DESCRIPTION OF DEEP CREATIVITY
Deep creativity is a name for the deliberate creation of new forms that, when contemplated (by the creator or by others) open a window to intuition of our silent, formless depth. It's the steadying of attention, the integration and transcendence of experience (ref: "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form").
We distinguish "deep" creativity from "superficial" creativity by both the process and the outcome.
The primary characteristic of deep creativity is unified intention. "Unified intention" means non-distraction, coherence, cohesiveness of directed attention. It is the creation of a "space of attention" into which a new creative impulse may emerge.
The tangible form we create in such a space of "coherent attention" ("dhyana" or absorption of attention) reveals, when we place our attention upon it, two "layers" of existence in addition to the tangible manifestation, itself: 1) a subtle communication of a feeling intuition and 2) silent empty space (without center or boundary) perfectly coincident with manifested fullness, our own essential self-nature.
The evident characteristic of superficial creativity is the lack of cohesiveness or of intuitive depth; it lacks simple integrity and communicates scattered attention. Most creativity and "art", stemming from mental ideation rather than intuition, falls into this category.
When we create from a deep place, we are engaged in a process of deliberate feeling-attention, with intention poised for new intuition. Deep creativity is not "random" creativity, but deliberate, coherent creativity, not synthesizing from existing parts from a mental place of "good ideas"; deep creativity manifests "something from nothing" using the creative medium to make something more than the mere sum of parts -- a holon, not a pile. We create from source; we create as source. The distinguishing characteristic of such deep creation is a sense of wholeness, of singleness, of unified integrity that gathers and steadies attention in contemplation.
THE STAGES OF DEEP CREATIVITY
We start by directing attention into what we intend, holding attention there in a disposition of expectation with creative intention poised, as a cat stalks a bird. We are, at once, open, receptive, and poised for activity. This is "active samyama" -- the contemplation of an object (even the emergence of a subjective object -- a creative impulse) until its essential nature is perceived.
As perception of the essential nature of the thing you are creating emerges, we experience an "originating intention" -- creative insight that can be enacted deliberately as an act of creation. Still in subtle form, an originating intention has sufficiently developed (in a kind of intuitive gestation) when creative energy (attentional force) congeals into a coherent intention (morphogenetic field) characterized by sufficient intensity -- creative thrust -- to bring it into tangible form.
Creating a coherent originating intention (morphogenetic field) involves recognizing and releasing/dissolving any ideas, feelings, or intentions that are influences upon your creative process other than what you are creating. These "other influences" surface as you exert effort or intention into the process of developing your originating intention. (Again, to create a coherent originating intention involves placing attention in the direction of what you want to create; those "other influences" appear as distractions to that creative process).
We then create a form that expresses that originating intention ("Upper Left") by acting deliberately upon a creative medium (words, paint, sound, resources, something "Upper Right") -- a creative process that might be termed, "tangification" -- the act of making something tangible (ref: Y.Y. Meru -- "The Creative Spiral", as presented in books, "Origination","Mastership" and "Attunement", and the Creative Spiral Opuses). To do so requires sufficient mastery of attention, intention, of our own actions, and of the medium in which we are creating to create deliberately. In a way of viewing it, creativity involves bridging between subjective interiority and objective exteriority, the capacity to view manifestation from both viewpoints, simultaneously. The simultaneous fidelity of inner and outer and the difference-in-appearance of inner experience from outer expression make all creativity an act of paradox (ref: Da Free John -- "The Paradox of Instruction").
The tangible "creation" becomes a feature of culture ("Lower Left") and a component of cooperative society and its infrastructure ("Lower Right").
In the case of this present writing, for example, the act of deep creativity required setting an intention -- to create an essay on deep creativity, the time needed to formulate an expression that fulfills that intention, recognition of what that expression would be, and sufficient mastery of language to implement that intention; in other media, other kinds of mastery pertain, but the same requirements for creative intuition and adequate mastery of the medium of creation apply. The combination of an originating intention and mastery of the medium make possible a creative act with a high degree of fidelity between originating intention and tangible result.
Once a creation has been brought into (or taken) form ("tangified"), it is available for contemplation. Contemplation of the tangible creation reveals the degree of its fidelity with the originating intention, allowing for refinement of the tangible expression. Sufficient fidelity between subtle perception ("originating intention") and its tangible creation, such that the subtle and formless layers may both be intuited, constitutes a successful "deep creation."
Once the tangible expression has been brought to a high degree of fidelity with the originating intention, its place within the milieu of already-manifested-actuality may be seen and understood by means of observation of that milieu, and reflection and consideration of the place of the "new creation" within that milieu; once that reflection has reached maturity, we may offer that "new creation" for integration into that greater milieu.
Then, we may begin the process again in a cycle of awakening, differentiation, integration, and transcendence.
For examples of deep creativity in sound, click http://somatics.com/somusic
Somatic Spiritual (Evolutionary) Practice -- The Big Pandiculation
Hanna Somatic Education® is a highly accessible doorway to spiritual practice. It provides means for integrating and transcending psycho-physical (somatic) limitations and instant feedback as to the success of the practice.
Its primary technique, "Pandiculation", puts principles into operation that apply equally well to subtler and "inner" aspects of the human being, i.e., the emotions and thinking mind, and the mind of subtle intuition -- the emotional and mental psychic fields -- as they do to the "outer" physiological body/organism. So, I refer to the grand process of human evolutionary transformation as, The Big Pandiculation.
This essay explains how this is so, and also identifies the advantage and limitation of Hanna somatic education as an element of spiritual practice.
An entire human life may be summarized as moving from one state and degree of contraction to another -- with varying degrees of habituation.
Spiritual practice may be summarized as "increasing involvement with and increasing transcendence of" the conditions of life -- increasing involution and increasing evolution -- awakening to what we are constantly doing and being. I suggest that one of the most powerful means of spiritual practice is pandiculation -- applied not only at the sensory-motor level, as in Hanna somatic education, but also at emotional, mental, and intuitive levels. I call this, The Big Pandiculation. Correspondences with Kinetic Mirroring and Means-Whereby (explained here) also apply to those other levels. For non-participants in Hanna somatic education, I explain the term, "Pandiculation", here.
THE TERM, "SPIRITUAL PRACTICE", AS I MEAN IT
Spiritual practice has two aspects:
The first category is that of loss; the second category is that of limited development.
I know that's a lot, and I'll clarify, as needed, below.
For students of Ken Wilber, let me say that these two aspects of spiritual practice correspond to what he characterized as "state pathologies" and "stage pathologies" -- where a state is analogous to "weather" and a stage is analogous to "climate". All problems from category (1.) stem from functional impairments that occur within a given stage of development (broken personal integrity); all problems from category (2.) stem from functional deficiencies that occur because the person needs to mature to his/her next-higher stage of development.
That said, what is the role of somatic education? To answer that rhetorical question, I should first define my terms.
SOMATIC EDUCATION
The term, "somatic" (derived from the ancient Greek word, "soma") refers to the experience of our faculties -- awareness and control -- from within -- autonomy, self-regulation, freedom and responsibility. The term, "education" (derived from Latin "e ducare") refers to the drawing out and making functional an individual's latent faculties so that they come alive.
In this day, both words, "somatic" and "education", are abused and misused in popular parlance. "Somatic" is used to refer to the flesh-body or to cells of the body (as opposed to the mind), so that the word, psychosomatic is not recognized as the redundancy that it is. (Remember, "soma" includes both bodily (or incarnated) existence and awareness, from within, of ourselves and our faculties.) Likewise, education is used to refer to mental learning of more and more things -- facts and rules, without the recognition that such mental learning relies upon a more basic learning -- the learning of how to pay attention and to exercise intention in action (to get specifically intended results). These abuses of words point to the degeneration (category 1.) and unevolved stage (category 2.) of our human culture.
So, we have to rehabilitate these words and their meanings for this essay to be meaningful. If you accept that rehabilitation, read on.
Somatic education does two major general things: it awakens perception (sensory awareness) and it awakens self-control (and by extension, control of things and others).
Understanding that point is "huge", since it is the basis of entire human lives. Somatic education increases the effects of ones actions upon oneself and others. It frees (and in effect, causes) one to be more aware of what one tends be, and, as habitual functional patterns are set free, to be more intensely "what's left" -- in effect, a surfacing (like the body of an iceberg as the top melts) of unconscious/subconscious habitual material.
The enterprise of spiritual practice appears in many forms in human culture -- everything from nature-spirit worship to organized religion to self-transcending practices.
For the purpose of this writing, I especially mean self-awakening and self-transcending practices.
At this point, we have to rehabilitate another slippery word: transcendence.
People commonly use the term to mean "being above" and dissociating from some kind of experience -- not experiencing it anymore. That's a formula for neurosis, pathology and breakdown; it's not transcendence.
The proper understanding of the term is "being inclusive of and more than" some kind of experience -- experiencing it consciously, with understanding, with mastery. This understanding goes along with Einstein's declaration that "It is impossible to solve a problem from within the frame of reference within which it was created." To solve a problem, we must first have mastered and transcended its original frame of reference.
This kind of mastery involves two stages: differentiation and integration.
Differentiation means clearly seeing the distinctions that define something as it is. When cooking, it is "helpful" to distinguish the taste of salt from that of other ingredients so that we can regulate how much salt we put into the cooking.
Integration means putting things together into a satisfactorily functioning whole so that all the parts complement each other. When cooking, it is "helpful" to balance the taste of salt with other tastes.
We can't know how much salt to add by tasting the salt we are adding; we must taste both the salt and the rest of the dish-in-progress and balance them with each other. By so doing, we transcend both the taste of salt and the taste of the rest of the dish -- we include them and occupy a frame of reference that is greater than either.
The somatic principle we have identified as applying to this situation is, "Somas perceive by means of contrasts." The corollary is, "Whatever doesn't change fades from perception." Try staring at something, sometime, and see what I mean.
How does this pertain to somatic education?
First, we understand that all of our experience gets processed through the body via the senses -- brain-based learning of how to interpret experiences. This interpretation applies to physical sensations, to emotions, to mental processes, and to higher intuitions that don't have physical objects but which are felt (e.g., music and other forms of coherent art).
Secondly, we understand that that process of interpretation is subject to the distortions of Category (1.) and to the obliviousness of Category (2.)
Let's clarify how injuries and emotional trauma distort both perception and function.
MEMORY IMPRINTS
Memory consists of two aspects that make up ordinary experiencing: sensation and response (or movement, or behavior). All memories exist as states of "readiness to respond", manifested as patterns of muscular tension that keep us ready for action. The common term is, "nervous tension". A technical term would be, "motor habits".
All experiences leave imprints on memory; intense or repetitive experiences leave intense imprints on memory -- and stronger patterns of muscular tension.
These imprints overlie each other as patterns of tension that show up as posture and "body language", breathing patterns, body-sense or the sense of "self", and also thought patterns and emotional responses. "I" am patterns of memory, in action.
"Don't ask me to relax; it's my tension that's keeping me together."
Most of these memory imprints are below the surface and only get activated by circumstances, but reside at a low level of "idle". When activated by circumstance, we call that "emotional reactivity".
For a more detailed and elaborate discussion of how these memory imprints show up as neuromuscular tension patterns, I refer you to "An Expanded View of the Three Reflexes of Stress", "Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?" and "Sensory-Motor Amnesia is Not a Disease."
SOMATIC EDUCATION and MEMORY IMPRINTS
Now, we get into it.
Somatic education provides a means of shifting those memory patterns from "automatic" to voluntary, turning "emotional reactivity" (for instance) into "emotional responsiveness" -- not in a wholesale manner, but progressively and specifically, and also activating latent faculties to which we are oblivious.
Just as muscular tensions can be brought under control by the three basic techniques of Hanna somatic education, "Means-Whereby", "Kinetic Mirroring" and "Pandiculation", so the logic of those techniques can be applied to emotional, mental, and intuitive levels of the being.
In general, three effects make somatic education useful in spiritual practice. (1) It shifts unconscious/semi-conscious habits from unconscious to conscious. (Some would say it integrates the mind-body connection, but it just awakens what is already the case. Please see, "There is No Mind-Body Connection | There is No Mind-Body Split) (2) It awakens and integrates more of the "neural network" of the brain to make possible more complex and more finely articulated perceptions and behaviors, and (3) It re-activates awareness of personal functions that has been lost in Sensory-Motor Amnesia, so they can be integrated.
These effects correspond to (1) incarnation, (2) maturation, and (3) integration of "shadow (psychological) material".
Incarnation
Mere conception is not incarnation, nor is mere birth. Conception and birth begin the process of incarnation, which involves identification as "body/mind" (soma), so that we experience the body "from within", as our "acting" selves.
The "incarnation" step applies especially to people who tend to live in their dreams, thoughts or emotions, whose fantasy or mental life substitute for engagement in relationships in the world.
Maturation
Development of our capacity to experience and to act is progressive and proceeds by the formation of memory patterns along the developmental lines outlined by Piaget, Rogers, Maslow, and others, which involve progressive development of perception, conception, and action (behavior). It's the development of functional sophistication (more or less).
The "maturation" step applies especially to people who have unevenly developed competence in various areas of their lives.
Integration of "Shadow (psychological) Material"
Shadow material consists of behaviors and feelings that have previously developed and then been distorted by reactions to traumatic experiences of various kinds. They're ways we "won't let ourselves be", but which we still have impulses to be. They're actions "stopped mid-step", both active and opposed by us at the same time.
The "integration" step especially applies to people who have been traumatized.
I'll tell you a few personal stories to illustrate my points.
Incarnation. I grew up in an emotionally dissociated (but financially well-off) family, in which my emotions and wishes felt generally invalidated, even as my material needs were satisfied, without much social contact or play time for ten months out of every year (required to practice piano during the time when the boys on my block were out playing, together). At home, I lived in frequent anxiety, boredom and alienation; in school, I feared for my physical safety and suffered frequent humiliation from more aggressive boys. I was small for my age, but intellectually well-developed (which earned me the name, Peabody, after the brainy cartoon dog-character on "Bullwinkle" -- "Sherman and Peabody" -- from one of the boys). In my free time (after piano practice), I read copiously -- astronomy, paleontology, anatomy, physics, chemistry, science fiction, and the entire World Book Encyclopedia, cover to cover. In physical education classes, I had the least prowess of anybody and was always the last chosen for team sports. So, I was mentally well-developed, emotionally intimidated and alienated, physically undeveloped, and socially out of synch with my peer group.
In my teens, I developed incapacitating tendonitis in my right hand/wrist that resulted, ultimately, in my getting Rolfed. The point of this narrative is that my "incarnation history" led to this: My rolfer described me as being "like concrete" and "the most contracted individual" he had ever worked on. I was largely oblivious to my condition, and I had so little bodily sensation that my forearms and abdomen felt as insensate as wood.
Rolfing was the beginning of my somatic education, and in the process, what aroused my great interest is that I was starting to perceive myself, my body, and my behavior, in ways that had never before awakened. The awakening of feeling and the changes of how I was moving were giving me a viewpoint for self-perception other than the one with which I had been identified -- the contrast making possible new self-observation.
Maturation
My process of maturation gradually progressed, with Rolfing, and accelerated with movement practices designed to speed the integration of the changes from Rolfing.
The movement practices had the same effect of awakening new self-observation (by means of contrast between the state I generated with movement practice and my habitual state) and it had a further effect, development of a kind of psychic sensitivity. I recall one afternoon, working the counter at my father's print shop, when the front door opened and a man came in, and with him, an emotional field that I would characterize as "a downer". It came in with him, specifically (and not the same way with other customers), so it wasn't a matter of "oh, another customer"; it was about, "wow, feel what just walked in the door". Practice of the Structural Patterning Movements typically magnified that psychic sensitivity by calming my mind and quieting and sensitizing my nervous system -- a lower "signal-to-noise ratio".
I stayed with Rolfing for about twenty years, and in so doing, built up a mass of contrast between my physical state and my habitual subjective state (memories of "how to be" and "how I am"). It was to be the basis of a rending, wholesale transformation (that has continued to this day).
Integration
At age 36, after a fairly easy divorce, but also during a wrenching time of change during which I went back to university to train as a physical therapist (living in the dorm with 18-21 year-olds), and during which I lost my entire social network, accustomed diet, work and living situation and had no source of income. I was fairly maxed-out on stress.
Shortly after the end of my university studies, I returned to my previous town in a completely different situation than the one I had left, without friends or income, still maxed out on stress.
During that time, my Rolfer plopped a copy of Somatics, by Thomas Hanna, onto my lap and said, "You might be interested in this." The book contained somatic exercises "for neuromuscular stress", which I began to practice. Surprisingly, instead of reducing my stress, they made it worse. Much worse. The exercises, by surfacing unconscious processes and developing more responsiveness in my process, intensified both my awareness and my manifestation of my state of stress, physically. The exercises made me experience more the state I was in.
That may not seem like a good thing, but by intensifying my experience of stress, it also made me available (and irresistably compelled me) to undertake further spiritual training and intensive inner work to "disarm" the stress.
When I entered training in somatic education with Thomas Hanna, I was in so much stress and so intense that I deliberately wore a red tee-shirt with the words applied to it, in white letters, "Too Intense". Mutual practice of the somatic education techniques among students alleviated my stress by about 50%. At the conclusion of training, we had a celebratory barbeque, at which time my peers burned that tee-shirt. As one of my peers said, as testimony to their acknowledgement of how much I had changed, I wasn't wearing the tee-shirt when they burned it.
After training with Thomas Hanna, circumstances brought me into contact with a teacher of The Avatar Course, which consists of methods that have the same underlying principles as Hanna somatic education. Using those methods has been instrumental in disarming so much of the accumulated stresses of my earlier life, intensified and revealed to me through somatic education.
SUMMARY
This is a fairly summary recounting in which I omit a lot of details -- but the essentials are present.
Spiritual practice does not occur in a vacuum or in a state of obliviousness. Bliss is not oblivion. It's equipoise -- which means active, participatory ease or grace -- what Thomas Hanna termed, "the fair state". It entails both momentary deep intuitions of the formless self-nature ("original mind"), emotional peace, and progressive deepening and integration into life.
Somatic education awakens human faculties so that we come more awake as we are, develop our faculties, and see more vividly the ways in which we are "stuck" in unconscious memory-and-action patterns that befoul attentive consciousness and prevent the awakening to increasingly free being and transcendental intuition.
In practice, clearing up each habituated action-pattern frees and integrates creative energy (attention and intention), so that we have more of ourselves available to put into action. That means we get more effect from the same amount of felt-effort as before. We also feel that effect more keenly and also feel "what's left to do" more keenly. We become more "how we are" and get more sensitive to ourselves and to others, more keenly discerning. As a result, we experience a progressive revelation of our habituated state, to ourselves, leading to "the next thing to clear up", and that progression happens faster and more intensely than before. The term, "the Fire of Practice" attains meaning.
Somatic education activates the great Truth Teller -- our actual feelings, apart from idealistic mental notions or deluding spiritual enthusiasm. "The Body Doesn't Lie." It decreases the likelihood of "spiritual bypassing" -- in which we assert idealisms rather than working with our actualities.
By the same token, Hanna somatic education has a limitation -- its greatest strength is sensory-motor integration, with the secondary emotional and mental benefits described earlier -- however, at some point, the somatic limitations seated at the sensory-motor level have essentially been dealt with, and habituated limitations remain in the subtler "bodies" -- emotional, mental and intuitive. These remaining limitations must be dealt with at those levels on their own terms, even though they may show up as problems in the physical body.
At that point, one must engage processes that apply the principles of somatic education in techniques analogous to those of somatic education, but that apply to those higher bodies.
In summary, the effects of somatic education on spiritual practice are:
The Big Pandiculation is exactly that process of conscious incarnation and transcendence, awakening experiential awareness and control, and coming out of the habituated state of identity that characterizes the unawakened individual so that (s)he can be her or his free and responsible, unique self.
Here's a link to an internet interview on clinical somatic education, as found on Happiness After Midlife (http://happiness-after-midlife.com).
MORE:
SOMATIC EDUCATION EXERCISES
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL SOMATIC EDUCATION
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL APPLICATION OF SOMATIC EXERCISES
"The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?"
Its primary technique, "Pandiculation", puts principles into operation that apply equally well to subtler and "inner" aspects of the human being, i.e., the emotions and thinking mind, and the mind of subtle intuition -- the emotional and mental psychic fields -- as they do to the "outer" physiological body/organism. So, I refer to the grand process of human evolutionary transformation as, The Big Pandiculation.
This essay explains how this is so, and also identifies the advantage and limitation of Hanna somatic education as an element of spiritual practice.
An entire human life may be summarized as moving from one state and degree of contraction to another -- with varying degrees of habituation.
Spiritual practice may be summarized as "increasing involvement with and increasing transcendence of" the conditions of life -- increasing involution and increasing evolution -- awakening to what we are constantly doing and being. I suggest that one of the most powerful means of spiritual practice is pandiculation -- applied not only at the sensory-motor level, as in Hanna somatic education, but also at emotional, mental, and intuitive levels. I call this, The Big Pandiculation. Correspondences with Kinetic Mirroring and Means-Whereby (explained here) also apply to those other levels. For non-participants in Hanna somatic education, I explain the term, "Pandiculation", here.
PRACTICAL ACTION, click here.
THE TERM, "SPIRITUAL PRACTICE", AS I MEAN IT
Spiritual practice has two aspects:
- awakening to and outgrowing (transcending) archaic, habituated patterns of function and perception
- awaking into new faculties of function and perception
The first category is that of loss; the second category is that of limited development.
I know that's a lot, and I'll clarify, as needed, below.
For students of Ken Wilber, let me say that these two aspects of spiritual practice correspond to what he characterized as "state pathologies" and "stage pathologies" -- where a state is analogous to "weather" and a stage is analogous to "climate". All problems from category (1.) stem from functional impairments that occur within a given stage of development (broken personal integrity); all problems from category (2.) stem from functional deficiencies that occur because the person needs to mature to his/her next-higher stage of development.
That said, what is the role of somatic education? To answer that rhetorical question, I should first define my terms.
SOMATIC EDUCATION
The term, "somatic" (derived from the ancient Greek word, "soma") refers to the experience of our faculties -- awareness and control -- from within -- autonomy, self-regulation, freedom and responsibility. The term, "education" (derived from Latin "e ducare") refers to the drawing out and making functional an individual's latent faculties so that they come alive.
In this day, both words, "somatic" and "education", are abused and misused in popular parlance. "Somatic" is used to refer to the flesh-body or to cells of the body (as opposed to the mind), so that the word, psychosomatic is not recognized as the redundancy that it is. (Remember, "soma" includes both bodily (or incarnated) existence and awareness, from within, of ourselves and our faculties.) Likewise, education is used to refer to mental learning of more and more things -- facts and rules, without the recognition that such mental learning relies upon a more basic learning -- the learning of how to pay attention and to exercise intention in action (to get specifically intended results). These abuses of words point to the degeneration (category 1.) and unevolved stage (category 2.) of our human culture.
So, we have to rehabilitate these words and their meanings for this essay to be meaningful. If you accept that rehabilitation, read on.
Somatic education does two major general things: it awakens perception (sensory awareness) and it awakens self-control (and by extension, control of things and others).
Understanding that point is "huge", since it is the basis of entire human lives. Somatic education increases the effects of ones actions upon oneself and others. It frees (and in effect, causes) one to be more aware of what one tends be, and, as habitual functional patterns are set free, to be more intensely "what's left" -- in effect, a surfacing (like the body of an iceberg as the top melts) of unconscious/subconscious habitual material.
The enterprise of spiritual practice appears in many forms in human culture -- everything from nature-spirit worship to organized religion to self-transcending practices.
For the purpose of this writing, I especially mean self-awakening and self-transcending practices.
At this point, we have to rehabilitate another slippery word: transcendence.
People commonly use the term to mean "being above" and dissociating from some kind of experience -- not experiencing it anymore. That's a formula for neurosis, pathology and breakdown; it's not transcendence.
The proper understanding of the term is "being inclusive of and more than" some kind of experience -- experiencing it consciously, with understanding, with mastery. This understanding goes along with Einstein's declaration that "It is impossible to solve a problem from within the frame of reference within which it was created." To solve a problem, we must first have mastered and transcended its original frame of reference.
This kind of mastery involves two stages: differentiation and integration.
Differentiation means clearly seeing the distinctions that define something as it is. When cooking, it is "helpful" to distinguish the taste of salt from that of other ingredients so that we can regulate how much salt we put into the cooking.
Integration means putting things together into a satisfactorily functioning whole so that all the parts complement each other. When cooking, it is "helpful" to balance the taste of salt with other tastes.
We can't know how much salt to add by tasting the salt we are adding; we must taste both the salt and the rest of the dish-in-progress and balance them with each other. By so doing, we transcend both the taste of salt and the taste of the rest of the dish -- we include them and occupy a frame of reference that is greater than either.
The somatic principle we have identified as applying to this situation is, "Somas perceive by means of contrasts." The corollary is, "Whatever doesn't change fades from perception." Try staring at something, sometime, and see what I mean.
How does this pertain to somatic education?
First, we understand that all of our experience gets processed through the body via the senses -- brain-based learning of how to interpret experiences. This interpretation applies to physical sensations, to emotions, to mental processes, and to higher intuitions that don't have physical objects but which are felt (e.g., music and other forms of coherent art).
Secondly, we understand that that process of interpretation is subject to the distortions of Category (1.) and to the obliviousness of Category (2.)
Let's clarify how injuries and emotional trauma distort both perception and function.
MEMORY IMPRINTS
Memory consists of two aspects that make up ordinary experiencing: sensation and response (or movement, or behavior). All memories exist as states of "readiness to respond", manifested as patterns of muscular tension that keep us ready for action. The common term is, "nervous tension". A technical term would be, "motor habits".
All experiences leave imprints on memory; intense or repetitive experiences leave intense imprints on memory -- and stronger patterns of muscular tension.
These imprints overlie each other as patterns of tension that show up as posture and "body language", breathing patterns, body-sense or the sense of "self", and also thought patterns and emotional responses. "I" am patterns of memory, in action.
"Don't ask me to relax; it's my tension that's keeping me together."
Most of these memory imprints are below the surface and only get activated by circumstances, but reside at a low level of "idle". When activated by circumstance, we call that "emotional reactivity".
For a more detailed and elaborate discussion of how these memory imprints show up as neuromuscular tension patterns, I refer you to "An Expanded View of the Three Reflexes of Stress", "Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?" and "Sensory-Motor Amnesia is Not a Disease."
SOMATIC EDUCATION and MEMORY IMPRINTS
Now, we get into it.
Somatic education provides a means of shifting those memory patterns from "automatic" to voluntary, turning "emotional reactivity" (for instance) into "emotional responsiveness" -- not in a wholesale manner, but progressively and specifically, and also activating latent faculties to which we are oblivious.
Just as muscular tensions can be brought under control by the three basic techniques of Hanna somatic education, "Means-Whereby", "Kinetic Mirroring" and "Pandiculation", so the logic of those techniques can be applied to emotional, mental, and intuitive levels of the being.
In general, three effects make somatic education useful in spiritual practice. (1) It shifts unconscious/semi-conscious habits from unconscious to conscious. (Some would say it integrates the mind-body connection, but it just awakens what is already the case. Please see, "There is No Mind-Body Connection | There is No Mind-Body Split) (2) It awakens and integrates more of the "neural network" of the brain to make possible more complex and more finely articulated perceptions and behaviors, and (3) It re-activates awareness of personal functions that has been lost in Sensory-Motor Amnesia, so they can be integrated.
These effects correspond to (1) incarnation, (2) maturation, and (3) integration of "shadow (psychological) material".
Incarnation
Mere conception is not incarnation, nor is mere birth. Conception and birth begin the process of incarnation, which involves identification as "body/mind" (soma), so that we experience the body "from within", as our "acting" selves.
The "incarnation" step applies especially to people who tend to live in their dreams, thoughts or emotions, whose fantasy or mental life substitute for engagement in relationships in the world.
Maturation
Development of our capacity to experience and to act is progressive and proceeds by the formation of memory patterns along the developmental lines outlined by Piaget, Rogers, Maslow, and others, which involve progressive development of perception, conception, and action (behavior). It's the development of functional sophistication (more or less).
The "maturation" step applies especially to people who have unevenly developed competence in various areas of their lives.
Integration of "Shadow (psychological) Material"
Shadow material consists of behaviors and feelings that have previously developed and then been distorted by reactions to traumatic experiences of various kinds. They're ways we "won't let ourselves be", but which we still have impulses to be. They're actions "stopped mid-step", both active and opposed by us at the same time.
The "integration" step especially applies to people who have been traumatized.
I'll tell you a few personal stories to illustrate my points.
Incarnation. I grew up in an emotionally dissociated (but financially well-off) family, in which my emotions and wishes felt generally invalidated, even as my material needs were satisfied, without much social contact or play time for ten months out of every year (required to practice piano during the time when the boys on my block were out playing, together). At home, I lived in frequent anxiety, boredom and alienation; in school, I feared for my physical safety and suffered frequent humiliation from more aggressive boys. I was small for my age, but intellectually well-developed (which earned me the name, Peabody, after the brainy cartoon dog-character on "Bullwinkle" -- "Sherman and Peabody" -- from one of the boys). In my free time (after piano practice), I read copiously -- astronomy, paleontology, anatomy, physics, chemistry, science fiction, and the entire World Book Encyclopedia, cover to cover. In physical education classes, I had the least prowess of anybody and was always the last chosen for team sports. So, I was mentally well-developed, emotionally intimidated and alienated, physically undeveloped, and socially out of synch with my peer group.
In my teens, I developed incapacitating tendonitis in my right hand/wrist that resulted, ultimately, in my getting Rolfed. The point of this narrative is that my "incarnation history" led to this: My rolfer described me as being "like concrete" and "the most contracted individual" he had ever worked on. I was largely oblivious to my condition, and I had so little bodily sensation that my forearms and abdomen felt as insensate as wood.
Rolfing was the beginning of my somatic education, and in the process, what aroused my great interest is that I was starting to perceive myself, my body, and my behavior, in ways that had never before awakened. The awakening of feeling and the changes of how I was moving were giving me a viewpoint for self-perception other than the one with which I had been identified -- the contrast making possible new self-observation.
Maturation
My process of maturation gradually progressed, with Rolfing, and accelerated with movement practices designed to speed the integration of the changes from Rolfing.
The movement practices had the same effect of awakening new self-observation (by means of contrast between the state I generated with movement practice and my habitual state) and it had a further effect, development of a kind of psychic sensitivity. I recall one afternoon, working the counter at my father's print shop, when the front door opened and a man came in, and with him, an emotional field that I would characterize as "a downer". It came in with him, specifically (and not the same way with other customers), so it wasn't a matter of "oh, another customer"; it was about, "wow, feel what just walked in the door". Practice of the Structural Patterning Movements typically magnified that psychic sensitivity by calming my mind and quieting and sensitizing my nervous system -- a lower "signal-to-noise ratio".
I stayed with Rolfing for about twenty years, and in so doing, built up a mass of contrast between my physical state and my habitual subjective state (memories of "how to be" and "how I am"). It was to be the basis of a rending, wholesale transformation (that has continued to this day).
Integration
At age 36, after a fairly easy divorce, but also during a wrenching time of change during which I went back to university to train as a physical therapist (living in the dorm with 18-21 year-olds), and during which I lost my entire social network, accustomed diet, work and living situation and had no source of income. I was fairly maxed-out on stress.
Shortly after the end of my university studies, I returned to my previous town in a completely different situation than the one I had left, without friends or income, still maxed out on stress.
During that time, my Rolfer plopped a copy of Somatics, by Thomas Hanna, onto my lap and said, "You might be interested in this." The book contained somatic exercises "for neuromuscular stress", which I began to practice. Surprisingly, instead of reducing my stress, they made it worse. Much worse. The exercises, by surfacing unconscious processes and developing more responsiveness in my process, intensified both my awareness and my manifestation of my state of stress, physically. The exercises made me experience more the state I was in.
That may not seem like a good thing, but by intensifying my experience of stress, it also made me available (and irresistably compelled me) to undertake further spiritual training and intensive inner work to "disarm" the stress.
When I entered training in somatic education with Thomas Hanna, I was in so much stress and so intense that I deliberately wore a red tee-shirt with the words applied to it, in white letters, "Too Intense". Mutual practice of the somatic education techniques among students alleviated my stress by about 50%. At the conclusion of training, we had a celebratory barbeque, at which time my peers burned that tee-shirt. As one of my peers said, as testimony to their acknowledgement of how much I had changed, I wasn't wearing the tee-shirt when they burned it.
After training with Thomas Hanna, circumstances brought me into contact with a teacher of The Avatar Course, which consists of methods that have the same underlying principles as Hanna somatic education. Using those methods has been instrumental in disarming so much of the accumulated stresses of my earlier life, intensified and revealed to me through somatic education.
SUMMARY
This is a fairly summary recounting in which I omit a lot of details -- but the essentials are present.
Spiritual practice does not occur in a vacuum or in a state of obliviousness. Bliss is not oblivion. It's equipoise -- which means active, participatory ease or grace -- what Thomas Hanna termed, "the fair state". It entails both momentary deep intuitions of the formless self-nature ("original mind"), emotional peace, and progressive deepening and integration into life.
Somatic education awakens human faculties so that we come more awake as we are, develop our faculties, and see more vividly the ways in which we are "stuck" in unconscious memory-and-action patterns that befoul attentive consciousness and prevent the awakening to increasingly free being and transcendental intuition.
In practice, clearing up each habituated action-pattern frees and integrates creative energy (attention and intention), so that we have more of ourselves available to put into action. That means we get more effect from the same amount of felt-effort as before. We also feel that effect more keenly and also feel "what's left to do" more keenly. We become more "how we are" and get more sensitive to ourselves and to others, more keenly discerning. As a result, we experience a progressive revelation of our habituated state, to ourselves, leading to "the next thing to clear up", and that progression happens faster and more intensely than before. The term, "the Fire of Practice" attains meaning.
Somatic education activates the great Truth Teller -- our actual feelings, apart from idealistic mental notions or deluding spiritual enthusiasm. "The Body Doesn't Lie." It decreases the likelihood of "spiritual bypassing" -- in which we assert idealisms rather than working with our actualities.
By the same token, Hanna somatic education has a limitation -- its greatest strength is sensory-motor integration, with the secondary emotional and mental benefits described earlier -- however, at some point, the somatic limitations seated at the sensory-motor level have essentially been dealt with, and habituated limitations remain in the subtler "bodies" -- emotional, mental and intuitive. These remaining limitations must be dealt with at those levels on their own terms, even though they may show up as problems in the physical body.
At that point, one must engage processes that apply the principles of somatic education in techniques analogous to those of somatic education, but that apply to those higher bodies.
In summary, the effects of somatic education on spiritual practice are:
- relieving impediments left behind by trauma
- organizing attention and intention to a higher level of integration
- increased effectiveness of intention and action
- increased sensitivity to the effects of intentions and actions
- progressive revelation of somatic habituations, leading to
- progressive integration and transcendence of habituated adaptations
The Big Pandiculation is exactly that process of conscious incarnation and transcendence, awakening experiential awareness and control, and coming out of the habituated state of identity that characterizes the unawakened individual so that (s)he can be her or his free and responsible, unique self.
PRACTICAL ACTION, click here.
Here's a link to an internet interview on clinical somatic education, as found on Happiness After Midlife (http://happiness-after-midlife.com).
MORE:
SOMATIC EDUCATION EXERCISES
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL SOMATIC EDUCATION
ARTICLE ABOUT CLINICAL APPLICATION OF SOMATIC EXERCISES
"The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?"
The Immortal Harold Somaman -- What Keeps Him Going?
He began in his own time an ordinary boy, a bit precocious, a bit intellectual,
but of average disposition. Unselfconscious.
How would one guess that Harold Somaman might evolve to the point that he could, by means of conscious movements mistaken for exotic patterns of stretching, influence the unseen quantum flux network that held the pattern of his body, and by doing so, maintain his physical body at a kind of dynamic equilibrium. Said another way, Harold Somaman had arrested his aging process through a kind of psychokinesis.
At least that’s how the public understood it.
People saw in him a strange case of mind over body, like firewalkers or the Shaolin monks whose mastery of Kung Fu and of breaking bricks is legendary, or as an Olympian of longevity. They saw him as the exception – one of the few chosen who could “do it.” He was regarded as a genetic anomaly, an oddity.
That, of course, was not his opinion, and he regarded people who held such views as of a “tabloid mentality,” their explanation for his longevity, laughable. He sometimes jokingly referred to himself as a mutant, but as far as he was concerned, anyone could do what he had done, if they did what he did. It just might take them a while to realize it.
Quantum flux network? Psychokinesis? Leave it to these people to love twenty-dollar terms.
Well, once he came to public attention in the local papers, the tabloid reporters and scientists followed. Both interviewed him. The tabloid reports had at least got it less wrong, writing about the mind-body connection, even if they had made it sound like something from outer space. The scientists immediately had wanted to explain it all in terms of hormones and genetics, and keep the mind out of it, thank you very much.
They studied him.
In the neuro-physics laboratory, they’d measured his neural conductance in different parts of his body, they’d had him CAT scanned, Pet scanned, electromagnetically mapped, x-rayed and MRI’d, and taken his temperature over a forty-eight hour period. The verdict? He was healthy -- as healthy as a thirty year old. He was, at that time one hundred eighty three. He looked good, but his face looked a little older than thirty.
At the psych lab, they’d recorded his brain waves while they attempted to get him to get a match box to slide across the table. They tested him with ESP cards. He’d told them, “That’s not my thing,” but research grants being what they are, they insisted. They said, “We’ve heard you have psychokinetic abilities. We’d very much like to see.” “It’s a different kind of psychokinesis,” he said. They wouldn’t listen. After four hours of countless cups of coffee in a glass observation booth, during which time they became increasingly nervous, fidgety and bad-tempered, they finally gave up.
Then he told them, his type of psychokinesis came from a higher integration of mind and body, and that it basically affected his biological processes, his mental functioning, and the results of his actions. That didn’t mean he could slide a matchbox across a table or cause apples to bounce, spoons to bend or watches to stop and start. He couldn’t influence slot machines or cause red traffic lights to turn green -- well, not often. It meant that, by means of a combination of intention and actions of a specific type, he could energetically enhance his body’s functional blueprint at the level of physiology – his nervous system, his muscular system, his sensory awareness, his circulatory system – he could get them all to function more efficiently. He also explained that, because he was functioning more efficiently, he exhibited a higher than average creative capacity. This intrigued them. Finally, he said, it made him smarter. They looked at him dubiously.
So, then, they start asking questions about what he mean by “mind-body connection” and he says, “Can we talk?” and they say, “Yes, of course,” thinking he’s about to give them some answers at last. And, he says, “That’s it.” And they say, “That’s it? What?” “The mind-body connection,” he says. “What is?” they ask. “Talking,” he says. This stops them. He says, “You guys always make everything so complicated.” He looks at them looking at him and starts to laugh and laugh. He spends the rest of the afternoon explaining the mind-body connection using terms he’d read in a tabloid article about him. Soon, they’re nodding, yes, yes.
Now, in the biomechanics lab, they weigh him, test his strength and endurance, and measure his bone density and body fat composition. He puts up with it all patiently.
In the biomechanics lab, they’re going to do some before-and-after studies. Somaman is going to demonstrate some of the mind-body movement processes that he says are his means of arresting the aging process. He’s going to demonstrate them while under measurement. They’re going to get video of the whole thing.
This time, the physics boys are in on the game. They bring devices for magnetic flux measurements, temperature measurement at a distance, a mass densitometer, infrared and ultraviolet cameras, and a scale to measure his weight in case he starts to levitate -- very sophisticated. These guys have seen Ghostbusters and they know what they’re doing.
So, Somaman starts, a slow, twisting standing movement, first one way and then the other. Then, he starts twisting his arms as he turns. His arms and shoulders roll forward and backward along his sides in a twisting movement. Then, he starts to turn his head along with his torso, as if looking over each of his shoulders. Then, he starts to turn his eyes in the direction of his twist. So, he’s doing this kind of dramatic super-twisting movement side to side, and now he starts moving his lower jaw side to side with each turn, opposite to the direction of his eyes. He stops and holds his position in an extreme turn and switches his eyes and jaw from side to side. Now, he’s starting to look really crazy. Then, his spine straightens and he seems to get taller. The scientists stiffen in their chairs and their eyes widen.
Meanwhile, the guys at the EMG readout are going crazy with the data that are coming in about the pattern of his muscle firings. At one point, the needles on all the meters jump at once, hard. Then, they go back to their readings changing in waves.
Harold Somaman starts to breath vigorously. An exhalation, and silence, then an inhalation, and again, silence. Again and again, six times, and then a long silence.
One of the guys catches a look at the expression on Somaman’s face and says in a low voice, “My God! Do you see that?!”
Suddenly, a light seems to flare around Somaman, or rather, his features seem to be etched in sharp relief and suffused by a radiating hard light of no particular color, other than the color of Harold Somaman himself, only brighter. Even the air around him seems to shine.
He begins to untwist and face forward, again, in slow motion, and as he does, he begins to straighten, to get even more erect. He ends with arms outstretched wide, palms forward, legs together. He looks like a caduceus, the winged medical emblem. Light still shines from around him, but it is fading with a kind of fizzing quality that leaves him illuminated only by the laboratory lighting.
Without a word, he starts again, this time in the opposite direction.
When the light has faded a second time, he smiles softly and says, “How was that?”
“’What was that?’ is more like it,” says one of lab techs, quietly.
One of the computers beeps.
A couple of the others in the room, dressed in white coats, close their mouths and resume looking at their computer screens and start tapping some keys and staring.
“Look at this,” says the EEG tech. “All four patterns at once.”
“Look at that symmetry,” says someone else.
“It spikes and then it all goes to near zero,” says a third.
“Where is it, now?”
They look up to see him looking at them with a bemused expression on his face. "Looking at the instant replay?" he asks.
They look back to the monitors.
“Delta and alpha. Look at the amplitude.”
“Hmm.”
“What happened with the EMG data?” someone asks.
“We’re converting it for visual display. Over there.”
Now, Somaman is getting interested, so he asks, “May I see?”
“You’ll have to stand until we get that sensor-suit off.”
“That’s ok.” He comes over.
An image comes up on the monitor, not this time Harold Somaman, but a kind of transparent figure in three dimensions. As it starts to move, it moves like Harold Somaman. Bands of light start moving through it in synch with the movements, connecting his torso and limbs. They extend and retract themselves from the center of his belly to his fingertips and feet, which glow brightly, getting brighter and dimmer with movement. At the moment of his greatest turn, they shine brightest, connecting his feet, through his calves and thighs, to his pelvis, up through the chest, with a kind of spiral shape lit up in the shoulders and arms and a twist through the spine, neck and head. Some are brighter than others, and they’re all lit up when the breathing movement starts.
The breathing movement looks like a pumping action in which the figure’s whole torso expands and contracts, with a light brightening and dimming at the bottom of the pelvic region. As it continues, the figure straightens a bit and seems to shift its balance just a little, and then the pumping breathing stops, and a small streak of light passes from the mouth down to the center of the torso. The light at the bottom of the torso is very bright, then suddenly dims as a light at the center of the torso brightens. Suddenly, all the lit areas come to equal intensity.
“That’s just the EMG,” someone says.
“What do you mean?” someone asks.
“Look at the playback of the magnetic densitometer readings.”
The magnetic densitometer is a measurer of magnetic field strength and field size. It’s an indicator of changes of electrical activity in his nervous system and the magnetic field around his body.
“Put it up, split screen.”
The monitor display divides in two, showing another figure at the side of the first.
“Start it over.”
Playback begins, and this time, when the figure lit up at left, a sudden flare expands to surround the figure at right, looking like a slightly irregular plum shape made of shimmering lines of light with a core of light at the center of the figure.
The figure at left is holding very still in a twisted position. As it starts to untwist and face forward, the plum shape surrounding the figure at right flares even larger and brighter and then, as it brightens more, the figure inside it disappears inside the brightness. The irregularities in the plum of light start to fill up and even out.
At last, when the figure at left faces forward, the light pervading the figure at right fades at the edges and subsides to a glow. The figure stands very still in the pose of the caduceus. Playback ends.
“Pretty fancy,” says Harold Somaman.
Nobody says anything.
“Well, got your data?” he asks. “May I go?”
“Wait a minute.” One of the techs taps some keys. “Let me check. OK, everybody?”
Voices respond one by one in the affirmative. Someone calls out, "We need samples for analysis -- urine, stool, and semen."
Harold Somaman peels off the sensor suit and drapes it over a chair. Then, he loosens his pants, bends over, and lifts one knee.
“What’re you doing?” someone says.
"I'm in a hurry, doc. Here. Take my shorts."
He straightens, refastens his pants, and turns and looks over his shoulder as he starts for the door. You can see he's smiling. “I’ve got a date. See ya later, boys.” He winks and walks out, leaving the door slowly sighing closed behind him.
© Lawrence Gold
NEXT:
Facets of Superman
exercises like the one described here
Somatic Ethics
There is a way about somatic education that can be seen as a kind of ethic or approach to life. By that same token, there is a way of seeing how the way someone participates in somatic education is the way they participate in life.
For one thing, we're dealing with matters of relationship, where relationship isn't a static thing like an abstract concept, but a dynamic of play -- how we do things.
For our first example, let's take the case of how a somatic educator may conduct a session of somatic education with someone. In general, our way is to observe and understand, from within, the predicament of our client. We may look at him or her standing full length, and by observing the stance of that person, replicate its feeling in ourselves. There's a feel to what we see. We kind of get inside you like a hand in a glove and, aided by our theoretical understanding of the behavior of the three major reflexes of stress and our recognition of interconnected movement patterns, we discern what's going on in you. Of course, we cross-verify those findings with your history of injuries, palpation (manual assessment) and your current sensations.
So, here's the first ethic: We get information from both inside and outside, in feeling and in understanding.
Having done that, we choose and guide you into the easiest, most accessible, and generally, most direct route into what you're already doing habitually. We have you make it more. To do so, you must first recognize it as something you can do -- and then do it. So, we guide you, we direct you, into replicating elements of the action you are habitually doing (differentiation) then guide you into assembling all those elements into an integrated pattern -- the more integrated and complete, the better. You go in; you come out. You learn the path into and the path out-of. We help you find it.
You see what I mean about relationship, yet? There's are patterns in us formed by the physical, emotional, mental and intuitive stresses of experience, patterns of remembered tension in our musculature and arrested-but-held impulses to action. We guide you to awaken to what each one is -- and generally, no sooner has that awakening occurred then you are already at least partially, if not largely, out of that pattern. It happens before you know it, actually (although we feel it). Then we have you move about so that you can feel what's changed. Then we do some more.
Into . . . . . out of
The Rule of Thumb, here, is "Whatever they are doing 'wrong', have them do it MORE, and then less -- alternately. Imagine the liberation. "Destination -- Jello" -- but Jello with an attitude!
Now, I suppose there are various ways of going into and out of -- some of which look like going around the problem. So there are degrees of relationship -- degrees of directness -- degrees of relevance -- degrees of comprehensiveness. See?
Now, consider that language: relationship, directness, relevance, comprehensiveness. Those four terms are sufficient to define an ethic.
Relationship | Directness | Relevance | Comprehensiveness
Here's where some variation can creep in. An additional "point on a continuum" is "more and less", "consistent and inconsistent".
"More or less" may be more or less force, more or less speed, more or less intensity, more or less subtlety.
"Consistent and inconsistent" are terms having to do with times and occurrences and also with changes of rules.
Do we change the rules in the middle of the game or do we change the rules between games?
In the case of somatic education, since we are showing a person how to go into and come out-of, some consistency is "desirable". We want to make enough of an imprint in a person's memory that they can find it at will, and then they have also found the way out. In general, "The way it goes in is the way it comes out - and "The way it comes out is the way it goes in."
That's a high-speed strategy because it makes the greatest imprint with the least effort. Another ethic: A case of "get more result with even less effort". Targeted, rhythmic repetition helps a bit.
That kind of high-speed strategy makes even lesser efforts cumulatively effective.
But of course, the point is to get the result -- not to reduce effort.
Another ethic: The way to conserve effort is to get the result very efficiently -- at least as efficiently, and perhaps even more subtly than by less focussed, less specific, less intent, less attentive efforts.
Those are just of few of the ethics we may see in the process of somatic education.
I have observed other variations on ethics among clients.
COMMON ETHICS
There are some interesting ones. I gave them names.
The Wooden Man appears, to others, to change slowly, if at all, but he reports how much change he is feeling. This is a really sensitive individual because (s)he feels so much change when so little is happening.
Half-Hearted Participants don't really put much into it. They don't "ramp up" enough really to engage. You've got to ask them. Repeatedly. They may say one thing and do another -- or promise something and not do what they say.
The Really Hard Worker on the other hand, never quits! (S)he springs into action, sometimes ahead of you so it's a little like reigning in a horse. Thoroughbred. Jumpy. A bit high strung. Tends to hurt him or herself by excessive effort or by never taking rest. We repeatedly have to remind him or her to use less effort and to go more slowly. Be more leisurely.
It's Over Before It's Really Over is the person who, somewhere near the middle or three quarters through a movement, suddenly gives way and quits. Understand, this is a movement for which the person set the effort-force level to begin with -- and (s)he gives way, feeling overpowered by someone who matched her example at the beginning! Misconstruing that she is resisting being overpowered by them, rather than they that are respectfully resisting her, she feels overpowered. Pacing, follow-through -- and recognition of responsibility -- are the teaching, here.
Doesn't Know When to Quit never takes a vacation. This is a person who is a bit slow to enter the relaxation from a "movement into tension" and a bit slow to relax faster. Even after a move to complete relaxation, this person also springs into action at a moment's notice -- even when you want him to relax and have said so. It's a learning thing. We take such a person down in stages, having him/her use progressively less effort with each repetition. We sneak up on the relaxation state. (Shhhhhhhhh.)
All or Nothing -- such a person in a high-powered sports car would be dangerous. (S)he knows only "all on" and "all off". It's "pedal to the metal" or "hit the brakes!" Fitful. Sudden. Not much gradation of control. Can you imagine? Workaholics. Such people may look forceful, but tend to cave in a bit more suddenly than you might expect. They just need practice floating in the mid-range of things -- the so-called "Middle Way" -- which is not mediocrity or "centered balance", but variable, floating self-regulation with capacity for the extremes.
and Chris Cross -- this is a very interesting person. Confuses right and left. Ask him to lift his left arm and he lifts his right, for a moment. Sometimes a long moment. You ask him to look right, he looks left, for a moment, then looks right. Catches himself. Feels dumb. This typically happens with new, non-habitual movements. Here's the news: four (4) out of five (5) people do this a few times during a session. It's very confusing for the person when I bring it to his attention -- and it is for that eventuality that the sayings, "the other right" and "the other left" were framed. This is a person who means to do one thing and does the opposite. Which can be handy -- if we're engaged in learning the way in and the way out. But also amusing.
Anyhow, you can see that these types together define a kind of ethic and more types could be added to make a more complex ethic.
But let's look again at what we have, here.
Here's the last somersault: We contrast/relate the sets of ethics:
http://somatics.com/somusic/Angels_in_Winter.MP3
For one thing, we're dealing with matters of relationship, where relationship isn't a static thing like an abstract concept, but a dynamic of play -- how we do things.
For our first example, let's take the case of how a somatic educator may conduct a session of somatic education with someone. In general, our way is to observe and understand, from within, the predicament of our client. We may look at him or her standing full length, and by observing the stance of that person, replicate its feeling in ourselves. There's a feel to what we see. We kind of get inside you like a hand in a glove and, aided by our theoretical understanding of the behavior of the three major reflexes of stress and our recognition of interconnected movement patterns, we discern what's going on in you. Of course, we cross-verify those findings with your history of injuries, palpation (manual assessment) and your current sensations.
So, here's the first ethic: We get information from both inside and outside, in feeling and in understanding.
Having done that, we choose and guide you into the easiest, most accessible, and generally, most direct route into what you're already doing habitually. We have you make it more. To do so, you must first recognize it as something you can do -- and then do it. So, we guide you, we direct you, into replicating elements of the action you are habitually doing (differentiation) then guide you into assembling all those elements into an integrated pattern -- the more integrated and complete, the better. You go in; you come out. You learn the path into and the path out-of. We help you find it.
You see what I mean about relationship, yet? There's are patterns in us formed by the physical, emotional, mental and intuitive stresses of experience, patterns of remembered tension in our musculature and arrested-but-held impulses to action. We guide you to awaken to what each one is -- and generally, no sooner has that awakening occurred then you are already at least partially, if not largely, out of that pattern. It happens before you know it, actually (although we feel it). Then we have you move about so that you can feel what's changed. Then we do some more.
Into . . . . . out of
The Rule of Thumb, here, is "Whatever they are doing 'wrong', have them do it MORE, and then less -- alternately. Imagine the liberation. "Destination -- Jello" -- but Jello with an attitude!
Now, I suppose there are various ways of going into and out of -- some of which look like going around the problem. So there are degrees of relationship -- degrees of directness -- degrees of relevance -- degrees of comprehensiveness. See?
Now, consider that language: relationship, directness, relevance, comprehensiveness. Those four terms are sufficient to define an ethic.
Relationship | Directness | Relevance | Comprehensiveness
Here's where some variation can creep in. An additional "point on a continuum" is "more and less", "consistent and inconsistent".
"More or less" may be more or less force, more or less speed, more or less intensity, more or less subtlety.
"Consistent and inconsistent" are terms having to do with times and occurrences and also with changes of rules.
Do we change the rules in the middle of the game or do we change the rules between games?
In the case of somatic education, since we are showing a person how to go into and come out-of, some consistency is "desirable". We want to make enough of an imprint in a person's memory that they can find it at will, and then they have also found the way out. In general, "The way it goes in is the way it comes out - and "The way it comes out is the way it goes in."
That's a high-speed strategy because it makes the greatest imprint with the least effort. Another ethic: A case of "get more result with even less effort". Targeted, rhythmic repetition helps a bit.
That kind of high-speed strategy makes even lesser efforts cumulatively effective.
But of course, the point is to get the result -- not to reduce effort.
Another ethic: The way to conserve effort is to get the result very efficiently -- at least as efficiently, and perhaps even more subtly than by less focussed, less specific, less intent, less attentive efforts.
Those are just of few of the ethics we may see in the process of somatic education.
I have observed other variations on ethics among clients.
COMMON ETHICS
There are some interesting ones. I gave them names.
- The Cooperative Helper
- The Wooden Man
- Half-Hearted Participation
- The Really Hard Worker
- It's Over Before It's Really Over
- "Doesn't Know When to Quit"
- All-or-Nothing
- Criss Cross
The Wooden Man appears, to others, to change slowly, if at all, but he reports how much change he is feeling. This is a really sensitive individual because (s)he feels so much change when so little is happening.
Half-Hearted Participants don't really put much into it. They don't "ramp up" enough really to engage. You've got to ask them. Repeatedly. They may say one thing and do another -- or promise something and not do what they say.
The Really Hard Worker on the other hand, never quits! (S)he springs into action, sometimes ahead of you so it's a little like reigning in a horse. Thoroughbred. Jumpy. A bit high strung. Tends to hurt him or herself by excessive effort or by never taking rest. We repeatedly have to remind him or her to use less effort and to go more slowly. Be more leisurely.
It's Over Before It's Really Over is the person who, somewhere near the middle or three quarters through a movement, suddenly gives way and quits. Understand, this is a movement for which the person set the effort-force level to begin with -- and (s)he gives way, feeling overpowered by someone who matched her example at the beginning! Misconstruing that she is resisting being overpowered by them, rather than they that are respectfully resisting her, she feels overpowered. Pacing, follow-through -- and recognition of responsibility -- are the teaching, here.
Doesn't Know When to Quit never takes a vacation. This is a person who is a bit slow to enter the relaxation from a "movement into tension" and a bit slow to relax faster. Even after a move to complete relaxation, this person also springs into action at a moment's notice -- even when you want him to relax and have said so. It's a learning thing. We take such a person down in stages, having him/her use progressively less effort with each repetition. We sneak up on the relaxation state. (Shhhhhhhhh.)
All or Nothing -- such a person in a high-powered sports car would be dangerous. (S)he knows only "all on" and "all off". It's "pedal to the metal" or "hit the brakes!" Fitful. Sudden. Not much gradation of control. Can you imagine? Workaholics. Such people may look forceful, but tend to cave in a bit more suddenly than you might expect. They just need practice floating in the mid-range of things -- the so-called "Middle Way" -- which is not mediocrity or "centered balance", but variable, floating self-regulation with capacity for the extremes.
and Chris Cross -- this is a very interesting person. Confuses right and left. Ask him to lift his left arm and he lifts his right, for a moment. Sometimes a long moment. You ask him to look right, he looks left, for a moment, then looks right. Catches himself. Feels dumb. This typically happens with new, non-habitual movements. Here's the news: four (4) out of five (5) people do this a few times during a session. It's very confusing for the person when I bring it to his attention -- and it is for that eventuality that the sayings, "the other right" and "the other left" were framed. This is a person who means to do one thing and does the opposite. Which can be handy -- if we're engaged in learning the way in and the way out. But also amusing.
Anyhow, you can see that these types together define a kind of ethic and more types could be added to make a more complex ethic.
But let's look again at what we have, here.
- The Cooperative Helper MEETS Chris Cross
- The Half-Hearted Participant MEETS Wooden Man
- All-or-Nothing : It's Over Before It's Really Over
- The Really Hard Worker : "Doesn't Know When to Quit"
Here's the last somersault: We contrast/relate the sets of ethics:
- The Cooperative Helper MEETS Chris Cross | Directness OF Relationship
- All-or-Nothing : It's Over Before It's Really Over | Staying Related
- The Really Hard Worker : "Doesn't Know When to Quit" | Getting More with Less
- Half-Hearted Participants MEET Wooden Men | Focus with Consistency
We get information from both inside and outside,
in feeling and in understanding.
It goes "Inside-out" and comes "Outside-In".
Somatics has an inside.
Fun, huh?
The Integration of Unevolved and Evolved Views of the Body
If people consider the matter of the body at all, we regard it in two ways: an unevolved view and an evolved view.
THE UNEVOLVED VIEW
The unevolved view of the body is as "vehicle of the self". So viewed, we are "within" the body, which exists to carry us around and bring us toward desirable experiences and away from undesirable ones.
This view of the body concerns us with conformity, the "hard body", political correctness, pain, pleasure, and mortality. It is the point of view of cosmetics, Western medicine, glamour magazines; hard drugs, tobacco and alcohol; corporate culture, social status, consumerism, dance competitions, "youth culture", and violent entertainment (including many video games, crime shows, and much "reality TV"). It is the unevolved view.
What makes the unevolved view, "unevolved", is that it regards the body as "object" -- "my body" -- something to be possessed, controlled and lost in death. This view considers mind and body separate, "I" being "my" mind (which, oddly, linguistically also considers the mind to be a possession, but one which we cannot reliably control, and which we hope continues after death).
The unevolved view of the body is unevolved because, while the faculties of external perception (awareness of the world and social relations) are more-or-less developed, the faculty for internal awareness is more-or-less undeveloped. The unevolved body-mind (soma) reacts to situations automatically and without all that much self-awareness.
THE EVOLVED VIEW
The evolved view of the body is as the tangible expression or manifestation of self. So viewed, we recognize the sense of self (physical, emotional, mental, and feeling-intuitive) as a bodily sensation, not "within" the body, but as sensations of the body. So viewed, we move toward desirable experiences and shy away from undesirable ones, as before, but with our inner life of self as observable as the outer world (psychological "shadow" aspects and unawakened faculties being "compost" for further evolution).
This view of the body concerns us with relationship, with will, integrity, fulfillment of our intentions in actual results, with walking our talk, with how we organize our lives and with knowing our own mind.
What makes the evolved view, "evolved" is that it recognizes that the body is not a "thing" -- or "object" that proceeds into the world as a "non-negotiable" self, but a living experience, the very location of self that changes moment-to-moment. In that view, death is recognized, not merely as a mystery, but as a transformation continuous with life, even as life is a series of transformations into new (mysterious) events of life.
This view of the body allows for something that the unevolved view does not: deliberate self-development and self-evolution. The unevolved view of the body wants to meet life merely as it is ("non-negotiable") -- take me or leave me, "That's just the way I am." The evolved view of the body recognizes that we can deliberately change to meet life more artfully, more smoothly, more intelligently -- and finds that ability intriguing, finds life's challenges and opportunities, its teaching moments, illuminating "grist for the mill" of self-transformation (whether through will or through surrender -- and with or without angst).
A DEEPER LOOK INTO THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE EVOLVED VIEW
To take a deeper look into the evolved view of the body, we find it helpful to look at the basis of what gives the body its characteristics: memory. Once we have done that, we will be in a position to consider how the body contains and distributes memory and the self-sense holographically.
The unevolved view of the body sees memory as a function of the mind and of the brain (regarded as an object-possession, even though no one has a direct experience of their own brain).
The evolved view of the body sees memory as embodied as the whole body -- holographically, meaning distributed among the whole, not contained within a part, such as the brain. Lest you think that I am speaking merely theoretically, I will bring this statement down to Earth.
One quality characterizes all of life: self-initiated movement. Plants have it, insects have it, and animals have it. Movement is life.
Inanimate objects also have consistent behavior patterns, (e.g., the consistent behaviors of atomic elements and compounds seen in chemistry and physics), but they are not self-moving (in the sense of being able to change behavior in mid-act by self-volition). The memory of inanimate objects is simply their predictable behavior -- though, in this view, the memories of inanimate objects are relatively "uneventful" and contain no mental or emotional content. (Note that computer memory consists of patterns of electrical charge stored in silicon circuits -- inanimate.)
In this way of seeing things, the whole Universe may be regarded as a vast system of memory -- interrelated, interacting memories that are changing and evolving -- anchored as patterns of physical reality with internal experience.
For life-forms less complex than humans, most movement consists of instinctual behaviors; the more complex the life-form, the more instinctual behavior is complemented by learned behavior. In humans, learned behavior dominates, by far, instinctual behavior. In either case -- instinctual or learned -- behavior is movement.
Movement carries with it an inner side -- experience.
Experience leaves its imprint on, in, or as memory. Experience becomes memory -- and a memory is nothing more or other than a lasting imprint of sensations and movements. Remembering how to do something (long-term memory) is remembering how to move in certain ways (patterns) and what experiences attend that movement; short-term memory is a tracing of patterns on the waters of consciousness, patterns that quickly fade -- but still have duration, however short. Memory is nothing more or other than the persistence of patterns of behavior (movement) and experience.
Predictability decreases (and unpredictability increases) with complexity, so that the more complex life forms are, the less they behave by instinct and the more they behave as they have learned. Higher complexity includes all of the characteristics of lesser complexity, and something more: room for more memory and something else -- the capacity to look at memory, itself, and to operate upon ones own memory, to change it: deliberate learning and also . . . . . emergent behaviors.
Emergent behaviors are upwellings of change unpredictable on the basis of previous behaviors -- and the formation of memories unpredictable on the basis of previous memories . . . . . creativity and evolution. Each new integration of two or more "behaving entities" into a new whole (each formation of a new relationship between two or more participants) brings forth emergent behaviors unpredictable before the integration occurred. That's emergence. ("Emergencies" typically involve the formation of new relationships on short notice!)
Having covered the span of memory from the most primitive to the most emergent life-forms, we're now prepared to look at how the whole body-mind (soma) contains and distributes memory holographically.
HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
I must first dispense with the notion that memory is distributed equally throughout the brain. This is not so. In the brain, as in the rest of the body, different locations have different functions. However, the interrelation of the different locations -- their synergistic cooperation and interplay -- produces the full range of behavior and memory.
Take an easy-to-understand example: balance.
Movement at balance requires coordination; lack of coordination is awkwardness. Coordination involves closely-timed movements among the "parts" of the entire body; the entire body is involved. Balance is the feeling we get when those closely-timed and coordinated movements result in a minimum of effort to move as we intend; awkwardness always involves a sense of excessive effort because some parts have bad timing. Coordination is a space-time experience of economical, intended movement. The brain controls and senses, the rest of the body acts; they are a functional unity. Seen as the body, we look (viewed from outside) a certain way at any moment; we feel (from the inside) completely different from we look; though different, they are the same event perceived from different viewpoints.
The basic unit of memory in the body is DNA, which makes healing of injuries (restoration of the memory of the whole-body sense) possible, and which is the most highly predictable (chemical and physical) aspect of memory.
However, as a whole we are far more complex than our cells are, our behavior is far more complex, and our individual memories are far more complex than those of cells. Cellular memory, as it is described, is not the deepest or most profound form of memory; it is the shallowest and most superficial. The profundity lives in the larger complexities of which cells, tissues, and organs are simpler parts. Human behaviors are far more complex than the behaviors of individual cells.
The memory of behavior exists as patterns of shape and movement that exist among cells and tissues throughout the whole body. Patterns of connection exist among neurons of the brain and as patterns of coordination (and feelings) among all of the muscles of the body.
Every thought that passes through us shows up as patterns of tension in the musculature. Dreams (an internal experience) can be measured (externally) electrically as changes of muscle tone and electrical potential and observed as eye movements. Voices heard by schizophrenic patients have been observed to coincide with electrically-measured micro-movements of their own vocal apparatus. People move their lips when they first learn to read. Thought is the body, thinking; emotion is changing physiology. The inner experience has an outer expression.
Memory consists of habituation in whole-body patterns of muscular tension and physiology -- generally, states of readiness to take action in familiar situations. Tension (and other physiological states) are the external side of memories, of which sensations are the internal side.
Back to coordination and awkwardness: there exist better and worse -- more and less economical -- patterns of organization as a person. In general, better patterns of thinking go with better patterns of coordination. (It's possible to have specialized patterns of coordination that work well for special situations and still to be incompetent in other situations -- just as some people may be geniuses in certain way and doofuses, in others -- or even "clumsy geniuses" and "absent-minded professors") However, in general, the better coordinated we are, the better we think, and the more ways in which we are well-coordinated, the more versatile our thought processes can be.
Likewise, memories depend upon the body. People commonly accept that sudden shocks to the body cause amnesia, though people don't commonly understand how that is so; they commonly think it has something to do with a blow to the brain. While that is sometimes so, the larger answer is, physical shocks that happen faster than the brain can register them create a discontinuity of memory, a gap in "how I got there." It's not just "amnesia", but "sensory-motor amnesia". People in sensory-motor amnesia have forgotten how to get from their altered state back to their familiar sense of self, mentally and bodily.
As more and more coordination develops in different ways, the person becomes both more complex and better integrated. As (s)he becomes better integrated, (s)he has more command of his or her own faculties -- attention, intention, sensation/feeling and movement. With each new degree of integration, new emergent (unpredictable) faculties appear (creativity and evolution).
This assertion may seem novel and questionable to you, and so must be tested to be verified (or disproven) to your own satisfaction. I can say that my own experience of Rolfing and of somatic exercises (both of which develop higher integration, higher coordination and higher efficiency of function) is the origin of this assertion. (Ida Rolf said, "Rolfing is not concerned with the palliation of symptoms, per se, but with the development of more efficiently functioning human beings.") The clarity and depth of my own thinking is evident in the writing of this article.
Thus, both the unevolved and the evolved views of the body (and its primitive and more complex functions) have their place in the human -- and the evolution of human beings is a tangible process involving both the bodily (external/objective) aspect and our mental (internal/subjective) aspect -- in processes of "complexification" and integration.
MORE:
article: Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?
article: Psychotherapy and Integral Somatic Education
article: on somatic exercises
video: about somatics
resources: available somatic exercise programs
THE UNEVOLVED VIEW
The unevolved view of the body is as "vehicle of the self". So viewed, we are "within" the body, which exists to carry us around and bring us toward desirable experiences and away from undesirable ones.
This view of the body concerns us with conformity, the "hard body", political correctness, pain, pleasure, and mortality. It is the point of view of cosmetics, Western medicine, glamour magazines; hard drugs, tobacco and alcohol; corporate culture, social status, consumerism, dance competitions, "youth culture", and violent entertainment (including many video games, crime shows, and much "reality TV"). It is the unevolved view.
What makes the unevolved view, "unevolved", is that it regards the body as "object" -- "my body" -- something to be possessed, controlled and lost in death. This view considers mind and body separate, "I" being "my" mind (which, oddly, linguistically also considers the mind to be a possession, but one which we cannot reliably control, and which we hope continues after death).
The unevolved view of the body is unevolved because, while the faculties of external perception (awareness of the world and social relations) are more-or-less developed, the faculty for internal awareness is more-or-less undeveloped. The unevolved body-mind (soma) reacts to situations automatically and without all that much self-awareness.
THE EVOLVED VIEW
The evolved view of the body is as the tangible expression or manifestation of self. So viewed, we recognize the sense of self (physical, emotional, mental, and feeling-intuitive) as a bodily sensation, not "within" the body, but as sensations of the body. So viewed, we move toward desirable experiences and shy away from undesirable ones, as before, but with our inner life of self as observable as the outer world (psychological "shadow" aspects and unawakened faculties being "compost" for further evolution).
This view of the body concerns us with relationship, with will, integrity, fulfillment of our intentions in actual results, with walking our talk, with how we organize our lives and with knowing our own mind.
What makes the evolved view, "evolved" is that it recognizes that the body is not a "thing" -- or "object" that proceeds into the world as a "non-negotiable" self, but a living experience, the very location of self that changes moment-to-moment. In that view, death is recognized, not merely as a mystery, but as a transformation continuous with life, even as life is a series of transformations into new (mysterious) events of life.
This view of the body allows for something that the unevolved view does not: deliberate self-development and self-evolution. The unevolved view of the body wants to meet life merely as it is ("non-negotiable") -- take me or leave me, "That's just the way I am." The evolved view of the body recognizes that we can deliberately change to meet life more artfully, more smoothly, more intelligently -- and finds that ability intriguing, finds life's challenges and opportunities, its teaching moments, illuminating "grist for the mill" of self-transformation (whether through will or through surrender -- and with or without angst).
A DEEPER LOOK INTO THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE EVOLVED VIEW
To take a deeper look into the evolved view of the body, we find it helpful to look at the basis of what gives the body its characteristics: memory. Once we have done that, we will be in a position to consider how the body contains and distributes memory and the self-sense holographically.
The unevolved view of the body sees memory as a function of the mind and of the brain (regarded as an object-possession, even though no one has a direct experience of their own brain).
The evolved view of the body sees memory as embodied as the whole body -- holographically, meaning distributed among the whole, not contained within a part, such as the brain. Lest you think that I am speaking merely theoretically, I will bring this statement down to Earth.
One quality characterizes all of life: self-initiated movement. Plants have it, insects have it, and animals have it. Movement is life.
Inanimate objects also have consistent behavior patterns, (e.g., the consistent behaviors of atomic elements and compounds seen in chemistry and physics), but they are not self-moving (in the sense of being able to change behavior in mid-act by self-volition). The memory of inanimate objects is simply their predictable behavior -- though, in this view, the memories of inanimate objects are relatively "uneventful" and contain no mental or emotional content. (Note that computer memory consists of patterns of electrical charge stored in silicon circuits -- inanimate.)
In this way of seeing things, the whole Universe may be regarded as a vast system of memory -- interrelated, interacting memories that are changing and evolving -- anchored as patterns of physical reality with internal experience.
For life-forms less complex than humans, most movement consists of instinctual behaviors; the more complex the life-form, the more instinctual behavior is complemented by learned behavior. In humans, learned behavior dominates, by far, instinctual behavior. In either case -- instinctual or learned -- behavior is movement.
Movement carries with it an inner side -- experience.
Experience leaves its imprint on, in, or as memory. Experience becomes memory -- and a memory is nothing more or other than a lasting imprint of sensations and movements. Remembering how to do something (long-term memory) is remembering how to move in certain ways (patterns) and what experiences attend that movement; short-term memory is a tracing of patterns on the waters of consciousness, patterns that quickly fade -- but still have duration, however short. Memory is nothing more or other than the persistence of patterns of behavior (movement) and experience.
Predictability decreases (and unpredictability increases) with complexity, so that the more complex life forms are, the less they behave by instinct and the more they behave as they have learned. Higher complexity includes all of the characteristics of lesser complexity, and something more: room for more memory and something else -- the capacity to look at memory, itself, and to operate upon ones own memory, to change it: deliberate learning and also . . . . . emergent behaviors.
Emergent behaviors are upwellings of change unpredictable on the basis of previous behaviors -- and the formation of memories unpredictable on the basis of previous memories . . . . . creativity and evolution. Each new integration of two or more "behaving entities" into a new whole (each formation of a new relationship between two or more participants) brings forth emergent behaviors unpredictable before the integration occurred. That's emergence. ("Emergencies" typically involve the formation of new relationships on short notice!)
Having covered the span of memory from the most primitive to the most emergent life-forms, we're now prepared to look at how the whole body-mind (soma) contains and distributes memory holographically.
HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY
I must first dispense with the notion that memory is distributed equally throughout the brain. This is not so. In the brain, as in the rest of the body, different locations have different functions. However, the interrelation of the different locations -- their synergistic cooperation and interplay -- produces the full range of behavior and memory.
Take an easy-to-understand example: balance.
Movement at balance requires coordination; lack of coordination is awkwardness. Coordination involves closely-timed movements among the "parts" of the entire body; the entire body is involved. Balance is the feeling we get when those closely-timed and coordinated movements result in a minimum of effort to move as we intend; awkwardness always involves a sense of excessive effort because some parts have bad timing. Coordination is a space-time experience of economical, intended movement. The brain controls and senses, the rest of the body acts; they are a functional unity. Seen as the body, we look (viewed from outside) a certain way at any moment; we feel (from the inside) completely different from we look; though different, they are the same event perceived from different viewpoints.
The basic unit of memory in the body is DNA, which makes healing of injuries (restoration of the memory of the whole-body sense) possible, and which is the most highly predictable (chemical and physical) aspect of memory.
However, as a whole we are far more complex than our cells are, our behavior is far more complex, and our individual memories are far more complex than those of cells. Cellular memory, as it is described, is not the deepest or most profound form of memory; it is the shallowest and most superficial. The profundity lives in the larger complexities of which cells, tissues, and organs are simpler parts. Human behaviors are far more complex than the behaviors of individual cells.
The memory of behavior exists as patterns of shape and movement that exist among cells and tissues throughout the whole body. Patterns of connection exist among neurons of the brain and as patterns of coordination (and feelings) among all of the muscles of the body.
Every thought that passes through us shows up as patterns of tension in the musculature. Dreams (an internal experience) can be measured (externally) electrically as changes of muscle tone and electrical potential and observed as eye movements. Voices heard by schizophrenic patients have been observed to coincide with electrically-measured micro-movements of their own vocal apparatus. People move their lips when they first learn to read. Thought is the body, thinking; emotion is changing physiology. The inner experience has an outer expression.
Memory consists of habituation in whole-body patterns of muscular tension and physiology -- generally, states of readiness to take action in familiar situations. Tension (and other physiological states) are the external side of memories, of which sensations are the internal side.
Back to coordination and awkwardness: there exist better and worse -- more and less economical -- patterns of organization as a person. In general, better patterns of thinking go with better patterns of coordination. (It's possible to have specialized patterns of coordination that work well for special situations and still to be incompetent in other situations -- just as some people may be geniuses in certain way and doofuses, in others -- or even "clumsy geniuses" and "absent-minded professors") However, in general, the better coordinated we are, the better we think, and the more ways in which we are well-coordinated, the more versatile our thought processes can be.
Likewise, memories depend upon the body. People commonly accept that sudden shocks to the body cause amnesia, though people don't commonly understand how that is so; they commonly think it has something to do with a blow to the brain. While that is sometimes so, the larger answer is, physical shocks that happen faster than the brain can register them create a discontinuity of memory, a gap in "how I got there." It's not just "amnesia", but "sensory-motor amnesia". People in sensory-motor amnesia have forgotten how to get from their altered state back to their familiar sense of self, mentally and bodily.
As more and more coordination develops in different ways, the person becomes both more complex and better integrated. As (s)he becomes better integrated, (s)he has more command of his or her own faculties -- attention, intention, sensation/feeling and movement. With each new degree of integration, new emergent (unpredictable) faculties appear (creativity and evolution).
This assertion may seem novel and questionable to you, and so must be tested to be verified (or disproven) to your own satisfaction. I can say that my own experience of Rolfing and of somatic exercises (both of which develop higher integration, higher coordination and higher efficiency of function) is the origin of this assertion. (Ida Rolf said, "Rolfing is not concerned with the palliation of symptoms, per se, but with the development of more efficiently functioning human beings.") The clarity and depth of my own thinking is evident in the writing of this article.
Thus, both the unevolved and the evolved views of the body (and its primitive and more complex functions) have their place in the human -- and the evolution of human beings is a tangible process involving both the bodily (external/objective) aspect and our mental (internal/subjective) aspect -- in processes of "complexification" and integration.
MORE:
article: Is the Body 'Self' or 'Other'?
article: Psychotherapy and Integral Somatic Education
article: on somatic exercises
video: about somatics
resources: available somatic exercise programs
Patients, Patience, and Impatience
Hello, again, Folks,
Today, I speak of a peculiar paradox of somatic education -- something expressed in a Tibetan saying I heard, recently: "When things are urgent, go slower."
People in pain have a certain urgency. No surprise.
In their urgency, they go for the "quick fix" -- the pain med, the quick adjustment, the quick stretch, the hour of bodywork. These quick fixes rarely produce either a complete or a lasting result.
The reason: they don't address the problem as it is, but only the surface appearance.
Somatic education is peculiar in this regard: the processes we use during clinical sessions are mostly slow-motion action patterns -- we go slower -- but the changes that result come very quickly.
The reason: the changes sought through somatic education (generally, pain relief) come by means of an internalized learning process that involves new physiological adaptation. Adaptation and learning require, inevitably, at least two things: attention and intention.
Attention and intention go together. To exercise an intention, we must direct our attention to what we are doing.
The thing about attention is that it is not instantaneous; it fades in. Test for yourself. Look away from the screen toward anything and notice that it takes a good part of a second even to focus on it. The same is true of music. Turn on the radio into the middle of a piece of music and notice that it takes some seconds to recognize even one with which you are familiar.
When taking in new information, going slower helps you "catch" it and take it in.
Then, and only then, you can apply your intention to it.
Most forms of therapy require little or no attention on the part of a patient; result: little or no exercise of intention and little or no lasting change!
So, as a somatic educator, I find that one of the most common bits of coaching I have to give with my clients (/patients, although I don't use the word) is to slow down. Doing things too fast, too hard, and with too little attention ("mindfulness") is a common American fault (and a popular editing technique of advertising and the entertainment media which perpetuates and reinforces this fault-- sequences of "split-second video clips"). Too many people are "A-D-D" ! ! ! That makes them accident-prone (and generally, sloppy and error prone). They must slow down -- not because it's easier (generally, it's not), not because they need a rest (which is generally true), but because they need to pay more attention and to exercise intention more carefully. They need to work smarter, not harder.
If people don't slow down, they end up doing things the way they habitually do them and, by repetition, reinforcing the very thing they are wanting to get out of -- the movement patterns and functional habits that cause their pain. They have to slow down enough to do the things they do in a new way.
When it comes to somatic exercises (a way people can relieve their own pain without direct coaching by a somatic educator), people must exercise patience. In this case, the patience they must exercise is two-fold: (1) they must slow down in what they're doing (somatic exercises) enough to feel clearly what they are doing and to do it in good form (not merely count repetitions) and (2) they must persist in a somatic exercise program long enough to obtain its designed-in effect (entailing, generally, some days or weeks of practice -- and some hours of experience). The result: substantial and durable improvement -- faster and more durable than by conventional therapeutic, "low-attention" methods.
If patients are impatient for relief, they must be patient so they can get it more quickly than has previously been possible.
Only once they have slowed down and made the necessary changes can they return to "the speed of life" and keep their new-found freedom and well-being -- or even go faster than before and still keep it together.
"A man of true means,
whatever the day's pace
keeps his wits about him
and however a fine offer be presented to him
keeps a level head.
What ruler of countless chariots
would make himself laughing stock,
fool of the realm,
with pace beyond rein,
speed beyond helm?"
-- Lao Tzu
SEE MORE ABOUT SOMATIC EXERCISES
An Entirely New Class of Therapeutic Exercises (article)
Software for Your Body (instructional programs)
Today, I speak of a peculiar paradox of somatic education -- something expressed in a Tibetan saying I heard, recently: "When things are urgent, go slower."
People in pain have a certain urgency. No surprise.
In their urgency, they go for the "quick fix" -- the pain med, the quick adjustment, the quick stretch, the hour of bodywork. These quick fixes rarely produce either a complete or a lasting result.
The reason: they don't address the problem as it is, but only the surface appearance.
Somatic education is peculiar in this regard: the processes we use during clinical sessions are mostly slow-motion action patterns -- we go slower -- but the changes that result come very quickly.
The reason: the changes sought through somatic education (generally, pain relief) come by means of an internalized learning process that involves new physiological adaptation. Adaptation and learning require, inevitably, at least two things: attention and intention.
Attention and intention go together. To exercise an intention, we must direct our attention to what we are doing.
The thing about attention is that it is not instantaneous; it fades in. Test for yourself. Look away from the screen toward anything and notice that it takes a good part of a second even to focus on it. The same is true of music. Turn on the radio into the middle of a piece of music and notice that it takes some seconds to recognize even one with which you are familiar.
When taking in new information, going slower helps you "catch" it and take it in.
Then, and only then, you can apply your intention to it.
Most forms of therapy require little or no attention on the part of a patient; result: little or no exercise of intention and little or no lasting change!
So, as a somatic educator, I find that one of the most common bits of coaching I have to give with my clients (/patients, although I don't use the word) is to slow down. Doing things too fast, too hard, and with too little attention ("mindfulness") is a common American fault (and a popular editing technique of advertising and the entertainment media which perpetuates and reinforces this fault-- sequences of "split-second video clips"). Too many people are "A-D-D" ! ! ! That makes them accident-prone (and generally, sloppy and error prone). They must slow down -- not because it's easier (generally, it's not), not because they need a rest (which is generally true), but because they need to pay more attention and to exercise intention more carefully. They need to work smarter, not harder.
If people don't slow down, they end up doing things the way they habitually do them and, by repetition, reinforcing the very thing they are wanting to get out of -- the movement patterns and functional habits that cause their pain. They have to slow down enough to do the things they do in a new way.
When it comes to somatic exercises (a way people can relieve their own pain without direct coaching by a somatic educator), people must exercise patience. In this case, the patience they must exercise is two-fold: (1) they must slow down in what they're doing (somatic exercises) enough to feel clearly what they are doing and to do it in good form (not merely count repetitions) and (2) they must persist in a somatic exercise program long enough to obtain its designed-in effect (entailing, generally, some days or weeks of practice -- and some hours of experience). The result: substantial and durable improvement -- faster and more durable than by conventional therapeutic, "low-attention" methods.
If patients are impatient for relief, they must be patient so they can get it more quickly than has previously been possible.
Only once they have slowed down and made the necessary changes can they return to "the speed of life" and keep their new-found freedom and well-being -- or even go faster than before and still keep it together.
"A man of true means,
whatever the day's pace
keeps his wits about him
and however a fine offer be presented to him
keeps a level head.
What ruler of countless chariots
would make himself laughing stock,
fool of the realm,
with pace beyond rein,
speed beyond helm?"
-- Lao Tzu
SEE MORE ABOUT SOMATIC EXERCISES
An Entirely New Class of Therapeutic Exercises (article)
Software for Your Body (instructional programs)
Religious Faces of Superman
There exists an archetype in contemporary culture with which many generations present can identify. Every generation alive today knows Superman.
Superman who, having emerged from the midwestern farming tradition came to represent a person of virtue, of kindness and of strength, of benificent values, of positive intent -- and who hides a secret: his identity -- and a vulnerability that few others share.
Remembering that Superman was adopted by his midwestern farmer parents, his last name was not originally, "Kent" -- but Kantrowitz. Superman (pronounced with "super" rhyming "soup-pear") was a nickname his Kryptonian parents bestowed upon him after a visit to Paris, one spring -- "little Soup-pear-man" -- because that was all he would eat -- pear soup. It was on the note in the space capsule in which he arrived: His name was Kal-El, but his nickname was Little Soup-pear-man. You can figure out the rest. And, of course, they Anglicized the name. As a boy, he was big for his age, but very nice, an intelligent boy.
Another clue: His original name-at-birth was Kal-El -- "El", in Hebrew, meaning "God". Taking a Kabbalistic approach, the Hebrew name, Kal-El, can be spelled in three consonants (four letters), read right to left, "K""L""e""L", , the eleventh letter of the alphabet (English or Hebrew), K, the thirteenth letter (Hebrew) or the twelveth (12-English), L, and the nineteenth letter, a silent carrier for a vowel, "ayin", where in English, the nineteenth letter is, S -- "S", get it? Coincidence? I think not. The symbolic meaning of the numerical equivalents of "K""L""e""L" = "11""13""19""13" (or "11""12""19""12") is "Great Potentiality" and "Great Faith".
But what if Superman were Buddhist? What would he do differently? Since he strives to minimize harm to anyone and uses his powers beneficently, for the sake of all sentient beings, what would he do differently? Perform service even while in his dreams? What do you think he dreams about? Lois Lane? Lana Lang? Lex Luthor? Batman? -- feminine archetypes and masculine archetypes? Do you think he behaves differently in his dreams than he does in the waking state? Or do you think that, as he sleeps, he rests in the Source of Light and Life, the Silent Bliss-Being beyond the human mind and body? (the super-man state). Do you think that he rests in deep Silence (of which the Fortress of Solitude is a Metaphor), "silence" and "solitude" -- which also start with "S" -- the silent nineteenth Hebrew letter.
What if Superman was Hindu? Then what? What would he do differently? Well, for one thing, he probably wouldn't eat beef or wear cows-leather shoes. Those boots? They're patent leather. Other than that? Would he play the flute and seduce virgin cowgirls into a mass-"big one"? Would he transform his appearance to show the various powers and viewpoints and wonders of the Great Universe? And who knows what he does in the privacy of his own home with "company"? Would he declare, of himself, that "atman" (individual self-being) and "brahman" (silent, imageless, aware Groundless Ground of Being) are one? ("I and my Father are one"? -- again, getting a little ahead of ourselves). Would he appear as Krishna -- the avatar God-embodiment (emanation) of Godhead? flying around saving people from demons?
What if Superman was Moslem? Would he pray five times a day, facing Mecca? abjure alcoholic beverages? Not eat pork? He would eat beef -- but those boots? Still patent leather. Imagine if he were a fantasy/religion-crazed Muslim extremist who was sent on a suicide mission, but suddenly realized that he couldn't blow himself up and that there would be no "72 virgins" for Superman, so he gave it up. Could Superman "do" 72 virgins simultaneously? Maybe he could. Probably he could. That would be like Krishna.
If Superman were Tibetan Buddhist, he would live consciously emanating from the Clear Light as his embodied existence, radiating the force of beneficence, fearlessly and peacefully present, attentive, intelligently responsive, compassionate, protective, empowering, and emanating silent wisdom and virtue not merely unto living beings, but into, as and through all, serving all sentient beings, communicating The Great Emancipation.
For him, kryptonite is the reminder of the mortal and transitory nature of things, even transitory even in his origins -- being sent into the unknown, "out there", and arriving at Earth -- ever-vulnerable -- even as he is eternally unchanging (primitively rendered in language as, "invulnerable") and super-regenerating -- and so, in that sense invulnerable to most hazards by virtue of his exquisite embodiment, in his transient body (Nirmanakaya), of the subtle self-organizing field of his subtle mind-body (Sambhogakaya); steadily intuiting our transcendental nature (Dharmakaya), the formless ground of being that persists even in the absence of activity or self-sense -- self-emergent, self-regenerating, self-equilibrizing with super-speed, i.e., invulnerable. Vulnerable and invulnerable. See? You didn't know that about Superman. Why would he talk about it? What's he going to say to everyone? "I'm vulnerable -- just as you are -- but I heal quickly"? Would he go around saying that? Why? On the other hand, who knows what he says, at home -- and he is emotionally vulnerable, same as any man.
If Zen Buddhhist, same as Tibetan Buddhism, but without the kryptonite.
In this respect, he is very similar to another personage -- Harold Somaman. Somaman is different from Superman, in that his special powers have manifested differently -- energy field transformations, sensitivity to probability pressure waves (leading to precognition and synchronicities), special ways of dealing with attention and intention. certain ways of biological self-regeneration and psychological transformation, occasions of remarkable telekinesis, things mysteriously disappearing from his life -- odd things like that.
If Superman were a Christian, would he address Jesus as "Father"? -- and how would that make Jor-El, his father, feel? But wait! What if Jor-El was a name for Jesus' father in Heaven? who sent his only-begotten son to save humankind? Kabbalistically speaking, the names Jor-El and Joseph have significance. Alphanumerically, either of those names is impossible to analyze -- there's no "j" sound in Aramaic, so their names would have had to have been "Yosef" and "Yor-El". Then, Kabbalistically, that would get interesting. Taking a Kabbalistic approach, again, "Yorel": YORL: four letters: "10" "6" "25" "13" (with a symbolic meaning of "Divine Conception"): and "Yosef": YOSF: four letters, "10" "6" "18" "20 (changeable with "P")" (symbolizing "the leap into newness, bringing memories of the past, along"). Confused? I am -- but back to Superman. With the benefit of time-travel, he would reach Earth when he was truly needed -- second time around. He would still save people, but still not be able to be everywhere at once, except in spirit. I don't think he would raise the dead; I think that was just a demonstration to make a point. Other than that, how would his character change? Maybe he'd be more loving? But then, we don't know how he is, at home, and his benificient actions can certainly be seen as coming from a loving spirit -- wouldn't you say? But he wouldn't eat meat on Fridays, only fish. Or would he?
But remember -- his name is Superman -- pronounced 'aha-ward" (Howard) Superman ("soup-pear-man"), superhero and goodness-doer extraordinaire -- who loved his mother and who lived up to his father's dreams -- a real mensch.
A-mayn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more on Harold Somaman, click here.
For more on Superman and other topics from The Other Side of the Looking Glass, click here.
Superman who, having emerged from the midwestern farming tradition came to represent a person of virtue, of kindness and of strength, of benificent values, of positive intent -- and who hides a secret: his identity -- and a vulnerability that few others share.
Remembering that Superman was adopted by his midwestern farmer parents, his last name was not originally, "Kent" -- but Kantrowitz. Superman (pronounced with "super" rhyming "soup-pear") was a nickname his Kryptonian parents bestowed upon him after a visit to Paris, one spring -- "little Soup-pear-man" -- because that was all he would eat -- pear soup. It was on the note in the space capsule in which he arrived: His name was Kal-El, but his nickname was Little Soup-pear-man. You can figure out the rest. And, of course, they Anglicized the name. As a boy, he was big for his age, but very nice, an intelligent boy.
Another clue: His original name-at-birth was Kal-El -- "El", in Hebrew, meaning "God". Taking a Kabbalistic approach, the Hebrew name, Kal-El, can be spelled in three consonants (four letters), read right to left, "K""L""e""L", , the eleventh letter of the alphabet (English or Hebrew), K, the thirteenth letter (Hebrew) or the twelveth (12-English), L, and the nineteenth letter, a silent carrier for a vowel, "ayin", where in English, the nineteenth letter is, S -- "S", get it? Coincidence? I think not. The symbolic meaning of the numerical equivalents of "K""L""e""L" = "11""13""19""13" (or "11""12""19""12") is "Great Potentiality" and "Great Faith".
But what if Superman were Buddhist? What would he do differently? Since he strives to minimize harm to anyone and uses his powers beneficently, for the sake of all sentient beings, what would he do differently? Perform service even while in his dreams? What do you think he dreams about? Lois Lane? Lana Lang? Lex Luthor? Batman? -- feminine archetypes and masculine archetypes? Do you think he behaves differently in his dreams than he does in the waking state? Or do you think that, as he sleeps, he rests in the Source of Light and Life, the Silent Bliss-Being beyond the human mind and body? (the super-man state). Do you think that he rests in deep Silence (of which the Fortress of Solitude is a Metaphor), "silence" and "solitude" -- which also start with "S" -- the silent nineteenth Hebrew letter.
What if Superman was Hindu? Then what? What would he do differently? Well, for one thing, he probably wouldn't eat beef or wear cows-leather shoes. Those boots? They're patent leather. Other than that? Would he play the flute and seduce virgin cowgirls into a mass-"big one"? Would he transform his appearance to show the various powers and viewpoints and wonders of the Great Universe? And who knows what he does in the privacy of his own home with "company"? Would he declare, of himself, that "atman" (individual self-being) and "brahman" (silent, imageless, aware Groundless Ground of Being) are one? ("I and my Father are one"? -- again, getting a little ahead of ourselves). Would he appear as Krishna -- the avatar God-embodiment (emanation) of Godhead? flying around saving people from demons?
What if Superman was Moslem? Would he pray five times a day, facing Mecca? abjure alcoholic beverages? Not eat pork? He would eat beef -- but those boots? Still patent leather. Imagine if he were a fantasy/religion-crazed Muslim extremist who was sent on a suicide mission, but suddenly realized that he couldn't blow himself up and that there would be no "72 virgins" for Superman, so he gave it up. Could Superman "do" 72 virgins simultaneously? Maybe he could. Probably he could. That would be like Krishna.
If Superman were Tibetan Buddhist, he would live consciously emanating from the Clear Light as his embodied existence, radiating the force of beneficence, fearlessly and peacefully present, attentive, intelligently responsive, compassionate, protective, empowering, and emanating silent wisdom and virtue not merely unto living beings, but into, as and through all, serving all sentient beings, communicating The Great Emancipation.
For him, kryptonite is the reminder of the mortal and transitory nature of things, even transitory even in his origins -- being sent into the unknown, "out there", and arriving at Earth -- ever-vulnerable -- even as he is eternally unchanging (primitively rendered in language as, "invulnerable") and super-regenerating -- and so, in that sense invulnerable to most hazards by virtue of his exquisite embodiment, in his transient body (Nirmanakaya), of the subtle self-organizing field of his subtle mind-body (Sambhogakaya); steadily intuiting our transcendental nature (Dharmakaya), the formless ground of being that persists even in the absence of activity or self-sense -- self-emergent, self-regenerating, self-equilibrizing with super-speed, i.e., invulnerable. Vulnerable and invulnerable. See? You didn't know that about Superman. Why would he talk about it? What's he going to say to everyone? "I'm vulnerable -- just as you are -- but I heal quickly"? Would he go around saying that? Why? On the other hand, who knows what he says, at home -- and he is emotionally vulnerable, same as any man.
If Zen Buddhhist, same as Tibetan Buddhism, but without the kryptonite.
In this respect, he is very similar to another personage -- Harold Somaman. Somaman is different from Superman, in that his special powers have manifested differently -- energy field transformations, sensitivity to probability pressure waves (leading to precognition and synchronicities), special ways of dealing with attention and intention. certain ways of biological self-regeneration and psychological transformation, occasions of remarkable telekinesis, things mysteriously disappearing from his life -- odd things like that.
If Superman were a Christian, would he address Jesus as "Father"? -- and how would that make Jor-El, his father, feel? But wait! What if Jor-El was a name for Jesus' father in Heaven? who sent his only-begotten son to save humankind? Kabbalistically speaking, the names Jor-El and Joseph have significance. Alphanumerically, either of those names is impossible to analyze -- there's no "j" sound in Aramaic, so their names would have had to have been "Yosef" and "Yor-El". Then, Kabbalistically, that would get interesting. Taking a Kabbalistic approach, again, "Yorel": YORL: four letters: "10" "6" "25" "13" (with a symbolic meaning of "Divine Conception"): and "Yosef": YOSF: four letters, "10" "6" "18" "20 (changeable with "P")" (symbolizing "the leap into newness, bringing memories of the past, along"). Confused? I am -- but back to Superman. With the benefit of time-travel, he would reach Earth when he was truly needed -- second time around. He would still save people, but still not be able to be everywhere at once, except in spirit. I don't think he would raise the dead; I think that was just a demonstration to make a point. Other than that, how would his character change? Maybe he'd be more loving? But then, we don't know how he is, at home, and his benificient actions can certainly be seen as coming from a loving spirit -- wouldn't you say? But he wouldn't eat meat on Fridays, only fish. Or would he?
But remember -- his name is Superman -- pronounced 'aha-ward" (Howard) Superman ("soup-pear-man"), superhero and goodness-doer extraordinaire -- who loved his mother and who lived up to his father's dreams -- a real mensch.
A-mayn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more on Harold Somaman, click here.
For more on Superman and other topics from The Other Side of the Looking Glass, click here.
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