Meditation 37: Skin and Body

Think what it means to have a skin. We wear our skins as divers wear their wet suits.  It separates us from the surrounding world, gives us a sense of the "in here" and the "out there."  It means that we can be alone, and in fact that we are always, in a sense, alone. I am not talking just about being alone in a crowd, but an ontological separation.  It means that we can watch people suffer and die within their skins, but be unable to go inside with them.  It means we have to die alone, even if others are in the room with us. We can hold someone's hand, but that is skin upon skin, one outside touching another. It is as if, when we meet, we are unable to take off our gloves. A shield of skin gives us a place to hide, but also a barrier between ourselves and others.

Yet this does not seem to be the end of the story, for otherwise our lives would be dreary indeed. There are forces in the body that extend out beyond it, perhaps what is meant by a person's aura, perhaps a complex field of electro-magnetism. When two human bodies approach closely, these fields intermingle and together produce a single field whose borders do not stop at the skin. With some individuals it feels good to be close enough to feel the change of field, with others, not. 

How we live in our skins and bodies is affected by culture, habit and language.  Each of us walks around in a body space, and we tend not to think that the other's space begins right up against our own skins, though in some cultures touching, or a certain kind of touching, is more a part of the rituals of social intercourse than in others.  Some parts of our skins are more private and touchy than others. A shake of the hand, palm against palm, is acceptable, but touching someone's genitals in friendly greeting would likely be taken amiss.  Indeed, unless the toucher is from another planet, we would probably think it insulting or suggestive.

Formality and intimacy are shown in how the body energy fields and skin are used and lived.  We are projections of meaning, and our bodies and skins are signs and intentions. Most persons do not have to think about this very much, unless they find themselves in a land where different mores govern the uses of skin and body.  We read the signs effortlessly at home and are sometimes embarrassed abroad.  Luckily, we do not have to rely on body language alone, but have ways to project our thoughts and feelings in words that cross the space from skin to skin. 

There is a situation in which the ontological alienation of the individual is overcome, and that is in the embrace, the caress, and the touching of head to head. Now inside and outside are confused, and duality of self and other is, for a moment, transcended. This is one of the most blessed of human conditions, and is not identical with having sex, though it does not exclude it. One feels no longer alone, and this feeling, though insubstantial and fleeting, is the merging two beings into one.  Physical contact with another person is one of the great comforts of life, but also one of the most regulated.  Perhaps is must be this way, since our hectic and regimented lives mainly require us to live in our skins and keep our hands and bodies to ourselves.