Sensual Nutrition – Body Freedom

Your body is a remarkable gift from the Creator, a vehicle through which the spiritual can experience the material; that is what a body is for. As spirit in physical form, you can celebrate and explore the sensory joys of this gift. Come to your senses—all of them. Absorb right here, right now what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Direct sensory stimulation is nourishment for your body, sensual nutrition, another kind of food without which it cannot thrive and be free. The freedom of the senses is the freedom to experience pleasure and feel desire, to know you are truly alive.

Body Freedom enables you to behold and be warmed by the brightest light of all, the consuming light of love shining from your sweetheart’s eyes. It allows you to revel in the husky whispers and throaty moans that are music to a lover’s ears. To freely devour succulent kisses from pouty lips tasting of fruit and honey. To sniff hungrily and absorb the distinctive scent that is uniquely your beloved’s. To touch and touch and touch with fingers, palms, lips, and tongues, then to lie at ease in each other’s arms, safe, secure, sympathetic, blessed….

Sadly, you might not perceive your body as a biological marvel, a sensory gateway, the temple of your soul. Like many, you might have forgotten your Body Freedom, been indoctrinated to view your body as ugly and sinful, a prison that will never be beautiful enough or strong enough, will never measure up no matter what you do, that constantly betrays you with its shameful desires and ultimately keeps you separate and lonely. All bodies are naturally beautiful because they are the earthly home of your eternal soul, but this is not likely the message you most often hear. Your body perception is under attack on multiple fronts. For instance, many religious teachings perpetuate negative body images, either decrying the body as unclean and shameful or dismissing it as a distraction from higher purposes. If you want spiritual purity, you are exhorted to ignore your body’s wants and wishes.

From a commercial perspective no body is ever quite beautiful enough. You are bulldozed into seeing your physical self as an ongoing renovation project. From skin tone to hair color, from breast and penis size to length of leg and girth of waist, from laugh-lines to crow’s feet, there’s always room for improvement. Under continued social pressure you might come to see your body through tainted eyes, developing an emotionally and physically damaging dissatisfaction with your natural form. You might give yourself and others self-sabotaging messages that continue to erode your Body Freedom.

Desire for the “perfect” body might lead you into life-threatening eating disorders as it has about seven million women and one million men in the United States. Or it might entice you into the cosmetic surgeon’s office for procedures ranging from botox injections to chemical peels, from liposuction to breast augmentation, from hair transplants to facelifts. Cosmetic procedures are multiplying by leaps and bounds. In 2004 alone, American cosmetic surgeons performed more than 11.9 million procedures, up 44 percent from 2003 and a whopping 465 percent increase from 1997. Perhaps you might even be tempted to join the ranks of the thousands in both the United States and Britain who apply to be a contestant on reality shows such as “The Extreme Makeover” or “The Swan.” These very popular television series (almost 11 million people watched the 2004 season finale of “The Swan”) feature the ultimate in body redesign, employing teams of specialists—plastic surgeons, eye surgeons, cosmetic dentists, hair and makeup artists, stylists, and personal trainers—to radically alter the participants’ appearance. The premise, as outlined on ABC’s website, is to give participants “a truly Cinderella-like experience by changing your looks completely in an effort to transform you life and destiny, and to make your dreams come true.”

People try to make their bodies beautiful so that others will love them, admire them, reward them, and accept them. It would be better to learn simply to love your body and so to become free and loveable in it. However, it’s often easier to blame your equipment and try to make it conform to someone else’s ideal than to learn about it, to listen to it, and to honor it for yourself.