Adornment as Prayer

Before there were runways there were rituals: gold set at the throat, beads counted at the wrist, oil pressed into the crown. To adorn the body was to consecrate it — to declare that this vessel is worthy of attention, and that attention is a form of devotion.

We inherited a spirituality of the surface, in the most exalted sense. What glitters on us is not distraction from the soul but a signal of it. The Oracle reads adornment as prayer, and the dressing table as a small, private altar.