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Divining the Body: Reclaim the Holiness of Your Physical Self

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"The Divine, being invisible, needs our bodies to become manifest in the world...we have to abandon, once and for all, the erroneous, small-minded, sacrilegious notion that the body is evil and keeps us separate from the Divine." -From the book

For millennia, some forms of organized religion have taught that the body is the source of sin, temptation, and even evil itself-especially when it takes female form. The damage inflicted by patriarchal attitudes has created a culture of women who hate their bodies, and where parents give their children breast implants and liposuction as birthday or graduation presents. The cosmetics industry in America alone rakes in 8 billion dollars annually. Individuals allow their bodies to be sliced, stretched, lifted, tucked, reduced, or inflated so they can love themselves-or, more importantly, have the approval and love of others.

In her newest book Divining the Body - Reclaim the Holiness of Your Physical Self, author Jan Phillips explores the graceful curves, sinewy muscles, sturdy bones, and pulsating aliveness of the physical self. Using the latest scientific research as well as mystical traditions and personal experience, she puts the glory and magnificence of the human body on proud display. This insightful, gentle guide attempts to un-do the damage we've sustained from living in a culture that teaches-and thrives on-our self-hatred by renewing a sense of wonderment, respect and appreciation for the rich terrain of the physical body.

Phillips reminds us that the body is the "temple of God", and that the continuing creation of the universe happens through us as the "word made flesh". Indeed, energy medicine and quantum physics echo what mystics have known for eons: every thought and action we undertake directly influences the flow of our life force. Therefore, our well-being becomes a matter of mindfulness. This process of mindfulness is not the accumulation of facts, but the cultivation of feelings-for "there is nothing to learn, but much to unlearn."

Through exquisite prose and poignant stories, Phillips throws a sacred celebration and dares the reader to join in. She recounts the bliss of photographing birds roadside, and the excruciating pain of burning flesh experienced minutes later as a car hits her at 60 miles per hour. She shares the pain of being dismissed from a religious community, and the joy at discovering that the path she thought she was destined to travel was really a thru-way to something greater.

A breath-taking travelogue of the physical and metaphysical body, Phillips takes us on a tour of the feet, legs, hands, back, generative organs, belly, heart, breasts, throat, ears, eyes and brain. She deftly weaves scientific discoveries (such as those discovered at the Institute of Heart Math and the Max Planck Institute) with subtle-body observations ("Our throats are like the flue. When we don't open them up, speak our truths, blurt out our feelings as they arise, the fire within turns to smoke"), and challenges us to express our authentic self, discover our grandeur, claim our voice, and know our priceless worth that stems from within. Encouraging us to display "extraordinary heroism in the realm of the everyday", this revolutionary work:

"...calls us to take a stand. To stop colluding in the darkness of duality, to stop trafficking in negativity, and to let out, once and for all, over and over, the light within. To see through the veil of multiplicity to the kingdom of God within, we must act on the basis of what we feel and known from our own experience."

Divining the Body is peppered with a multitude of beautiful, profound quotes that are found throughout the text as well as the margins. Each chapter ends with a reflection, exercises, and a writing exercise aimed at re-connecting ourselves with a particular body part, promoting introspection, expanding perspectives, and igniting awe and gratitude for the Great Beloved that is in and around us. As "souls dressed up in sacred, biochemical garments", we're invited to see the body as a cauldron where alchemical transformation explodes into global transmutation. What's at stake, Phillips asserts, is life itself:

"...if we don't begin to find God in the bodies we see in the mirror, if we don't reel our God in from the heavens and honor God's holy presence in the flesh and bones in our neighborhoods, we're betraying ourselves and the Divine."

This book is a rare gem that nourishes, informs, and inspires. I've taken my time savoring (and highlighting) many passages in Divining the Body, and appreciate the timely message that Jan Phillips has delivered so artfully to the consciousness of humanity.

Divining The Body: Reclaim The Holiness Of Your Physical Self by award-winning author Jan Phillips is a spiritual self-help guide especially for women. Written to counter a negative culture of self-hatred by cultivating appreciation for the holy qualities of the physical body as God's temple, Divining the Body focuses on different physical parts chapter by chapter: the feet, legs, hands, back, generative organs, belly, heart, breasts, throat, ears, eyes and brain. Exercises and reflections offer means to dwell upon the sacredness in the body as a gift from God, and spiritual quotes in the margins from a wide assortment of authorities enrich this guide to life-affirming personal contemplation.

When I heard the title of Jan Phillips' new book, I thought of the word "divining" as a diviner finds water with a divining rod to know where to drill a well. I used the word myself in a poem I wrote calling "Divining Lake Louise," and in that context I was divining the truth. The Divine is also the Creator. In Jan's book, the word seems to apply to all the contexts: the well of wisdom inside us, the truth of our own authenticity and the Divine Creator inside.

At the beginning of the book, the author writes, "We need to climb back into our bodies and honor them as instruments of our souls. They are the means through which the Divine takes shape in this world, crucibles in which the raging blaze of spirit is transformed into luminous thought, radiant creations, enlightened action . . . In the process of divining our bodies, we embody the Divine as the mystics did."

As amazing as it is to be inspired by poets who lived long before our time (such as Rumi and Hafiz), it is just as inspiring to have Jan Phillips, a mystic in our own time, creating her own divine poetry. She ends her love song to the Divine with these lines: "So I am to you, Love, and you are to me. We dwell in each other, like salt in the sea."

There is a lot of damage to be undone as women have been bombarded with media images that have nothing to do with our divine selves, but only our outer shells. Jan goes a long way in helping us to heal those damaged selves. Reading this book was a journey of reverence through the sacred terrain of the body. Jan weaves her own story throughout the book that is full of research on the body. That weaving is evidence of her expertise as the information cited blends, as if effortlessly, with Jan's memories and the stories from women she has met in her workshops. Each chapter of Divining the Body has some questions for reflection and some exercises, including writing prompts.

Two years after Jan entered the religious community of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1967, she was dismissed as being a "radical." Her radicalism took her around the world on a peace pilgrimage, gathering stories and taking pictures. She wrote about that pilgrimage in "Making Peace." The peace pilgrimage, Jan says, became "an act of living prayer. It wasn't about changing the world or changing myself. It was about experiencing myself as an incarnation of a great force and being as true to my heart as I could be."

Another of her books, Marry Your Muse, was winner of the 1998 Ben Franklin Award. Jan also wrote God is At Eye Level: Photography as a Healing Art and Circling: A Guidebook for a Group Experience in Consciousness.

All of Jan's creations including her songs, photographs, documentaries, are from the heart and make her a "part of the ever-spiralling flow of creation." It's how she loves, shares her joy and it's how she knows who she is.

Jan's relationship to her body, particularly her back, changed dramatically when she was hit by a car that ended up on top of her. She was pinned under its exhaust system and received third-degree burns to her back and hip. The night before her skin transplant surgery she gave thanks for the back that had served her in so many ways. I found this section of the book very moving and yet Jan felt her "litany . . . stayed on the surface." She then received a healing from a physician friend who placed stones on each of the chakras in Jan's body. Jan came to believe that "it's this level of intimacy, this tender loving communication with our own vital energy, that enables and sustains well-being for all of us."

So as not to succumb to the outside world's "self-hating rant," we need to set up "rituals of self-love." Jan offers suggestions in the form of soothing meditations. Another idea is to throw a dinner party for a group of women friends with the theme of "Loving Our Bodies." A list of questions is provided so you can have women draw one at a time and give their responses.

Jan finds the Divine in the moment she takes a photograph for instance. It's a way of actualizing our potential and our ability to take a stand against violence. It's a way of activating our faith. Self-expression is also good for our health. Jan gives many examples of studies in her book including the work of neuroscientist Candace Pert. In Jan's words, "If we do not express our emotions and keep the energy flowing through systems, we are setting ourselves up for emotional and physical distress."

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Great book! I bought this on recommendation of a friend and love it. The book has some great new ways to reconnect with the space we carry around with us. Gave me a new appreciate all the wonderful different parts of me. I highly recommend it.

Jan Phillips has a most wonderful way of explaining this so that you really "get" it. I have been trying to understand these things my whole life...now I do!
Everyone should read this. It is written to a more female audience but most of the information is valuable for men too.

This book contained new information as well as reinforcing concepts I already knew. If refer to different pages often, as I feel a need to reinforce new beliefs. A futuristic book much in line with many advanced spiritual leaders.

I hoped for an exceptional, relaxing weekend; an opportunity to forget about work, war, murder, recession, betrayal, all the other craziness and simply read a peaceful and straight forward book. I picked "Divining the Body" based on the title, which carried simple peaceful message, and I am craving peace and simplicity.
Admittedly, the author wrote the book driven by honest feelings based on her own experience as a true "believer" and as woman, and for that I give the author three stars.

I struggled to assuage my strong disappointment in the time I wasted reading this book. I tried to appreciate the author's thoughts about sexuality, religious purpose, and the value of human body. The topics are important, the emotions invested are real and they came from a woman who struggled to make peace with her sexuality and appreciate her body, that said, I felt my little twelve years old already came to these conclusions. "Divining the Body" beats a dead horse and spends too much time on topics that are supposed to be common sense.

Most everybody gave this book, big five stars, and were thrilled by the spiritual peaceful journey they completed while reading this book. I'm happy for any positive human victory that was mysteriously accomplished by this book, but still amazed by the emptiness and pedestrian nature of it.