WINONA  — Hiking the trails by the Winona Cemetery, huffing and puffing, swatting at gnats nibbling your neckline, feeling the burn in your thighs — this is the body’s physical experience.

Look up.

The maple leaves spread across the bluff ceiling, the sunlight poking through to shed a single ray of warm light, and for a moment it feels as if there’s a presence on the trail — this is the body’s spiritual experience.

Humans by nature are both physical and spiritual beings, said Susan Windley-Daoust, a theology professor at Saint Mary’s University. But “through centuries, it’s been hard for humans to wrap their minds around,” she said.

Windley-Daoust examines the physical realities of human life in relationship to theology — the study of the nature of god — in her award-winning book, “Theology of the Body, Extended: The Spiritual Signs of Birth, Impairment, and Dying,” published last year.

Windley-Daoust said before written material existed like the Bible, the body was seen as a sign that pointed to God. This idea is the basis for her book, in which she applies specifically to the human experiences of childbirth, disability and dying.

“If the human body is a sign, then the experience of bodies is a sign,” she said.

In June at the Catholic Media Conference, she won first place in the “Best Book by a Small Publisher” category in the 2015 Catholic Press Association Awards.

“To find a publisher and then win a national award is really surprising,” she said. “If you told me this three years ago, I would’ve laughed at you.”

Windley-Daoust grew up in Virginia and moved to Minnesota to work at the University of St. Thomas. Then she met her husband, Jerry Windley-Daoust, who worked in Winona at the time. She moved to the area for a job at Saint Mary’s and has taught there for 12 years. She and her husband have five children, one of whom is adopted from Ukraine, ranging in age from five to 15.

Windley-Daoust became entranced by the subject of theology as a college freshman when she registered for a theology class simply to fulfill a general education requirement.

“Five weeks later I knew I wanted to major in it and go to grad school,” she said. In those first few weeks, she remembered thinking: “This is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever read in my life.”

Windley-Daoust is also a Christian blogger and has published in several Catholic magazines and journals. It wasn’t until the America Magazine, a national Catholic magazine, published her article “A Fiery Gift” in 2009 that Windley-Daoust felt encouraged to explore her ideas about theology and the body in a full book. Windley-Daoust spent her 2011-12 academic year on sabbatical, researching and writing the book.

“I’ve never written anything that had that much feedback,” she said of the article, which contained the basic ideas that appear in her book about childbirth as a spiritual experience. “It was very encouraging that it wasn’t just my funky idea.”

And, she pointed out: “It’s a book on a subject that’s a little controversial in Catholic circles.”

She was encouraged that students had approached her over the years, desiring to learn more about the spiritual and physical relationship of the body to God.