In the Body – Head to Toe

_

It might seem a little strange to move from the sensual experience of last week’s exercise to this week’s topic: feet! But then one of Kahlil Gibran’s most quoted lines is: “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” . There is something quite lovely and even a bit romantic about feet when we think of them as bare – toes scrunching up sand or ruffling the grass. But in the normal course of things we don’t think much about feet at all. They are way down there at the bottom of our legs, as far from our brains as they can get: hot, sweaty, smelly, firmly encased, not a bit pretty, ugly even. Only when they are cold, wet, or hurt are they anything but the part of the body we are least aware of.

But being in the body means being in all of the body. Physically, our feet are indeed what connect us to the earth – an earth, Gibran hints, that is sentient; an earth that delights in us; an earth that wants us. Symbolically, feet also have great meaning. As Jungians are wont to say, our feet represent our under-standing…

Your creativity exercise this week is to walk – walk with awareness of your feet. Be conscious. Kick some leaves; stomp on the cold ground and feel the vibration rattle up through your body; if you live where you are not in danger of frost bite, take off your shoes….

Write about, sketch, paint your feet. (Use Exercise Two to begin.) If you want to have some fun with it so something like writing an Ode to your Toes. Just be aware of this oft-ignored part of your body.

As St. Theresa of Avila said in her poem “Christ Has No Body”:

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good…