I’ve been on a stint of very early morning awakening lately.  Generally, this comes in handy, as I practice yoga around 6 in the morning and I despise waking up to the sound of an alarm, no matter how I dress it up with soothing ringtones from my phone.  For all that my ringtone is called “Walk in the Forest,” all it really means to me is that I am waking up in an abrupt manner.  This particular morning, I woke up at 4:45 and continued reading Jack Kornfield’s excellent book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.  In chapter 12, Kornfield is exploring the ideas around the physical body, and the tendency people have in or out of spiritual traditions to either glorify or mortify it.  In this section, he quotes from a writer named Eduardo Galeano:

The church says: The body is a sin.

Science says: The body is a machine.

Advertising says: The body is a business.

The Body says: I am a fiesta.

Now, imagine that!  What if we could stop being at war with our bodies, and just enjoy the fiesta?  This doesn’t mean to elevate the body as something to be worshipped (we have plenty of that here in America), but what if we could celebrate ourselves, here and now?  Celebrate here and now, in the body that you have this day.  Just think–what have we ever gained through self-loathing?  Let’s make it a fiesta, people!