SELF-CARE | INNER GUIDANCE | SYMBOLISM

Do You Treat Your Body Like a Temple?

What does self-care mean to you?

Part of my self care is using the Kim Krans, The Wild Unknown Archetypes cards to explore my inner self through what these cards bring up.

Once or twice a month, I randomly select a card and let it guide me in self-refection. I always start with asking for guidance and direction on what I need to know at this time in my life.

On May 12, 2023, The Temple, also known as the sanctuary, the shrine, the altar was the card I randomly picked.

I looked at the green and yellow light filled triangle. The power of the praying hands. Leaves on both sides of the triangle, representing life and growth.

The triangle symbolizes strength, balance, truth, harmony, integrity. I thought of how it applied to me. If there was an area where I needed more balance. A place within me where something might be lacking. What did I need to address and possibly change.

Triangles are also a symbol of the Trinity in Christianity — three sides representing the Holy Spirit, Father, and Son. I was raised in the Christian faith, but do not follow any religion. Drawn instead, as an adult to Buddhism and spirituality. So, I do not connect a building with this card.

When we think of the temple, we often envision an architectural structure in a far-off land. We are quick to distance ourselves from the sacred, assuming we must expend much effort in order to arrive there. Yet the Temple is a universal and omnipresent energy, accessible in the highest and lowest, richest and poorest of places. The temple might be as simple as stepping into the dappled light of the Forest, slowly and sensuously kissing a lover, or closing your eyes to travel in inward.

page 141 The Wild Kingdom Archetypes Guidebook by Kim Krans

For me a temple is much closer to home. In fact, in my home. I consider my art studio and writing room the place where I connect with a higher power.

The guidebook further reads:

This card is a call to re-examine what you pay homage to and what you reject. What do you spend your time worshipping (your phone, money, material goods)? What barriers do you draw between yourself and the sacred?Perhaps there is room on your altar for something new, something surprising. Offer it to the heavens.

Over the years I have collected items for use in my spiritual practice: chants, crystals, essential oils, handmade scrolls, objects with special meaning.

When I think of something I have often rejected, my body comes to mind, and the need to treat my body more like a temple, which I have been working on more and more as I get older. Constantly reminding myself to eat well. Drink lots of water. Take daily walks. Get enough sleep. Appreciate and accept my body/container/temple.

Taking care of myself brought to mind a debate I had with myself at the end of last year. I spent a month trying to decide if I should purchase a new CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine for my sleep apnea.

I could buy a machine online for $1200 compared to the local shop here where it would cost $3000. It was such a huge difference in price. But ordering one online soon became a nightmare. Besides the shortage of machines there was the need for a prescription from a doctor. In Canada a prescription is needed for the purchase of a CPAP machine.

So, I made a doctor’s appointment and got the prescription, which was good for a year.

My hesitance about buying the new machine was the financial cost. I’ve never been good at spending money on myself. I debated waiting for another year. My machine was old but still working, but I feared it might stop and I’d have to survive for too long without one.

I’ve experienced nights without my machine during power outages. It’s horrible. I wake frequently. Snore. My mouth is dry.

All this internal debating made me question why I didn’t just spend the money. Did I not think myself worth it?

I tried to justify the expense by comparing it to things in the past. Like the high insurance premiums and fines my husband and I paid out over the years when he drank and was changed with drunk driving. Losing his license for years at a time. It had been such a financial burden to us as a struggling family. But that is all in the past. My husband no longer drinks. We are financially comfortable. We can afford the machine.

It was me! I was the only one making it a problem. The one who often refused to treat my body as a temple, and that was something I could work on and change. With that in mind, I phoned the local shop and ended my internal should I or shouldn’t I? After making that decision and taking action I felt much better.

That ability to do what’s best for me takes me back to when I was younger, to before I was with my husband. I’d like to tell that younger part of me to treat her body as a treasure. Not to give it away or trade it for what she thinks is love. That giving boys what they want will not make them love you.

I feel compassion for that young girl I was. Sorry how boys used her. How she couldn’t say no. Didn’t know she had a choice. She saw her life as: what else was a girl supposed to do? She didn’t know any better and I don’t blame her. She did the best with what she knew at that time. She’d been guided by the magazines and books she read of sexually uninhibited women, influenced by porn stars and prostitutes, such as Linda Lovelace and Xaviera Hollander.

I’d been a shy, insecure teenage girl trying to figure it all out. Sex and love all mixed up in my young mind. Learning the hard way about how boys treated you after giving them what they wanted. That boys didn’t want a slut as their girlfriend. That she’d be kept a secret behind closed doors just like the secret she’d always been.

Part of loving myself as the older woman I am now is loving all parts of myself. All those girls and young women I’d been still live within me. Within my body, my mind, my spirit, my temple. And I will love and honour them all.