beloved dwells there in every cell, like the oak in the acorn, the jewel in the mine. The Great Secret within us is waiting to be told through the living of our lives, waiting to be shared through the pleasures of our senses.

We need to climb back into our bodies and honor them as instruments of our souls. They are the means through which the Divine takes shape in this world, crucibles in which the raging blaze of Spirit is transformed into luminous thought, radiant creations, enlightened action. We are the Word made flesh, and through our bodies, we are continuing the creation of the universe, physically and metaphysically. It is not happening to us, but through us—and the meaning we’re seeking, the deep joy and passion we’re after, the enlightenment we long for, all this arrives as we begin to re-pair what cultures and creeds have torn asunder.

In the process of divining our bodies, we embody the Divine as the mystics did. We feel the Beloved in every cell, sense the Sacred One in every heartbeat, every touch, every image our eyes encounter, every sound our ears behold. Transcending duality, we shift from a sense of “self” and “other” to a sense of self in other. When we embrace the Divine within ourselves, it becomes natural to find and love the Divine in others. It is our nature to do this. If