1 Love your beauty
Every living thing is beautiful. Most of us have been taught to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves,’ but not that this means to love ourselves too! In fact, we’ve been given a narrow definition of beauty. Beauty has nothing to do with our age, or our facial symmetry. Beauty is the energy of life force in our bodies, in everybody, that connects us to others. Love and beauty cannot be separated, for we cannot help but love that which we find beautiful. Life is meant to be enjoyed!
2 Nurture life
None of us would be here without the care, nurture and great generosity of our mothers and mothering figures in our lives. Life is a gift from our mothers, from our ancestors, from the evolutionary process, Mother Earth. When we understand life is a gift, we can begin to understand that caring for others should be an ideal for us all.
3 Trust your body
Have you been taught that your body is imperfect? Our bodies are ourselves, and they respond to pleasure and pain and communicate important information to our minds. When we are dominated, violated or punished, we close the connection to the wellsprings of knowledge our bodies offer us. Then we need healing therapies. We don’t have to act on everything our bodies tell us, but when we don’t know what our bodies are saying, we cannot act wisely.
4 Speak the truth
When we are in touch with the knowledge of our bodies, we say ‘no’ and ‘this hurts’. Being schooled to obey our parents, teachers and other authorities, we may learn to ‘shut up’, but when we keep silent, we allow ourselves and others to be harmed. When we live fully in our bodies, and when our bodies are connected to our minds, we will find ways to break the silence.
5 Take only what you need
Our culture is based on consumption, but in fact everything we eat and everything we buy is part of a process of ‘taking’ from others in the web of life. Indigenous traditions understood this. What would it mean if we as individuals and communities thought about what we really needed and thought about the lives of others too? Some of us would become vegans or vegetarians, some of us would work less and enjoy life more, some of us would give even more of what we have to others.
6 Repair the web
If life is meant to be enjoyed, why is there so much pain in our individual lives, why are so many people poor and hungry, and why is our world riddled with war? We have been told that suffering is necessary, that it is part of life. Some degree of conflict is inevitable in a world with more than one individual in it, but we human beings have created a great deal of unnecessary suffering ourselves. As John Lennon sang: ‘Imagine all the people living life in peace”. If we all dared to join together, we could create a different, better world for all of us.
1 Love your beauty
Every living thing is beautiful. Most of us have been taught to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves,’ but not that this means to love ourselves too! In fact, we’ve been given a narrow definition of beauty. Beauty has nothing to do with our age, or our facial symmetry. Beauty is the energy of life force in our bodies, in everybody, that connects us to others. Love and beauty cannot be separated, for we cannot help but love that which we find beautiful. Life is meant to be enjoyed!
2 Nurture life
None of us would be here without the care, nurture and great generosity of our mothers and mothering figures in our lives. Life is a gift from our mothers, from our ancestors, from the evolutionary process, Mother Earth. When we understand life is a gift, we can begin to understand that caring for others should be an ideal for us all.
3 Trust your body
Have you been taught that your body is imperfect? Our bodies are ourselves, and they respond to pleasure and pain and communicate important information to our minds. When we are dominated, violated or punished, we close the connection to the wellsprings of knowledge our bodies offer us. Then we need healing therapies. We don’t have to act on everything our bodies tell us, but when we don’t know what our bodies are saying, we cannot act wisely.
4 Speak the truth
When we are in touch with the knowledge of our bodies, we say ‘no’ and ‘this hurts’. Being schooled to obey our parents, teachers and other authorities, we may learn to ‘shut up’, but when we keep silent, we allow ourselves and others to be harmed. When we live fully in our bodies, and when our bodies are connected to our minds, we will find ways to break the silence.
5 Take only what you need
Our culture is based on consumption, but in fact everything we eat and everything we buy is part of a process of ‘taking’ from others in the web of life. Indigenous traditions understood this. What would it mean if we as individuals and communities thought about what we really needed and thought about the lives of others too? Some of us would become vegans or vegetarians, some of us would work less and enjoy life more, some of us would give even more of what we have to others.
6 Repair the web
If life is meant to be enjoyed, why is there so much pain in our individual lives, why are so many people poor and hungry, and why is our world riddled with war? We have been told that suffering is necessary, that it is part of life. Some degree of conflict is inevitable in a world with more than one individual in it, but we human beings have created a great deal of unnecessary suffering ourselves. As John Lennon sang: ‘Imagine all the people living life in peace”. If we all dared to join together, we could create a different, better world for all of us.
Article by
Carol P Christ
Director of Ariadne Institute
Carol P Christ is director of Ariadne Institute which offers two-week life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimages to Crete for women each spring and autumn (goddessariadne.org), and the author of Rebirth of the...
Discover more
Article by
Carol P Christ
Director of Ariadne Institute
Carol P Christ is director of Ariadne Institute which offers two-week life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimages to Crete for women each spring and autumn (goddessariadne.org), and the author of Rebirth of the...
Discover more
By Carol P Christ
