The Growing Awareness of our Bodies

We come into this world blissfully unaware of these fragile, beautiful things we call our bodies. In our mother’s womb, we bathe in continuous warmth and nourishment, changing shadows and muffled voices, not knowing where our mothers end and where we begin. We are one. We are whole. Out in the bright, chilly world, most of us pass through childhood in a similar ignorance of unmediated bodily immediacy.

We reach out to touch, smell, and taste all the blankets, fingers, dirt clods, oranges, chair legs, and windblown leaves we encounter. Our bodies move and grow, and sometimes get hurt…