In the time before the word, the body knew.
It knew the way root-ends know moisture, turning without being told. It knew the way a hand contracts before the stone has left the hand, the body already arriving at the conclusion of things before the mind had formed the question.
When language came, the body was not surprised. It had been waiting for a word to arrive for what it already held. But language was made by the mind. And the mind had its own ideas.
The first argument between the body and the mind went like this: the body said, through the specific tension at the base of the throat, through the failure to sleep before a particular kind of morning, through the warmth or cold of the hands in particular rooms: here. Not here.
And the mind, new to its own power and delighted by the sounds it could make, said: no. I know better. Here is why.
This was the beginning of a very long conversation.
The wise ones knew which side to listen to. Not because the body was always right in the way a calculation is right, but because the body could not make a thing up. The mind, new to language, had discovered that it could. It could say: this is fine. It could say: this is necessary. It could say: this is the only way. The body had no access to these constructions. The body could only report what it found.
There were women who listened. There have always been women who listened. They were not celebrated for it, but the knowledge passed anyway, carried in the hands, in the particular posture of a person who has learned to be still when the body speaks.
The body of one such woman knew for nine years. It told her in the way it tells: through the cold that came when she entered certain rooms, through the hands that were warm only when she was moving toward the door, through the dreams that stopped arriving when they should have continued.
For nine years the mind made arguments. The mind was very good at arguments. It had been practicing since the beginning.
On the morning the mind finally fell silent, the body had already prepared everything. It was not surprised to be heard.
It had been waiting.