Skin

Skin

Skin comes in a variety of textures and colours. Skin spontaneously responds to genetic coding at the moment of conception. Skin remarkably coats all appendages and leaves an exact amount of openings to accommodate our senses and vital needs.

In most instances, the skin on top of our heads is encased with hair. Hair may signal that something important is contained under its protective presence - just as pubic hair protects our reproductive genitalia.

Skin is the largest human organ, yet few realize that skin is an organ. Skin has up to seven layers of ectodermal tissue and guards the underlying muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. What is omitted in the skin’s biological description, is that it houses the soul.

While amongst the living the skin serves as a human sarcophagus holding the inner skeleton, organs, muscles, veins and ingested nutrients which go through a continuous metabolic metamorphosis.  

Skin can stretch, tighten up, wrinkle, discolour and even fall off. Skin’s versatility also makes it vulnerable. It can be cut, burned or subjected to virulent diseases such as cancer. But skin can be self-healing and regenerating.

Skin houses life for the living and a different kind of life for those who have experienced death.  

{Human} decomposition begins several minutes after death with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them. Enzymes start to digest cell membranes and then leak out as the cells break down. This usually begins in the liver, which is rich in enzymes, and in the brain, which has a high water content. Eventually, all other tissues and organs begin to break down in this way. Damaged blood cells begin to spill out of broken vessels and, aided by gravity, settle in the capillaries and small veins, discolouring the skin.

Body temperature begins to drop, until it has acclimatized to its surroundings. Then, rigor mortis – “the stiffness of death” – sets in, starting in the eyelids, jaw and neck muscles, before working its way into the trunk and then the limbs. In life, muscle cells contract and relax due to the actions of two filamentous proteins (actin and myosin), which slide along each other. After death, the cells are depleted of their energy source and the protein filaments become locked in place. This causes the muscles to become rigid and locks the joints.

During these early stages, the cadaveric ecosystem consists mostly of the bacteria that live in and on the living human body. Our bodies host huge numbers of bacteria; every one of the body’s surfaces and corners provides a habitat for a specialized microbial community. By far the largest of these communities resides in the gut, which is home to trillions of bacteria of hundreds or perhaps thousands of different species.

Ancient tribes, such as the Egyptians, did their utmost to preserve the skin, in the hope that the embalming process would provide a vessel for the after-life. Today, we have manufactured synthetic skin and made skin transplants a reality. Skin has become portable - just like a woman’s leather purse.

In fact, animal skins are tanned and made into a host of specialized products for human enjoyment. Leather car seats, belts, coats, shoes, and hats are but a few examples.

Skin has become so popular that some people have converted to cannibalism. Human meat proves to be a delicacy.

Skin also serves to incubate new skin - you may know the new skin as an embryo. In this unique event, the host human is occupied with two souls - sometimes two, and even more, if you were to consider octuplets. 

Therefore the skin houses God, for souls are bits of God. Let's get past the foreskin.

Thank you,

Joseph Pede