Yuletide Greetings
Tis that time of year again. The wheel of life, the wheel of nature has turned towards dormancy, rest and regeneration in the northern hemisphere. Nature’s movement is slowing down, taking a breather and preparing for the spring that will come. Our ancestors marked this time of year by the shortening days of the sun and aligned themselves in harmony.
Conversely, in modern Western culture, it is also that time of year to be overwhelmed by a juggernaut of holiday spending and celebrating. It’s an almost forced level of hurried activity.
At all times of the year, my focus is towards reinforcing body-centric practices and philosophies for myself and for the clients I work with. However, at this time of the year – the winter holiday season – it is paramount for us all to remember (literally re-member): being a body is primary.
What does that mean?
It means honoring your body and the seasons of your body. Honor your flesh in harmony with the restorative cycle in nature (winter in the Northern hemisphere). There are seasons of Eros. Eros is always with and in nature, never against or on top of nature.
This time of year it is especially critical to honor your own erotic body and spirit with mindful, physical attention. Eros takes many forms throughout the year, as does nature. Nature rests during this season. So following nature’s lead, bend your erotic spirits to soften any rigid goal-fixated, mechanical notions of your body. This is not a time to build 6-pack abs, lose weight, or frantically get in shape. This is a season for quiet organic bodily reflection, gentle restoration and slowly investigating your own flesh with ecstatic curiosity and enjoyment.
In this fallow season I encourage you to celebrate as nature does with restorative attention to your body. In this season explore your body’s warmth and textures; its strengths, its weaknesses; its fat and muscle; its rough spots and aches; its shivers and thrills, and most importantly its life-supporting erotic potential. Quite literally, feel your body – use your hands, feet, legs, face, chin and tongue to touch yourself. Reach around, stretch, bend, luxuriate – discover the primal aesthetic flesh of yourself. Don’t judge – just notice. Make the time. Take time.
Everything in nature takes an extended breath in winter. Temperatures drop, living things rest, all manner of dormant systems kick in quietly working in background (underground) preparing and restoring for growth to come. I encourage you to draw on the healing energy from your primal relationship with the earth, from nature. Acknowledge its regenerative powers through your attention and care for your own body.
Touch Comes
Touch comes when the white mind sleeps
and only then.
Touch comes slowly, if ever; it seeps
slowly up in the blood of men
and women.
Soft slow sympathy
of the blood in me, of the blood in thee
rises and flushes insidiously
over the conscious personality
of each of us, and covers us
with a soft one warmth, and a generous
kindled togetherness, so we go
into each other as tides flow
under a moon they do not know.
Personalities exist apart;
and personal intimacy has no heart.
Touch is of the blood
uncontaminated, the unmental flood.
When again in us
the soft blood softly flows together
towards touch, then this delirious
day of the mental welter and blether
will be passing away, we shall cease to fuss.
- D. H. Lawrence
