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I've been thinking a lot lately about the mind/body dualism of the West: this idea that *we* -- our consciousness, our soul, our spirit, whathaveyou -- exist in our mind and our body is this kind of meat suit we're trapped in until we die. At which point what happens depends on your spiritual framework: our soul/spirit/consciousness goes to heaven or hell, or drifts about aimlessly in the world, or achieves some kind of gnosis, or disappears altogether.

But this dualism has led to us viewing our bodies as either sinful and vile at worst or benignly useless (spiritually) at best. Body becomes sensationalized: the source of sin, or a sensual commodity. Two sides to the same coin, really.

And this means that disassociation from body kind of becomes the norm. A dualism once rooted in pious religiosity becomes a convenient tool for colonial capitalism to exploit. We go about days completely ignorant to sensation: either avoiding the awareness of discomfort on purpose out of necessity, or unconsciously out of the complete unawareness of how to connect with it.

But what if we acknowledged that our body is divine, is *us* - or at least a very crucial part of us - is the vessel through which we perceive and experience divinity? What changes?

In my own journey the reclamation of body has been a critical step in finding agency, healing, accountability, sacred connection with other beings. It has shifted my perception of what it means to be human, to exist within a natural and collective framework. Because if my body is a divine vessel, so is yours, and theirs, and so on. Not only do we end up needing to acknowledge the value of consciousness, but of corporeality.

Which voids conceptions of a hierarchy of consciousness that enable us to devalue other beings: just because something might not be *as sentient* doesn't mean it is less *divine* or less *perceptive*. And a world of harmonious recognition and sacred accountability opens up where we honor the needs of our body and our agency as well as those of everything around us.

If you perform a thought experiment where you shift your perspective in this direction, what does this change in your life?