this body: from temple to meat sack to beautiful, strong, imperfect self

One of my nieces visited recently, and in the course of one of many discussions, we started talking about our upbringing and how that upbringing taught us to view our bodies. She mentioned that she had difficulty reconciling what she'd internalized with what she currently believed, and asked how I'd managed it.
The truth is, I still struggle with it. Twenty six years out (I've now been out of the church a decade longer than I was in it), and I still view my body on occasion with shame. We were taught our bodies were temples for our souls, and as such, should be thought of as god's house; so really, not ours at all. No piercings, no tattoos, no tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or dirty sex. Definitely no cleavage.
I have piercings, I have tattoos, I smoked cigarettes for a looooong time. I drink. Rarely will I smoke pot, but it happens. Sex? None of your business, but our bodies were built for pleasure, and both god and the devil can kiss my ass about that one. (Growing up, I asked why girls had a clitoris. I was informed that it was a tool for temptation. What. The. Fuck.) Oh, and I'm a woman. I have cleavage, people. At least I do when I squeeze my arms against my chest really hard. But I digress.
So. I went from a desecrated Jesus temple to the opposite end of the spectrum--just a bag of skin and bones to carry my brain around in. But that really didn't give me any peace or freedom; I would see these curves, these freckles, these amazing hands, this ridiculous ass in the mirror and think, "that is lovely." But I'd also see the stretch marks and cellulite and dry skin and varicose veins, and think, "ugly." Mind you, this was in spite of working as a massage therapist, seeing and appreciating all shapes and sizes daily, encouraging women and reminding each of them that their bodies were beautiful.
Niece and I climbed an absolutely stunning place the day she was here. Shevlin Park is, for me, what New Mexico was for Georgia O'Keeffe. Truly. And niece commented how amazing it was to feel her body move and work, how fantastic the sun felt. I started thinking about that, and realizing that this body of mine may not be perfect, or completely toned, or even as strong as I would like it to be, but even at 42 it has potential. I can recognize the beauty even in the cellulite, the arm hair, the dry skin, the flabby belly. But recognizing and internalizing are two completely different things.
On what, initially, appears to be a completely different note, I've been working to deepen my yoga practice. I found this amazing book, Wanderlust, by Jeff Krasno. It is beautiful, and visually pleasing, and has so many different perspectives. It traces the lineage of all the different styles of yoga, and--finally!--talks about more than the asanas, the physical part, of yoga. Today, I learned about the 8 limbs of yoga, and after meditating on the Yamas and Niyamas, picked one to meditate on for thirty days in concurrence with my 30 day yoga practice for baby grasshopper pose.
Yoga brings me peace. The asanas always have, and I am so grateful to learn of these other 7 limbs that take the place in my soul of the god I've left behind.  And this is why this fits into that body acceptance bit:
Yoga is a practice. Constantly in progress. I am meditating on ONE WORD and ONE POSE for 30 whole days. I love this. I love that yoga understands progress, not perfection, and that I will be able to see, without comparing myself to anyone else, my body's amazing work and development. And after these 30 days, there will be a new word, and a new pose. And on.
My body is not a temple. It is a sexy beautiful amazing imperfect home, and I fully plan to use it hard until the day it breaks and takes my heart and soul with it.

"Goddam I love being a human being. Even grief is beautiful."

Tell me how to get to that point. In the last two years, I've watched my mother and my mother in law die; I watched one of my favorite cats die; and in the years before that, so many friends and other animals. I have no fear of death, and have been able to find beauty in death and in dying. But the grief? That I cannot seem to ever find beautiful, or spacious. And I definitely do not love being a human being.
And then I read this amazing response about grief on Reddit (and the first reply to the response that the title of this post came from). I remember describing grief as waves in almost just this way, so I suppose that makes the feeling almost universal. I do know that the loss can be so overwhelming that sometimes, you want to stop fighting the feeling of drowning and just drown. But instead, you just hold on and float.
I feel like I have been floating for a very long time. I think I'm ready to get out of the water.