The life of the body

The life of the body never ends— this is why sensualists are always so damn cheerful. It goes on working down there in that city the soil, busy as a bodhisattva with 1000 arms or a leaderless hive of bees. The life of the body has its own directive: to reproduce, yes, but not only in the way we think. Consider the big- brained octopus, how its skin can change in an instant to match the color & pattern of the background into which it wants to disappear, shutting its eyes that do not see in color, that never sleep. The life of the body doesn’t end at our borders. It’s a kind of music that starts far below the pulse, reverberating in the vast spaces on either side of the present moment, punctuated with every length of rest.