For longer than centuries it has been worshipped, seen as a source of delight and pleasure, immortalized by great artists, subjected to indignities and abuse, pain and pleasure, a prison of the soul, a temple. To the creative a distraction to have to care for. It sleeps, eats, works, plays, reacts to outside stimulus. It can be a puppet to obsessions and addictions, a vehicle for a gamut of emotional displays from enthusiasm down to apathy, a victim of a multitude of other impingements from outside sources and can be considered beautiful or ugly.
If you’re reading this, you have one. Well, what is it? It is something that you keep going. You feed it, sleep it, clothe it, work it, play games with it, take it places, walk it, run it, rest it and so on. The big question is, Is it YOU. You may say, “Of course it’s ME!”
It is a calling card, an identity. And what would be a surprise to most: It’s a carbon-oxygen engine that runs at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. You may say, “If this is true, who runs it? Who provides the wit, imagination, intelligence to keep it surviving, to make it work, play, dream, create, solve problems, etc.?” Something you have known all along but may have hidden it from your cognizance, your realization.
Let’s back up a bit. Have you ever seen a dead body (human or animal) and noticed something missing? That something is what kept that body alive and animated. Call it the soul, spirit, spiritual being, life force. That is what kept it alive, playing the game of its life. It wasn’t the body doing it. The body is laying there with nothing to animate it. It’s no longer being used as “the temple”. No one is home.
To go back to the questions: It is simply YOU. You are not your body. You are immortal.
If you grant to yourself that you know this and have known it all along, maybe life could be different in a good way.
(c)2010. All Rights Reserved. Anne Fewell
