Up: [[Eight Gates of Wisdom - Angeles Arrien]] Related: [[Embodiment - Ground Curriculum]] Created: 2026-02-25 ![[Gate - Clay.webp|300]] This gate is the only one that is always changing because, like clay, our bodies are of the earth and they reshape and transform. #### The Task The task at this gate is to care for our bodies as they continue to change, embracing and trusting our body’s wisdom, and finding ways to express beauty, love, sensuality, and sexuality. #### The Challenge The challenge is to unconditionally befriend your body even as it varies from your old self-image and the image others had of you. Rejecting aging means avoiding the character development that is essential for expressing your authentic self. #### A Practice or Three Every day, extend gratitude to your body through meaningful self-care (sleep, exercise, nutrition, relaxation) and by bringing pleasure to your senses through massage, creams, and clothing and jewelry choices. For a decan, notice how your body tenses or relaxes in different situations and around different people. Listen to your body’s wisdom. For an entire season, do something every day that brings more beauty, sensuality and love into your world. #### The Gift The gift is developing body wisdom and learning to use our energy wisely. It is also a gift that as we align with our body’s wisdom we are better able to create trust, openness, vulnerability and intimacy in our relationships. #### Prompts to Consider - When did you begin to respect your body’s wisdom and honour your body’s functions, senses, and limitations? In what ways do you honour the wisdom of self-care? Do you do so without going to the extremes of vanity or neglect? - What has been your relationship to intimacy, sensuality, and sexuality? - Sports, dancing and walking can allow you to feel more at ease with your body. When have you felt the most comfortable and free in your body? - The daily experience of beauty nourishes the soul and the senses. How can you bring more beauty into your life? - Of the five qualities that are necessary to foster intimacy (honesty, trust, respect, openness, and vulnerability), which do you need to cultivate and develop at this time? - The two greatest obstacles to intimacy, self-absorption and self-doubt, indicate that self-trust and self-image issues are still present. Which obstacles do you need to work through and diminish? (p.67-68) > [!user] [[Angeles Arrien]] in *The Second Half of Life: Opening the eight gates of wisdom* > The Clay Gate: Intimacy, Sensuality, and Sexuality