Our Skin

The skin is the largest organ in the body... But how often are we aware of that full-body suit we wear every moment? Close your eyes and observe it... a cover that gives us shape and border, holds our contents, protects us, gives us the sensation, the pleasure and pain of touch... Feel the whole skin hugging every corner of your body, breathing and moving with you. Feel its weight (5-7kg!), its different thicknesses (thin on the eyelids, thick on the soles of the feet), the feel of the air or your clothes touching it, the so many different temperatures it accommodates, the millions of pores...

If we experience this level of vividness and insight through connecting with  just a few inches of one layer, how rich the experience of each moment would be if we could observe ourselves as a whole?

In closing, a few words from Bill Bryson:

....The outer side of the epidermis is composed entirely of dead cells. The thought is rather shocking that everything that makes you cute is dead. Where our bodies meet the air, we are all corpses. These cells of the outer layer of skin are replaced every month. We lose, almost without caring, over 1 million pieces every hour. Slip your finger on a dusty shelf and the line you make has removed pieces of your former self. We become dust, silently and relentlessly.