Sophia's Temple

I used to be lush but at 14 ballet told me to be skinny. I thought ballet was a place for my tender heart to soar. Nope. It was a place where bodies were critiq...ued and sculpted, judged and talked about, made ready to sell tickets for shows. I ate 2 crackers a day until that didn’t work, my breasts had their own agenda. But the idea of shrinking left its mark and the river inside my spirit halted. I used to be lush till I had my first heartbreak, my longtime boyfriend got another pregnant. I was 19 and thought my world was dying because my world was him. I went back to 2 crackers a day. Repulsed by food. I used to be lush but the strip clubs pinched my waist taught me to tuck in the sensual skin that wanted to dance its own show. Macho managers were worse than the macho customers. I was replaceable. Dolls can be manufactured, painted red lips are always ready to go. Skin and bones. Slowly shedding flesh. Sick and dying from trying to be what the world wanted. When Carolyn Myss wrote take the knife you’ve been given and carve art, did she know that this set of directions would save my one precious life? I searched for meaning and found the things they shamed were gifts I needed to name. I had to stop ingesting the sick culture thinking it would feed me when it was made to poison. I began to hunt for my thread of meaning, stitch my North Star into the fabric of my path. At some point the words in my head stopped being weapons I cut myself with and the wounds became scars and the scars became signs and the signs pointed back to my soul. Now I stir thick stews with my hips, take ladles full of women’s stories, gather round the campfire to eat big portions of wild words and my belly is round and full. Like the moon. Christina Dunbar art credit: Goddess Mother of All, reflecting on the connectedness of all things. How the star dust is within & beyond us all, as the life force of Spirit is. by Christina Smith ThroughTheBuddhasEye