Here is what some of my clients have said.
Scroll down for some of my ruminations on body, mind, and movement.
Scroll down for some of my ruminations on body, mind, and movement.
There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.We are lutes, no more no less.If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything,no music.If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting,every moment a new song comes out of the fire.The fog clears, and new energy makes yourun up the steps in front of you.Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.- Jallal al-Din Rumi
The white people think that the whole body is controlled by the brain.We have a word, ‘umbelini’ (the whole intestines).That is what controls the body.My umbelini tells me what is going to happen.Have you never experienced it?- A Xhosa Tribesman, South Africa (the tribe of Nelson Mandela).When we become anxious, we get nausea and diarrhea. We feel ‘queasy.’ We call someone who is always depressed, ‘misery guts.’
there came a momentin the middle if the songwhen he suddenly feltevery heartbeat in the roomand after that he never forgothe was part of something much bigger.- Brian AndreasWhatever sensitivity develop in our lives, divine mystery, the Lat’if, will remain. But there are ways to discern some aspects of this mystery. To become more sensitive to our own vagus nerve, is one of those ways.
We humans have about 100 trillion bacteria on and in our bodies; we only have 10 trillion human cells. So we are 10:1. We carry 4 trillion viruses. - Carl Zimmer, ‘The race to Create the Best Anti-Viral Drugs, Fresh Air, NPR, 04.18.12The vagus itself is composed of a few thousand nerve fibers. Thus vagus is a communicator between the two brains, but not a brain as such. I experience the vagus like a giant radio antenna, dipped in the social world, the world of feelings that rule the body, from the neck down.
VNS, or vagal nerve stimulation, is a FDA-approved treatment that uses a small, battery-powered device to send signals through the vagus to deep cephalic brain structures that regulate mood. VNS is sometimes used in the treatment of intractable, treatment-resistant depression. The exact reason that VNS is helpful is not scientifically understood. - John Colapinto, ‘Lighting the Brain,’ The New Yorker, 05.18.15, p.75