In a corner of our bedroom, a large plastic tote is covered with a brightly colored and decorated blanket. On and around this tote lie objects, photos and cards. Each item is carefully selected for the significance it carries – the memories, moments and feelings it evokes.

This is my husband’s altar. While it has shape-shifted over the years, it has always been with us, in some corner of every room we have shared, from Massachusetts to California to Maine. Every day, I watch my husband’s body bend over the altar, honoring the objects, the memories, the forces that have shaped his life.

Our young daughter is, quite understandably, obsessed with “Da Da’s altar”. In recent months, the altar’s speed of shape-shifting has accelerated in direct proportion with her fascination. To my husband’s credit, he has been incredibly willing to watch those little hands hold, examine and ultimately move the treasured objects. He has helped our daughter create her own little altar, with a few small items and a plant that consistently finds itself on the floor, surrounded by the dirt in which it just sat. I often find my daughter’s little objects mixed in with my husband’s, like small love notes left in a place of reverence.

On a recent morning, as I toweled off post-shower, I glanced in the mirror. In the bustle that is life with a toddler and work and family, I seldom stand in front of my reflection. But on that day I paused. I looked.

My body, like my husband’s altar, has shape-shifted. It is certainly not the body I looked at in my early 20s or teens or as a gangly little girl who grew so fast, her limbs constantly stretched beyond her clothes.

Like an altar, my body bears the marks of the moments that shape my life. The scar above my left eye where the forceps clasped my head to pull me from my mother. The line stretching across my lower abdomen where my daughter was pulled from me. The wrinkles beginning to etch along the edges of my eyes, marking the accumulation of so many hearty laughs. Countless other spots, scars, and lines hold the significance of countless moments lived.

My body, like my husband’s altar, reminds me of what is most important in my life. Holding my daughter and my husband, breathing in fresh air while standing in the middle of the woods or on top of a mountain, these moments flood my body with vibrations of joy and purpose. And I know I’m doing something right when I’m actually aware of my body and something very, very wrong when I’m not. The most hurried, incongruous moments of my life are spent in my head alone.

My body is an altar, a connection to purpose, gratitude and even reverence. As such, it’s stunning how often I shun this powerful vehicle that literally carries me through every single moment of my life. I push my body to be different. I poke at soft edges in exasperation, try to smooth wrinkles with cream, groan when aches and pains slow me down.

May I respect my body with the same respect my husband shows his altar daily as he kneels before it. May I let life move through my body as our daughter moves through my husband’s altar. Her little fingers lovingly attend to each object, shifting and reshaping the whole in a dance with impermanence and a tribute to this fundamental truth: any life worth living is a life shaped by the world around us.