Gird
Almost all the references to "girding loins" I could find were based on a bible quote where christians are supposed to gird their loins with truth.
Which is really kind of funny to me, as back when I was in the Kilties drum corps, the term was "Are you true?" as in "true to scottish tradition" as in only wearing the kilt and the breeze down below.
Ways of Living 6 by Hong Yun-suk
Just look:
those hills and rivers like charcoal fires,
the plains we have walked across barefoot:
forty years now since we first ventured forth
and still this is the darkness outside of Canaan,
still we are turning about the walls of Jericho,
but when the time is ripe, pouring oil onto pitchpine
we'll light up the way with a seam of flame
and lace on straw sandals with brows ablaze.
We'll kindle lights to glimmer in the gold buttons
on our breasts,
gird our loins with wild rose fronds,
and stand like pillars in the windswept plains
to abolish darkness for an age.
We'll embrace with both arms the vast bulk of night.
In every place our language has ever been light.
Ouch!
