but in the sense that fasting and self-harm were a way to force transcendence from the body, rejecting it by causing it pain - but that's not so much what you're talking about, I think, because I always got the sense that that was more about exercising rigid, vicious control over the body in order to 'defeat' it, while the women's spirituality I was just talking about seems more about sort of immersing oneself in the uncontrollability of the body,

Right! The little I've read and heard of John Kabat-Zinn (who is a Buddhist I think), he talks about "relaxing into" the pain, laying out a welcome mat for it, accepting one's body. By doing this, Wendell says, one's emotional state becomes *less* dependent on one's physical state, which is counter-intuitive but it's true. To become more immersed in and aware of the uncontrollability of the body is to become more accepting of the reality of the body, and more at peace with it, which frees the mind more and more. At least, this is my limited understanding of a complex concept? Maybe I know more about this than I thought I did, as I write it out here.

Glad you found this rec useful, and ! I too think Disability Studies is an exciting and untapped field, so I hope you can tap into it! Also, I love that those medieval ladies found their own embodied spirituality like that. :D