Beauty and Body Image

 A message I've gotten several times relates to beauty and to body image. The first half of it is rooted in the idea that all things are beautiful within their own nature and shouldn't be judged by the standards of a different being. The second half gets into how we might judge ourselves based on failings we perceive in our own appearance. 

  Like many people I have an ingrained understanding of what beauty is that comes from modern western culture. It emphasizes among other things the importance of youth, thinness, health, able-bodiedness, and symmetrical features as well as gender specific ideas. As I began to get into deeper spiritual work with the Otherfolk I'm connected to they started trying to disabuse me of these ideas. They asked me if I would judge a cat by such standards or a horse, and if in judging them by their aesthetic appeal would disregard their more vital qualities. 
My guide: "All things are true to their own nature and are beautiful by their own measure. A selkie is not the same in appearance as one of the Gentry yet neither is more or less 'beautiful'. And in the same way what a goblin will judge as beautiful would not be the same as what a human would expect - which is as it should be. Each has their own ideas of what is pleasing to the eye or the touch or scent and so on, and none is right or wrong for it. It is what is inside any being that truly makes it fair or foul and as often as not the outside does not reflect the inside well or at all."

This was an important lesson for me and one that, at the time, was profound. I had never thought before of what the types of beings I found unpleasant to look at might consider beautiful or even for that matter that the concept of beauty wasn't in some sense universal. Much of the folklore we have emphasizes the value the Good Folk place on physical beauty but what I was being told was that external appearance was secondary to internal qualities, and that rang true. 

The second lesson on this subject was tied somewhat to the first. Like many people in my culture I struggle with my own body image and I quickly found that this was a concept that utterly baffled the Othercrowd I made aware of it. To them the physical body is transient and malleable, changing  in humans across a lifetime with a speed that seemed dizzying to Them and also, largely inconsequential. They had little care for what a mortal form might do or how it might change when what mattered to them was the spirit or soul in that form which was changeable at its own will. In other words, if I was upset at how my physical form looked I should either change it or ensure my non-physical form didn't reflect it, and there was no problem. 
This did help me to see that the truth is our physical forms are indeed transient and partially outside our control, which further helped me to let go of some of my concern in this area. Nothing I do will stop my body from aging, or from being injured, or from eventually breaking down and stopping [death]. But I can keep my spirit in good health, as it were, and do what was in my power to keep my body fit and healthy while I had it. This lesson changed my priorities from wishing I looked different to working on how I related to my body as the vehicle for my spirit. And that really was a huge difference for me.