What Goes In Must Come Out

Giving Thanks for Our Poop

Poop is a Prayer

Now that we’ve had our day of consumption,
how about a moment for our digestion?
Let’s give thanks for what’s now in our belly
and also our upper and lower intestine.

It’s a day for opening up the valves
to be grateful for who we are and what we have
But also for what we have had, too.
That which is inside, working its way through.

It is in humility that we find salvation,
so let’s talk freely about elimination.
If we are going to up our pleasure game,
let’s shine the light where most of us find shame.

Among friends we talk about what goes in
but rarely what comes out the other end.
Our ego doesn’t want to admit
the sacred importance of our shit.

Squatting was once a social way of relating
with communal arrangements for defecating.
Now, we close the door and hope others will wait
while we bid farewell to what it is that we ate.

What if this human thing is a ruse
perhaps our real purpose is to eat fruit and set it loose?
Our ancestors spread the seeds far and wide.
Now, we send it out with the tide.

So, take a moment before you flush it down
to notice how reds, greens and yellows turn into brown
and behold the honor of this pursuit
this humble task of disseminating fruit.

Next time you ponder a seat on your throne
consider not bringing your phone
For there are many lessons on here and now
and what it is to receive and to allow.

The dung beetle knows this without a doubt
so within and so without.
Our bodies are a living testament;
there is pleasure and prayer in our sacred excrement.

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FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES

I found some great resources in my research this week, including this guided meditation and visualization for evacuating your bowels made especially for those who find this a troubling experience.

And this video, “Yoga for Constipation” made by Dr. Brianne Grogan, PT, DPT shows you the best position and practices for pleasurable elimination. “Make room for your belly to expand. Look forward, not down and add a gentle sigh. A low and more guttural sound can be helpful.”

Things No One Teaches You. The Bristol Stool Form Scale can help you learn how healthy your gut is.

The Flush Project is a women-run, international organization that “uses poop as a starting place for liberation into a more inclusive way to love our corporeal reality on a planet full of other embodied beings within a virtuous and fragile nutrient cycle.” I.e. They work with local communities to develop sanitation systems that work for everyone.

This is a great Invisibilia podcast about “Poop friends”, people with whom you can speak freely about poop. Including a beautiful story from a woman who, as a teenager, had to navigate Crohn’s disease.

By studying the feces from indigenous tribes, researchers have found that the gut biome of the cultures that have had minimal contact with Western culture have the most diversity in their gut biome.

Drink water. Move your body. Enjoy the trip.