This is such a tender, thoughtful meditation on the body, thank you for sharing it. Your words invite a quiet softening, a return to presence, and a deeper listening beyond conditioned beliefs. I felt a deep resonance, especially in how you describe the body as an expression of loving awareness rather than something to fix, control, or escape. What a gentle and profound reorientation. Reading this felt like an act of care in itself.
I will share the long version. Please let me know if it’s too many words. I will remember for the future. Here goes:
This piece reads like a quiet pilgrimage, and the artworks you chose for each movement deepen that journey rather than illustrate it.
What’s so striking is how precisely the artworks don’t illustrate the text, they metabolize it. Each image carries the same inquiry the writing is undertaking, but through symbol, scale, and posture rather than language.
Belief
The human form rendered as lines, with a tree embedded in the torso, immediately situates the body as something inscribed rather than autonomous. The downward gaze, the dejected posture, suggests internalized judgment, beliefs grown deep and rigid, like roots that no longer feel chosen. The tree is not yet vitality here; it is history, lineage, inherited structure. The body appears burdened by what it has been taught to hold, mirroring the article’s confrontation with centuries of bodily repression and the belief that the body is something to manage, correct, or endure.
Sensation
The second image marks a radical shift: the body becomes animated from within. The kale-as-brain is almost disarming: earthy, nutritive, alive, undermining the mind’s dominance and reframing cognition as something organic rather than abstract or controlling. The butterfly in the chest introduces fragility and transformation at the emotional center, while leaves and branches move freely through the body, no longer confined. This mirrors the article’s attention to sensation without narrative: the body not as problem, but as a living field where stress, pain, and release are processes rather than failures.
Unknown
In the third artwork, the body’s primacy dissolves. The human figure is no longer central but contextual, one element within a vast expanse of trees. Standing on concentric red circles, the figure occupies a liminal threshold between form and formlessness. The circles suggest perception, awareness, or energetic patterning rather than physical ground. This correlates directly with the article’s inquiry into boundary: where does the body end, where does the world begin? The image visually enacts unknowing, placing the human within a larger intelligence that cannot be contained by identity.
Love
The final image resolves not by conclusion, but by release. The mountain and waterfall evoke permanence and flow simultaneously; form and movement held in harmony. The human figure is small, seated, no longer striving to define or control. Framed by trees, the body returns to belonging rather than separation. This mirrors the article’s realization that the body is not an object to master but an expression of loving awareness itself. The scale shift is crucial: love is not located in the body, but the body is held within love.
Together, the artworks trace the same arc as the text: from burdened identification, through embodied sensation, into unknowing, and finally into intimacy with what is. The visual and written elements speak in the same register: quiet, rigorous, and compassionate, inviting the reader not to understand the body, but to rest inside the mystery of being one.
Thank you for this text! It's the same process I've been going through for a few years now, and it's reassuring to know that in different corners of the world there are still people who feel the same way...
Hello there, this has been my meditation prompt for this morning. I feel my shoulder pain soften and my breath relax. I love the pics. They express what I sense. Thank you for this post.
Love your view of the elephant! You're words are meaningful - The body isn't separate from love 🫶🏻
I have found, and it's not contrary to your piece, that "controlling" the body has given The Self more freedom - by mastering the body, one is able to utilize any power it may have.
This is such a tender, thoughtful meditation on the body, thank you for sharing it. Your words invite a quiet softening, a return to presence, and a deeper listening beyond conditioned beliefs. I felt a deep resonance, especially in how you describe the body as an expression of loving awareness rather than something to fix, control, or escape. What a gentle and profound reorientation. Reading this felt like an act of care in itself.
Thanks for sharing this reflection 🙏
Gentle Heart, your writing deepened my inhale and slowed my exhale. Exquisite. Thank you.
I love this! Would you like a loonnggg comment or an edited one? I thought I should ask…
Glad to hear it resonated for you. Feel free to share whatever you like.
I will share the long version. Please let me know if it’s too many words. I will remember for the future. Here goes:
This piece reads like a quiet pilgrimage, and the artworks you chose for each movement deepen that journey rather than illustrate it.
What’s so striking is how precisely the artworks don’t illustrate the text, they metabolize it. Each image carries the same inquiry the writing is undertaking, but through symbol, scale, and posture rather than language.
Belief
The human form rendered as lines, with a tree embedded in the torso, immediately situates the body as something inscribed rather than autonomous. The downward gaze, the dejected posture, suggests internalized judgment, beliefs grown deep and rigid, like roots that no longer feel chosen. The tree is not yet vitality here; it is history, lineage, inherited structure. The body appears burdened by what it has been taught to hold, mirroring the article’s confrontation with centuries of bodily repression and the belief that the body is something to manage, correct, or endure.
Sensation
The second image marks a radical shift: the body becomes animated from within. The kale-as-brain is almost disarming: earthy, nutritive, alive, undermining the mind’s dominance and reframing cognition as something organic rather than abstract or controlling. The butterfly in the chest introduces fragility and transformation at the emotional center, while leaves and branches move freely through the body, no longer confined. This mirrors the article’s attention to sensation without narrative: the body not as problem, but as a living field where stress, pain, and release are processes rather than failures.
Unknown
In the third artwork, the body’s primacy dissolves. The human figure is no longer central but contextual, one element within a vast expanse of trees. Standing on concentric red circles, the figure occupies a liminal threshold between form and formlessness. The circles suggest perception, awareness, or energetic patterning rather than physical ground. This correlates directly with the article’s inquiry into boundary: where does the body end, where does the world begin? The image visually enacts unknowing, placing the human within a larger intelligence that cannot be contained by identity.
Love
The final image resolves not by conclusion, but by release. The mountain and waterfall evoke permanence and flow simultaneously; form and movement held in harmony. The human figure is small, seated, no longer striving to define or control. Framed by trees, the body returns to belonging rather than separation. This mirrors the article’s realization that the body is not an object to master but an expression of loving awareness itself. The scale shift is crucial: love is not located in the body, but the body is held within love.
Together, the artworks trace the same arc as the text: from burdened identification, through embodied sensation, into unknowing, and finally into intimacy with what is. The visual and written elements speak in the same register: quiet, rigorous, and compassionate, inviting the reader not to understand the body, but to rest inside the mystery of being one.
I appreciate the depth of your insights into the images. You have a beautiful sensitivity. Thank you for sharing. I bow in gratitude 🙏
No need for bows—your work carries its own grace. I’m just glad to have walked alongside it, even for a moment.
Your commentary is so beautiful to read as you go through image by image.
Thank you. 🙏🏽
This piece was wonderful. It spoke so much of what I believe. Thank you for writing in such a beautiful way.🧡
🙏
Thank you for this text! It's the same process I've been going through for a few years now, and it's reassuring to know that in different corners of the world there are still people who feel the same way...
Hello there, this has been my meditation prompt for this morning. I feel my shoulder pain soften and my breath relax. I love the pics. They express what I sense. Thank you for this post.
🙏
Love your view of the elephant! You're words are meaningful - The body isn't separate from love 🫶🏻
I have found, and it's not contrary to your piece, that "controlling" the body has given The Self more freedom - by mastering the body, one is able to utilize any power it may have.