1.22.2004

Ladies, walk like you are moving through waist-deep water, through wet sand, walk like you are Aphrodite with pearls in her hair and eyes that can see into the hearts of others and love them still. Walk strong, like the woman of the mountain with her silver hunting hounds at her heels, balanced and poised and lifted and the energy flows into you from the ground.

Make a statement with your body because it is the only thing you have, the one thing that truly is yours, and there is no such thing as too short or too scrawny or too fat or funny shaped or ugly; wrinkles are the marks of travail and sunshine, scars are proof of life, stretch marks are maps of love, and callouses are hard work done well. You are beautiful. Breathe.

Be advised, ladies, that it is all in your eyes and your hearts, and the energy dissipates only if you forget about it. Remember too, that the body is a shape, and the most pleasing shapes are curves, whether they are big or small, whether it is that curve of the neck between your head and shoulder, the curve of your wrist and fingers, the curve that runs from the base of your ribs in towards your waist and back out over your hip. Some curves are secret, and deserve to be seen only by those who love you. Some curves are begging to be seen.

All curves move, and this is the magic and energy from within, your breath, your life, your soul. Take a quick breath and notice the depression where your neck and your shoulders meet, there in the center, the supra-sternal fossa, shaped deftly as by a thumb print in clay. With a fingertip feel the pulse of your heart, the blood that travels circular and continuous because all things want to be round, the yin and yang, pearls from the sea, the earth, the curves of your body.