“MENS SANA in CORPORE SANO”
”MENS SANA in CORPORE SANO” is a latin expression that translates as a healthy mind in a healthy body. This expression comes from the Roman poet Juvenal who used it in his Satire X to emphasize the importance of praying for and cultivating both mental and physical well-being.
So Summer is over this weekend as we enter Autumn with its equinox on the 22nd. Chaos, inaptitudes to connect to our humanity, and disillusions seem to be in , as the world enter very sad and uncharacteristic moments.
What have we succumbed to? Power, money, status, ego feeds, AI beauty and dangers, most certainly a world where the powerful dictate, invade, steal kids, kill or starve to eliminate populations intentionally or not, masquerade intentions and create illusions in the name of God, the Almighty or the supreme authority of the Alien Intelligence. (cf my previous blogs).
I am just back from a week in Japan, invited after 10 years of service, by my Delta Airline client and friend, where I visited in Kyoto the Sennyu-Ji compound of temples. I learned that Shintoism and Buddhism lived side by side for centuries in their recognizable shrines and temples (in that rare complex that is visited by the Imperial family, because 39 Emperors are buried on these sacred grounds - and not visited by the invasion of tourists in Kyoto). Our guide, Yoko, explained that these two spiritual paths were milestones in building Japan’s history and culture. I was especially taken by two practices. One is to cleanse yourself with water on your hands and mouth when you enter a shrine, as if you were getting ready to wash away the old you and reignite yourself to become a new you. The other one was to have a conversation with the protectors in that shrine and make a declaration of intention, they call “Inori” or “I declare to be at my best and wait for the Heavens to answer. Which reminded me a lot of the concept I developed in Thriving with Co-inception Leadership, the book I wrote in 2017. (you can get an e-version if you donate even a tiny amount to Digital Bridges 4 Nepal by checking our foundation here).
The 1860s Meiji era is when things started to separate and gave way to Japan’s rapid modernization as well as the adoration of the Emperor as a descendant of Amatera Su, the sun goddess, with the consequences we know.
Yoko also built a gentle case saying that the Western religions all had been about a form of monopoly rejecting the others, from crusades to terrorists attacks in the name of one God. She referred to Shintoism as centered in the worship of Nature and ancestral spirits known as Kamis. (it does not have a central “being” you worship, or a book like the Bible or the Koran, and practices are passed from generation to generation orally). It is probably closer to the Native American ways or the indigenous Arhuaco’s of the Colombian Sierra Nevada, that looks at us as the “younger brothers” that, in our pursuit of progress and GDP, have forgotten to listen and feel the earth disintegrate itself. (some of you may remember I visited this area in Santa Marta a year ago). Yoko definitely raised my awareness that we are all connected somehow and also that we seriously need to reclaim our own humanity.
I felt that if we wish to increase our own awareness, we needed to start by applying the greek poet Juvenal’s words of a “mens sana in corpore sano”.
My next week was spent discovering Taiwan and its history, and I discovered the island of Penghu where the connection to nature and a luminous translucid sea made me swim like I ever did. I also visited some of the village temples richly decorated addressing different sources of support through their princes and Gods. I meditated on the beach and in these temples, and decided to make a few declarations or “Inoris”as I call them now.
Could corporations and governments use the path of cleansing and Inori before to step into new ways? I doubt it as we seem to be in a spiraling descent to the abysses of our capacities. Or may be out of this, a few phenix will rise. But WE can do something about ourselves, and impact our local environments: families, friends, small close communities, helping the youth stand up for a better more equitable world. IF we start by practicing in ways that are more connected to nature a “mens sana in corpore sano”.
May this Equinox support the cleansing necessary to engage the changes you may envision, the visions you may declare as INORIS and the altruistic ways you may embrace yourself.
After my amazing visit in Kyoto’s Sennyu-Ji sacred ground and on the island of Penghu, west of the main island of Taiwan - despite the planes doing their morning surveillance exercises reminding me of the fact, that this democratic environment where I found women and gay people to be free, was fragile - and after my morning swim in the corralledfiled indigo blue waters, under the shade of a wood covered green deck, feeling my dear late friend Rosemary was observing me, I started formulating a vision to support as many youth as I could to give them the possibility to be themselves entirely in creating this altruistic coaching I talk about
