the body

yo body my body ... cue Ciara ;p

In my simplest terms, the body is a chain of cells confined by spacetime. It is experienced through the eyes of all that we know and all we have learned, with so much left to discover and its capabilities often undervalued. The body is the very vessel that holds the soul. It holds all we will ever need. It is a privilege to experience the body at its full capacity, a privilege not given to all and often remembered for what it provides rather than what it needs to prosper.

In its entirety, the human body contains a mouth that holds teeth and a tongue, which allow us to say the words that long to be understood. The body holds the eyes we hope will see the best in everyone, even when they are forced to see the truth. It has arms that hold a hug close, lasting only long enough before it gets weird. It has legs that walk you toward your future and allow you to retrace your steps when you are not quite ready to make it to the next one. The body is the vessel that sprints to the finish line because it holds the brain that thought it was the best decision, and it holds the heart that trusts it is.

The body is the vessel that connects us all.

My body allows me to feel a warm hand when I hold it and the touch of someone’s hair through my fingers. My body allows the touch of a palm on my face to send shivers up my spine and meet the butterflies in my stomach, sending a message to my heart that my brain has to overthink and my soul has to comprehend. My body allows a tight hug to sync our heart rates and my head to nestle into your shoulder. My body allows me to be as physically close as possible to you, so that our souls can feel aligned. A body allows a soul to console another soul through the physical realm when an organ system begins to fail.

The body allows us to visualize our emotions through instinct, trial, and error. It allows for the personification of passion, the tangibility of genius, and the physical representation of love in the ways we are trained to measure it.

Most importantly, the body holds the only thing we each experience entirely on our own, forever: the soul. Our souls are all we will ever know, completely and inevitably. The only truth we will ever truly understand. When the soul is in a body that recognizes its needs, the soul can finally be expressed in its purest form.