Body Eloquence is a thrilling read, guiding us into the cornucopia of poetic relationships that reside in the human body. Its thesis is that every organ embodies a purpose and has an influence that goes far beyond its biological function. Every organ is as vitally connected with psyche and spirit as it is with blood and oxygen. Every organ embodies a specific theme, holding its own important piece of the cosmos’ great mysteries.

The heart is not merely a remarkably durable pump. It is the embodiment of good will, sending nourishment to every fiber of your body and being, the receptor of "heart-to-heart" connections with those you love, and the organ of an open-hearted embrace of the world around you. But if its influence is too strong, if you are too open-hearted, you are overly vulnerable to the slings and arrows from within and from without that cause heartache, that break the heart and its spirit. If its influence is too weak, if you become small-hearted, you move through the world with the miserly constrictions that reflect a body in which not enough oxygen can flow.

The kidneys are not just organs of purification, filtering the blood and transporting toxins from our bodies. As Nancy Mellon shows, they inhabit the deep interior worlds within us, nourishing our life stories with philosophical depth and transcendental understanding. The pancreas and spleen not only process and balance the blood; people who are strong in this energy bring a sweetness to life and impart stability to others.

For every organ, this book provides not just these broad-stroke oversimplifications, but a depth and richness that will help you comprehend the organ and its theme in ways that will change how you think about not only your body and its parts, but your place in the universe. By understanding the great themes of life according to every organ when it is in perfect balance and harmony as well as when it is not, the big questions of psychology and philosophy become palpable, soul-sized dramas set in the tangible theatre of a body trying to thrive. This is a nature story told by a master story-teller.

Nancy Mellon draws together science, medicine, mythology, and healing traditions in telling the story of every organ and the energies (known in Traditional Chinese Medicine as the meridians) that govern it. You will relate to these stories intuitively and instantly, and you will be changed. I will ask all my students and suggest to all the practitioners of the healing arts I know that they read this beautiful and profound exposition. The eloquence of your body and its organs is the voice of creation speaking to you directly and uniquely. This book shows you how to decipher its language.

It also instructs you in how to engage in rich dialogue that informs, directs, and heals your body and its organs. Story-telling goes in both directions. Not only does every organ have a story to tell. Your body resonates with the sounds of the stories conjured by your imagination. Even your cells respond. While our inner talk is usually from our mind to our mind, story speaks to every level of our humanity. As Nancy Mellon explains, great storytellers reach out "with their voices to respond to the secret dreams and struggles of human beings and all living things."

This is a book that teaches you about the great story teller that dwells within each of us, addressing at once the grand themes of heaven and earth and the perpetual conflicts among our organs, the product of our day-to-day adjustments to the planet. It is a book that teaches you to be attuned to the spectacular dramas within, finding the stories that complete what is unfinished, that right what has been wronged, and that move us further along, and with greater consciousness, on this journey we call life.