Love Your Body Contemplations. Practices for Remembering
What if some of the wisdom you are seeking is already within you?
A signed copy with a loving bookmark from Barry.
A personal touch — hand-signed by Dr. Barry, with a bookmark to accompany your reading.
An invitation to slow down, become curious, and listen more deeply — to yourself, to others, to nature, and to life itself.
A companion for reflection.
Drawing upon more than five decades of experience as a naturopathic doctor, teacher, and guide, Dr. Barry Taylor offers twelve contemplations — invitations to pause, to breathe, to notice.
To question some of the assumptions and conditioning through which you have learned to experience yourself and the world.
Twelve doorways.
One invitation.
Each contemplation offers a different way of seeing and experiencing life.
What readers are saying.
Reflections from healers, teachers, and readers who have spent time with the contemplations.
Contemplations is a profound and deeply moving work — one that invites us not simply to read, but to pause, reflect, and see ourselves and our world with new eyes.
Reverend Tezikiah Gabriel — Executive Director, Pathways To Peace
Dr. Barry Taylor invites us to look deeply, listen intently, and live intentionally, encouraging each of us to discover our own way of experiencing a deeper connection with life on Earth.
Peg Speirs, PhD — Professor of Art Education, Kutztown University
Each contemplation prompts us to shift some aspect of our experience: whether from the ordinary to the sacred, from feeling separate to connected, or, like a child, to experience the wonder of the universe we live in.
Landon Carter — Transformational coach, author of Living Awake
This is more than a book to read. It is a book to be experienced. A beautiful book, a meaningful journey, and a beautiful gift.
Peter J. Kevorkian, DC — President, Life West Chiropractic College
Dr. Taylor's Contemplations are a journey to slow my entire self down and see things differently. I am renewed!
Leslie Bergin — Flight Attendant
Read the opening pages.
From Orientation through the first contemplation, What Is Wonder? Pages 13 to 27 of the print edition.
Pages 13–15
Orientation
This book is one point of view.
I offer these Contemplations as invitations—not as answers—and invite you to participate in whatever each one awakens in you.
There is nothing you need to figure out before you begin.
You do not need to understand what I mean.
You do not need to agree with me.
You do not need to arrive at a particular conclusion.
You may read slowly.
You may pause.
You may return.
You may disagree.
You may notice something you have never noticed before.
You may notice nothing at all.
The questions and practices that follow are invitations—not assignments.
They are not designed to test what you know.
They are opportunities to notice what you experience.
Perhaps you will discover that a word carries something different for you than it does for me.
Perhaps a sentence will stay with you long after you have finished reading.
Perhaps something will stir a memory, a question, a feeling, or a possibility.
Perhaps something will challenge you.
Perhaps something will feel familiar, as though you are remembering something you already knew.
Let your own experience become your teacher.
Consider the possibility that each Contemplation is a portal through which you may encounter a knowing that lives somewhere deeper than intellectual understanding—something at the core of being human that we may have been conditioned to forget.
You might read one Contemplation once.
Or you might return to the same one for days, weeks, months, or years.
You might read aloud.
You might journal.
You might share one with another person.
You might walk with a question.
You might simply sit quietly and notice what arises.
There is no prescribed way to use this book.
Perhaps the invitation is simply to become curious.
To slow down enough to notice.
To listen beneath the words.
To allow the spaces between the words to speak as well.
And perhaps, as you enter these Contemplations, you will enjoy exploring what you are remembering—
and what you are discovering.
Pages 16–18
The Invitation
When I was a young undergraduate, I was enthralled by the astounding similarities I discovered among mystics from different comparative religious traditions. Across centuries and cultures, esoteric writers seemed to point toward universal spiritual experiences rather than toward the need for deep analytical study to access the mysteries of being human.
They asked questions that still live within me:
What are we doing on this planet?
How do we live with more joy and peace?
How do we suffer less?
In 1981, I participated in a two-weekend workshop where the trainer shouted something at me in a way that was clearly intended to pierce through my personal wiring.
At the time, I had been living with an underlying belief that if I could just figure out more about life’s deepest challenges, I would eventually become more content and satisfied.
He shouted:
“UNDERSTANDING IS THE BOOBY PRIZE!”
I had no idea how he knew that was my agenda.
I had spent years believing that a comprehensive intellectual dissection of my mind—and perhaps the human mind—might eventually solve my own struggles and, in some way, humanity’s struggles as well.
My life has been something like climbing a ladder as high as I could go, moving beyond my fears of falling, and then descending down that same ladder into deep caves within my own inner universe.
I have spent much of my life learning to get out of my head and to consider another possibility:
What if understanding is not always the doorway?
What if some experiences are diminished when we insist on explaining them?
If I completely understand a miracle, have I taken it out of the category of being a miracle?
Does understanding necessarily deepen my experience?
Or can I sometimes be more fully alive by entering the energy, mystery, and wonder of something I cannot completely explain?
At some point, I stopped wrestling with the question:
Do I want to learn more intellectually?
and began asking:
Do I want to be in the energy field of miracles?
This book is one point of view.
I offer these Contemplations as invitations—not as answers—and invite you to participate in whatever each one awakens in you.
As you enter these Contemplations, there is nothing you need to figure out or understand.
Let your own experience become your teacher.
Consider the possibility that each Contemplation is a portal through which you may remember some knowing that lives at the core of being human—something we may have been conditioned to forget.
I invite you to enjoy exploring what you are remembering,
and what you are discovering.
Pages 19–21
The Journey
Sometimes when we explore, we just go.
Whether we are traveling outside or inside, do we want a map or a compass?
Or are we willing to use the sun rising and setting to give us some direction?
As I have written, read, and reread these Contemplations—and the questions and practices that follow—I have noticed themes developing and unfolding.
I did not see them when I first wrote the original three that I once referred to as the Trilogy.
Perhaps that is part of the nature of exploration.
We begin with one idea and discover that it is connected to something we could not yet see.
I am sure there is no right or wrong way to follow any map.
There are many ways to get from here to there.
What is our measure of the “right” way anyway?
So I am offering you some landmarks as possible considerations for using these Contemplations in ways that might be fun, enjoyable, and useful in your life.
Like wine that opens with oxygen and offers different tastes to your palate when it breathes, consider creating some space to let these Contemplations breathe.
You might experience them individually.
You might return to them at different times.
And over time, you may begin to notice how they are interrelated.
There are insights, visions of landscapes, and shifts in your senses that may arise when you are present with any one of these Contemplations.
And there is another dimension of possibility when you begin to experience how they are interdependent and intimately related.
These Contemplations are not twelve separate subjects.
They are more like facets of a single inquiry.
Wonder may lead us toward the Sacred.
The Sacred may open our awareness of Interconnection.
Interconnection may awaken Belonging.
Belonging may invite us into Harmony.
Diversity may challenge our relationship with difference.
Healing may ask us to reconnect what has become separated.
Compassion may change how we accompany ourselves and others through that healing.
Beauty may change how we see.
Enough may change how we value.
Resilience may change how we interpret falling, failing, and beginning again.
And Remembering may invite us to recognize that perhaps none of these qualities are entirely new.
Perhaps they are qualities we have always carried—
and are learning to remember.
You might discover that the order itself is less important than what begins to awaken as you move among them.
Enjoy how playful your mind can be when you are in discovery mode.
I have noticed that when I am exploring, it is useful for me to ask whether I am staying open—or whether some word, idea, or practice has me feeling constrained, restricted, or contracted.
When that happens, I slow down.
I breathe.
And I ask:
“What am I learning here?”
Perhaps you will find your own questions along the way.
Allow the Contemplations to speak to you.
I am exploring too.
Perhaps we can become more aware together.
Thank you for being willing to explore.
Pages 23–27
What Is Wonder?
We live on a planet
where whales sing songs that travel for miles,
where trees recognize their offspring
and nourish them through unseen networks beneath the earth,
where dolphins call one another by name,
and where lightning transforms sand into glass.
We live on a planet
where horses can sense human emotion,
where rain announces its arrival
with a fragrance before the first drop falls,
and where entire oceans can glow in the dark.
We live beneath stars
whose light continues to reach us
long after the stars themselves may have disappeared.
And yet...
with all of this wonder surrounding us,
we sometimes forget.
We forget to look.
We forget to listen.
We forget to pause long enough
to be astonished.
Wonder begins
when we become available to awe.
It is the moment we set aside certainty
and allow ourselves to be surprised by life again.
Wonder reminds us
that life is far more mysterious,
far more interconnected,
and far more alive
than our minds can fully comprehend.
Wonder is not something we create.
It is something we remember.
It waits quietly beneath our assumptions,
inviting us to see the world
with fresh eyes.
And perhaps when we become willing to look closely enough,
we discover that the greatest wonder
may not be outside us at all.
Perhaps the greatest wonder
is not the whale,
the tree,
the dolphin,
or the stars.
Perhaps the greatest wonder
is that we are here at all.
Breathing.
Feeling.
Loving.
Healing.
We marvel at the intelligence of nature,
while forgetting that our own hearts beat
without our instruction.
That wounds can begin to mend.
That millions of cells work together
moment by moment
to sustain a life
that no one fully understands.
Thoughts arise.
Dreams emerge.
Love appears.
Awareness itself
cannot be held,
measured,
or explained completely.
And still it is here.
Perhaps wonder deepens
when we stop standing outside of life
looking in,
and remember
that we are part of the same mystery
we admire in the world around us.
Not separate from it.
Not merely observing it.
But belonging to it.
Wonder is the recognition
that the miracle is not only around us.
It is within us.
And perhaps healing begins
when we remember that.
This is where the sample ends
In the book, Wonder continues with questions for reflection and journaling, a practice for sharing, daily practices, a guided visualization and a piece of music to listen to. Eleven more contemplations follow, from Sacred to Remembering.
Excerpt from Love Your Body Contemplations: Practices for Remembering. Copyright © 2026 by Barry Taylor, ND. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced without written permission from the author.
Not answers.
Invitations.
These contemplations are not intended to tell you what to think, what to believe, or who you need to become.
They are invitations.
Invitations to pause.
To breathe.
To notice.
Each contemplation offers a doorway into a different way of seeing and experiencing life. Throughout the book, Barry invites you to move beyond simply understanding an idea and toward discovering what happens when you spend time with it — perhaps reading a contemplation aloud, sitting quietly with a question, journaling, sharing it with another person, visualizing what you might not otherwise see, or listening to music that opens another dimension of experience.
You do not have to agree with these contemplations.
You do not have to make them your truth.
You do not even have to understand them.
You are simply invited to spend some time with them.
Perhaps something will awaken. Perhaps something will shift.
Perhaps you will notice something you had not noticed before.
And perhaps you will remember something you have quietly known all along.
Another possibility.
In a world that often asks us to move faster, achieve more, and search outside ourselves for answers, Love Your Body Contemplations offers another possibility:
To slow down.
To listen.
To experience.
To remember.
This is not simply a book to read. It is a book to be experienced. A companion for reflection, journaling, conversation, meditation, and everyday life.
And ultimately, an invitation toward something larger than health or healing: the possibility of remembering what it feels like to be fully alive.
Begin the remembering.
Slow down.
Listen.
Remember.
