Post by Inspiration Station

This is a wonderfully inspirational post by The Inspiration Station : http://www.theinspirationstation.net/now.html

If not now, when? I have been doing a lot of thinking about the body, about the Earth and their intimate connection.I have been studying Clarissa Pinkola Estes book, this week focusing on the chapter 'The Joyous Body'. As ever her writing is enlightening and somewhat disturbing, shaking me out of passivity and into action. I am a strong supporter of women respecting and loving the body they are in. I believe it's important to refuse to give our power away to the insidious voices that tell us we should spend our precious energy trying to be what we are not. So many of us have got hooked into the trap of thinking, 'if I just loose 5lbs, I will be acceptable, if I try to look like that model I will be loveable." Dr Estes talks about this absurd obsession with one kind of female beauty: "To take pleasure in a world filled with many kinds of beauty is a joy in life to which all women are entitled. To support only one kind of beauty is to be somehow unobservant of nature. There cannot be only one kind of songbird, only one kind of pine tree, only one kind of wolf. There cannot be one kind of baby, one kind of man, or one kind of woman. There cannot be one kind of breast, one kind of waist, one kind of skin." I had an enlightening discussion with one of my wonderful wise workshop participants and we realised that though we understand the absurdity of robbing ourselves of the power of our bodies intellectually, we are not so good at applying the knowing, or really embodying it. We are both in our mid-life and realised, if we don't love ourselves now, when will we? If not now, when? When Effy Wild set us an exercise based on a photo of my own naked body, I felt a strong resistance, I wanted to shriek 'Eek! and scuttle down the nearest hole. Which of course meant I must do it! It was immensely powerful and moving to reclaim my own body, warts, wobbly bits and all. Writing deep affirmations of truth around a picture of myself felt like having the eyes of a safe accepting loving mother gaze on me, acknowledging the strengths,vulnerabilities, mysteries and miracles my body holds. I really believe their is a direct correlation between how we view womens bodies and how we see this precious Earth. Is is something to be carved up, tyrannised and enslaved, or is it something to be nurtured and revered, with all her beauty and mystery?