hearthbeat

A couple nights ago, I stepped outside after my evening workout to cool down. In the shadow of my little home in the suburbs, I found myself gazing up at the stars as they shone like diamonds against the velvet blue canvas of the night sky. The breeze kissed my bare shoulders like a gentle lover. I stretched my arms toward the sky in praise and breathed in deeply the sweet night air. This was the recognition I had always hoped to find in my life: the connection between the mundane and the extraordinary, the physical and the metaphysical, the beat of my heart in tandem with the universe.

Then again, maybe I just overdid it on the treadmill.

I'm a couple chapters away from completing The Body Sacred by Dianne Sylvan and I can honestly say it is one of the most inspiring books I've ever read -- and I'm not even Wiccan. The author's approach in tackling the issue of body image to pagan women* is reminiscent of a chat you might have with a good friend over coffee; it's not sugar-coated, but it's most definitely worth taking to heart. Sylvan explores several archetypes of the Goddess and offers exercises and meditations one can use to gain insight into the goddess within.

I am so enamored with this book that I'm considering passing it on to one or two of my best friends once I'm through with it. Granted, they're not pagan, but they are open-minded enough to appreciate some good feminine power at work, bless them. Hopefully they won't mind the highlighted passages and notes in the margin.

* The book is written by a women, about women, primarily for women, so naturally the God isn't spotlighted as much as his divine female counterpart. However, he does makes a few unexpected cameos.