ABSTRACT
The body constitutes the self physically, and is the bearer of its existence. One's body measures time through its rhythms – heartbeats, breathing, thirst, hunger, the emptying of bladder and bowel, sleeping and menstruation. Through the movements of the body, the relationships between the self and the social and physical world change. Music takes the ear beyond the horizon of sounds. It is the language of the ear, as immediate as the vibration of the eardrum, as the stirring of emotions. Menstruation and fertility define the three stages of female biological life – before, within and after. Time is inscribed on to the woman's body. Emotions are bodily experiences with their meanings in the world. Existential anatomy is the body as it is experienced through all the passages of life. In the original sense of the word, a symptom is a change in a person's physical or mental condition, due to disease.
