Margaret Dulaney

Emerson writes, “There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.” My friend Patty, who has made it into her sixties with a congenital kidney disease, likes to tell her body every day how proud she is of it. How grateful she is that it has bravely fought to give her a long life on the planet. I am beginning to suspect that for those of us who have been graced with long life, the attainment of self-love could be our last challenge to enlightenment. I am not talking about ego, or pride, but a certain grateful recognition for the bodies that have carried us through our years on the earth...