People ask me how my leg is. It’s fine! It’s really too bad that a surgeon will be cutting into it as the “sun burn” is fading and new skin has been revealed after all the peeling. It’s my back that’s bothering me right now – or was recently.

That can be due to different things. I’m spending more time at the computer now and as I think it’s only going to be a few minutes to check email, I don’t sit properly. My legs are crossed and I’m sitting crookedly in my chair. Right now I’m sitting “properly” and the glasses I have especially for the computer work well so I don’t have to crook my neck to look through the bottom part of my graduated lenses.

Lack of stretching could be another reason. All of those things are related to the body and they’re all relevant. However, I think that this recent back tension is related to the mind. As we’ve been learning through the years, the mind and body are one and the same. A busy mind causes a busy body. (That’s a new use of the term “busy body.”)

My mind has been busy with: let’s get on with it. I’ve started planning writing circles for the new year and I’m thinking about various ideas, reading lots and assessing all those projects that are steeping. My body is saying, no. But what about all these ideas? Not so fast. One step at a time.

The November section of my We’Moon calendar has a piece by Lea Bayles called “Wild Wisdom.” I was enthused by her words and looked further into her work. Lea is someone who has suffered in the past from fibromyalgia and other afflictions. She says, listen to your body rather than overriding and ignoring her signals.

Put self-care at the top of your to-do list every day, Lea says. “Remember: the time you think you cannot possibly find enough time to rest and relax are the times you need it the most. Give yourself permission to take time to relax and rest.”

Say no to the things that are not a “full-bodied yes,” Lea says. That’s good advice that I want to remember when I don’t have the “excuse” of the effects of radiation treatments or preparation for or recovery from surgery.

I’ve kept a quote from Brian Self who wrote a book I reviewed called Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi (New World Library, 2012):

“Before every major decision, ask yourself, ‘Which choice feels right, is in line with my values, ignites my creativity and passion, and is an expression of my true self?’ ”

Other good advice is from Nancy Schaeffer of Waterloo, Ontario who wrote a book called The Body Means Well. “Even more important than telling the story is feeling the story, as it lives with you in the present time. You may have to keep reminding yourself that the pain you push away does not just disappear. It continues to cause internal stress and continues to influence the quality of your presence with those around you.”

When I’m feeling good, I tend to get into multi-tasking. Enthusiasm may keep me going but it’s really hard on the bodymind. I remember a friend from a Toronto women’s writing circle saying she missed the days of doing laundry with the wringer washer. Margaret suffered from chronic fatigue at the time so thinking back to those early laundry days reminded her of the benefits of one thing at a time. You couldn’t really do anything else but feed the clothes through the wringer and she appreciated having a closer relationship with each item of her family’s clothing as she hung it on the line.

It’s often illnesses or accidents that help teach us the lessons we need to learn. Poet/philosopher Mark Nepo found having cancer in his mid-thirties was “one of the great transforming passages” in his life. The experience “unraveled” the way he saw the world and landed him “in a deeper sense of living.” He says that “one of the mysteries of being human is that healing is a process that never ends. Transformation, even from a single event, can continue for Eternity.” And so he continues to be transformed by his journey with cancer which began in 1987.

“The press of crisis, illness, heartbreak, and grief make visible what’s essential to live. Somehow, our life-giving lessons are more easily seen through the press of difficulty . . . This is how we preserve what matters. This is how we create medicine out of our suffering,” says Mark Nepo.

I can’t help but think of Candace Pert, the author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Bodymind Medicine, who said, it isn’t “mind over matter,” an expression we sometimes use, it’s “mind becomes matter.” She was a neuropharmacolost who famously stated “Your body is your subconscious mind.” She did a lot of research and wrote about emotional memory being stored in many places in the body. “You acquire knowledge with your entire bodymind, not just with your brain,” she wrote in Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d (Hay House, 2006).

I was surprised to learn when I visited Candace Pert’s website that she died in 2013. (She was born in 1946.) Her website shows her ongoing legacy.

Lea Bayles says: “Befriend your beautiful brilliant bodymind. Talking to her with cruelty, and overriding her signals cut you off from your inner wisdom, pleasure and power.”

We do harm to ourselves when we ridicule our bodies. Women comics, especially in the past, based their stand-up routine on making fun of themselves. Poets too can poke fun at their aging bodies. Sharon Olds, as she looked in a hotel triple mirror wrote about “this compendium / of net string bags shaking their booty of / cellulite fruits and nuts.” (“Self-Portrait, Rear View” in One Secret Thing.)

Our bodies are wondrous temples that house our souls and reflect our suppressed memories and emotions. I’m in favour of remembering the miracles of the body and treating it with respect and gratitude. She’s gotten me through a lot. Here’s a poem I love that reads like a body blessing: “Glistening” by Linda Gregg.

As I pull the bucket from the crude well,
the water changes from dark to a light
more silver than the sun. When I pour it
over my body that is standing in the dust
by the oleander bush, it sparkles easily
in the sunlight with an earnestness like
the spirit close up. The water magnifies
the sun all along the length of it.
Love is not less because of the spirit.
Delight does not make the heart childish.
We thought the blood thinned, our weight
lessened, that our substance was reduced
by simple happiness. The oleander is thick
with leaves and flowers because of spilled
water. Let the spirit marry the heart.
When I return naked to the stone porch,
there is no one to see me glistening.
But I look at the almond tree with its husks
cracking open in the heart. I look down
the whole mountain to the sea. Goats bleating
faintly and sometimes bells. I stand there
a long time with the sun and the quiet,
the earth moving slowly as I dry in the light.