One evening last week, whilst stretched out on my bed in a pair of boxer shorts, watching a film, I became aware of my big toe.

I’m six foot tall and my big toe looked to me as if it was six miles away, but nevertheless connected and an integral part of the relaxation my body was currently undertaking, reclined as it was on a bed, watching a film.

There was a time, when my big toe seemed to me to be much nearer to my head, and I was able to place it squarely in the middle of my forehead, supple as a child, now stiffened out with age.

The proximity of my head to my toe, speaks to me of expanse and range and connectivity over distance.

My toe, with the rest of my feet, are pretty much covered in a sock from moments after I get out of bed, until I remove them as I go back to bed at night.

During that time, my head has commanded my attention and applied its skills and experience and logic to the work that I have had to do, and the thoughts I have been free to think, but my feet have carried my body in the direction that the mind has instructed it to do.

On rare occasions my feet become the focus of my mind, perhaps for a manicure of the nails, or after long physical exertion when blisters need to be dressed and cared for.

This is the week in which Christ kissed His disciples feet, not their heads, their feet, and to me this connection between the head of Christ and the feet of His disciples is a symbolic act of teaching us that our minds are connected to our feet because it is our minds which direct our feet.

My coach used a phrase on my last visit to see her which has been working its way through my understanding, through reflection.

She told me that I had managed to integrated exiled parts of my self in coming to terms with, and finding acceptance for, my sexuality which I had experienced as an inner conflict.

The proximity of my big toe to my head, reminds me to be aware of the proximity of the issues I have exiled from my mind, and the proximity of other people, whom I have often pushed away, to calling them forth, integrating them, loving them, as if they were connected to me head to toe.

My next blog will be: Dry Lent

William Defoe