Doing pandicular movements, that is,
doing somatic education exercises,
is akin in rhythm and spirit
to brushing ones hair.
In a movement through a wave
there may be a "catch",
a temporary hold-up,
a glitch,
a halt,
a hitch in your 'git-along'.
Maybe a brain-fart?
or a string of brain farts,
irregularly spaced ...
rhythm interrupted,
mind, derailed,
One adjusts ones "push"
to accommodate the capacity
of the medium,
the hair,
the life,
to change, to move anew.
Snags are re-approached
with good timing
and repeatedly, if necessary
until they come loose
and the smooth wave
the easy move
ensues.
Otherwise,
it's just smooth sailing
and stylizing --
creative gesturing
in the smooth and rising rhythm
of the wave.
Passing through in repeated strokes,
going deeper,
feeling more,
getting smoother.
The problem comes when we got gum in our hair.
Ah, a pretty pickle, that is.
We have a choice:
clean it
or cut it loose.
Patience is a virtue
and timing determines things.
Sometimes, a little sorting out is needed,
a little pulling things apart,
separating them more finely
so that they are more free to change.
and so on
The Intelligence of a Mature Age
You just wake up, one day
and realize what life has done to you
and the results of what you have been doing to yourself.
You begin to uncover the aftereffects of
The Ten Thousand Shocks
Flesh is Heir to
in yourself.
Some think it's "age".
You know better.
Then, the real work begins --
undoing it.
All we've accumulated from childhood
educational institutions
religious institutions
and social institutions
like the mass communications media
all become like bilge in the belly of the ship
and barnacles on the hull
a long time accumulating
and like an anchor
weighing things down
slowing down maneuverability,
charts of old sea routes no longer used
except by us.
So, the first part of life is the absorbing of all that,
to have the "training wheels" for starting to navigate life;
the middle part of life is enacting it all,
and also adapting it to ourselves
and ourselves to it.
and the later part of life is
scraping the barnacles
siphoning out the bilge
and lifting anchor to lighten the ship for sailing.
All of that is the personal, egoic self
the conditional self
the memory self.
The other self
is the unconditional self
the awareness self
the no-self self.
Memory occurs in awareness
just as the conditional self
occurs within the unconditional self.
The Gold Key Release
provides a way
to dissolve the binding grip of memory
to allow the conditional self more fluidity.
to sort out memory from imagination
and come free from compulsive motivations
to reveal hidden intentions to oneself
for self- and situational understanding
to liberate attention from binding self-conditioning,
to extricate ourselves into collected sanity
and altogether to scrape the barnacles
siphon out the bilge,
and cleave, cut and polish
the precious gems of memory-self
to find the crystalline equilibrium
of no-definition.
MORE:
Somatic Education as Training Wheels
and realize what life has done to you
and the results of what you have been doing to yourself.
You begin to uncover the aftereffects of
The Ten Thousand Shocks
Flesh is Heir to
in yourself.
Some think it's "age".
You know better.
Then, the real work begins --
undoing it.
All we've accumulated from childhood
educational institutions
religious institutions
and social institutions
like the mass communications media
all become like bilge in the belly of the ship
and barnacles on the hull
a long time accumulating
and like an anchor
weighing things down
slowing down maneuverability,
charts of old sea routes no longer used
except by us.
So, the first part of life is the absorbing of all that,
to have the "training wheels" for starting to navigate life;
the middle part of life is enacting it all,
and also adapting it to ourselves
and ourselves to it.
and the later part of life is
scraping the barnacles
siphoning out the bilge
and lifting anchor to lighten the ship for sailing.
All of that is the personal, egoic self
the conditional self
the memory self.
The other self
is the unconditional self
the awareness self
the no-self self.
Memory occurs in awareness
just as the conditional self
occurs within the unconditional self.
The Gold Key Release
provides a way
to dissolve the binding grip of memory
to allow the conditional self more fluidity.
to sort out memory from imagination
and come free from compulsive motivations
to reveal hidden intentions to oneself
for self- and situational understanding
to liberate attention from binding self-conditioning,
to extricate ourselves into collected sanity
and altogether to scrape the barnacles
siphon out the bilge,
and cleave, cut and polish
the precious gems of memory-self
to find the crystalline equilibrium
of no-definition.
MORE:
Somatic Education as Training Wheels
Viewing from the Somatic Perspective
"Regardless of the underlying explanation, it works!"
I'd like to look into the underlying mindset from which we, as Hanna somatic educators, may operate.
It's a functional mindset. It's one that proceeds on the basis of understanding, not empirically, like Western pharmaceutical use or western medicine, but with an understanding of functional events (The pharmaceutical perspective can trace chemical events, but cannot bring the person as a living system to a healthy, self-regulating equilibrium. It lacks that essential understanding for restoring health.). One may generate understanding by means of The Great 4: Attention, Intention, Imagination, and Memory; in terms of actions carried out by oneself upon oneself and upon what self considers to be other-than-self acting upon oneself. Got that?
Seeing these aspects of somatic existence -- Attention, Intention, Imagination and Memory -- operating at every moment of our life, we have a framework for understanding the experience of our functionality and the process of our functionality changing.
How do we, as somas, change? We change spontaneously, where spontaneity is the somatic imperative, and therefore an exercise of all these: attention, intention, imagination, and memory. Spontaneity may be heavily influenced by memory, but when that happens, there is a time lag in the response as the memory surfaces and then makes influence. Not so spontaneous; a bit slow.
So, now, I've suggested how to recognize spontaneity, which is to say, freedom in one sense that Thomas Hanna meant it: an aspect of fairness -- to be "unbefouled" by memory cloaked in Attentional-Intentional Amnesia (S-M-A).
Change is a matter of action, of new action, and therefore of new perceptions, altered intentions, new interpretations of experience, new emergent creativity, and the lasting trace of all that, memory. Also known as, self.
It's a perspective.
Tom Hanna made much of the rationality and sensibility of hiw work, of how his work had a coherent and rational theoretical explanation for what it was doing and of what was being acted upon -- and what was being acted upon is The Big 4.
My point (thank God) being:
It does make a difference what's happening in a person from one course or another of action, therapeutic or educational.
As somatic educators, we may, as a perceptual exercise, view the world and our inner life as different aspects of a somatic process, "The two sides of the Looking Glass". We recognize that "subjecting" and "objective" are relative terms on a single continuum; there is no "all subjective" or "all objective". But the effects of The Big 4 do land in different domains -- in the case of The Epley maneuver, a mechanistic perspective leads to a mechanistic explanation for why it works -- the person has successfully moved the rocks in his or her head into a new location.
The same maneuver, viewed somatically, looks at what's happening in the person as a somatic experience, as (s)he does it. That other perspective leads to another, not-mechanistic explanation.
Understanding is a question of perspective -- and of understanding somatic experience as the integration of (at minimum) The Big 4. (There are more pairs than The Big 4, but The Big 4 are the minimum.)
Having had the experience of clients with vertigo have the vertigo diminish in minutes as I teach them to control their scalene muscles / neck movements suggests that "something is doing the same thing as The Epley Maneuver does -- but without the Epley Maneuver. Hmmm. What gives?"
That's my point.
PS:
One of the most consistent comments I hear from readers or from people I talk to is, "That makes sense."
Of course, another most common comment is, "I feel like I could take a nap."
( -the sounds of snoring in the auditorium- )
I'd like to look into the underlying mindset from which we, as Hanna somatic educators, may operate.
It's a functional mindset. It's one that proceeds on the basis of understanding, not empirically, like Western pharmaceutical use or western medicine, but with an understanding of functional events (The pharmaceutical perspective can trace chemical events, but cannot bring the person as a living system to a healthy, self-regulating equilibrium. It lacks that essential understanding for restoring health.). One may generate understanding by means of The Great 4: Attention, Intention, Imagination, and Memory; in terms of actions carried out by oneself upon oneself and upon what self considers to be other-than-self acting upon oneself. Got that?
Seeing these aspects of somatic existence -- Attention, Intention, Imagination and Memory -- operating at every moment of our life, we have a framework for understanding the experience of our functionality and the process of our functionality changing.
How do we, as somas, change? We change spontaneously, where spontaneity is the somatic imperative, and therefore an exercise of all these: attention, intention, imagination, and memory. Spontaneity may be heavily influenced by memory, but when that happens, there is a time lag in the response as the memory surfaces and then makes influence. Not so spontaneous; a bit slow.
So, now, I've suggested how to recognize spontaneity, which is to say, freedom in one sense that Thomas Hanna meant it: an aspect of fairness -- to be "unbefouled" by memory cloaked in Attentional-Intentional Amnesia (S-M-A).
Change is a matter of action, of new action, and therefore of new perceptions, altered intentions, new interpretations of experience, new emergent creativity, and the lasting trace of all that, memory. Also known as, self.
It's a perspective.
Tom Hanna made much of the rationality and sensibility of hiw work, of how his work had a coherent and rational theoretical explanation for what it was doing and of what was being acted upon -- and what was being acted upon is The Big 4.
My point (thank God) being:
It does make a difference what's happening in a person from one course or another of action, therapeutic or educational.
As somatic educators, we may, as a perceptual exercise, view the world and our inner life as different aspects of a somatic process, "The two sides of the Looking Glass". We recognize that "subjecting" and "objective" are relative terms on a single continuum; there is no "all subjective" or "all objective". But the effects of The Big 4 do land in different domains -- in the case of The Epley maneuver, a mechanistic perspective leads to a mechanistic explanation for why it works -- the person has successfully moved the rocks in his or her head into a new location.
The same maneuver, viewed somatically, looks at what's happening in the person as a somatic experience, as (s)he does it. That other perspective leads to another, not-mechanistic explanation.
Understanding is a question of perspective -- and of understanding somatic experience as the integration of (at minimum) The Big 4. (There are more pairs than The Big 4, but The Big 4 are the minimum.)
Having had the experience of clients with vertigo have the vertigo diminish in minutes as I teach them to control their scalene muscles / neck movements suggests that "something is doing the same thing as The Epley Maneuver does -- but without the Epley Maneuver. Hmmm. What gives?"
That's my point.
PS:
One of the most consistent comments I hear from readers or from people I talk to is, "That makes sense."
Of course, another most common comment is, "I feel like I could take a nap."
( -the sounds of snoring in the auditorium- )
Somatic Education as Training Wheels
Somatic education may be rightly regarded as "training wheels" for a greater process -- but training wheels for what?
If we examine the course of somatic education, we find a developmental process that starts with the awakening of a person's faculties. As we know, not everyone has the same set of faculties or the same faculties, but not equally developed to anyone else, but all awaken and become functional, part of the person's repertoire of behaviors.
That's the start.
What follows is an ongoing process of refinement of those faculties, again, uniquely according to the individual.
The ability to make finer distinctions, the ability to be more masterful (and therefore, less effortful) and more creative (and therefore, less habitual) in our responses to the conditions we face in our lives, to our experience of the moment.
Memory patterns form, at first faintly and then more substantially. Dominant themes emerge. We take the shape of whatever residue exists in memory of past experiences. It's both a figurative shape and a physical one. The shape we take is that of our dominant way of dealing with things, our attitude, our presence of mind, our freedom of attention, our emotional state, our intelligences -- and also our physiological state: metabolic rate (arousal state), nervous system arousal (sympathetic and central), postural set and the muscular tensions that maintain it. Subjective condition and objectively observable physiological condition. Conceptual and experiential.
All of that finer differentiation forms and emerges with the development of memory and memories.
The next step: the dissolution of all that
First, awakening
Next, maturation (making functional)
Next, differentiation (making more functional)
Then, the progressive dissolution of the "memory clumps"
formed out of experience
that have their hold as habit and chronic physiological states,
generally unnecessarily draining activation states,
but also most virtuous habits and practices.
For surely, as conditions change,
changes to our faculties
or entirely new faculties
are needed and called for.
Habit is momentum
and tends to persist.
Mastery of habit, then,
is needed and called for.
Mastery of habit
is mastery of memory
in part,
in mastery of down-regulating (relaxing) the force of any memory
and in part,
in mastery of holding attention on something long enough and intently enough to form a memory.
It's both --
memory formation and memory dissolution.
Back to our original question:
training wheels for what larger process?
The process of taking on forms
and of dissolving the forms we take and inhabit
in the course of life.
If we don't dissolve, "memory clumps" eventually collide
in a confusion of actions constrained by memories of earlier actions.
Confusion is the right word, both figuratively and literally.
Literally: con: with + fusion: merging
Figuratively: immobilization of the will, generally by internal friction/internal contradictions.
When two memory clumps collide
the non-aligned forces of their intent
interact.
Where they meet, there is a pressure wave
from which emanate all manner of unpredicted effects.
Another name for colliding "pressure waves"
is crisis.
Crises of life occur when such a pressure wave
formed from two habitual, but non-integrated
memory clumps -- two habitual, but non-integrated
aspects of oneself.
A weather front forms
where "warm, moist air" and "cold air" meet
and events precipitate out of the meeting.
What is the solution, when the weather gets rough?
Dissolve the glue that makes it hard to for the two fronts to integrate with each other --
the glue of "right knowledge"
the glue of "personal and transpersonal virtues"
the glue of sourpuss moods
the glue of Ebenezer Scrooge-ness.
Training wheels for what?
Training wheels to learn to dissolve the grip
of habits,
at first in gross movements (sensory-motor)
and then in terms of our internal habits of mind
our internal habits of emotion
our internal habits of imagination
and our internal habits of remembering things.
Training wheels to form something new.
Training wheels to an exploration of consciousness
that starts with the sensory-motor body,
proceeds to our own habitual personality habits
and further to the root of all that in The Big 4:
into the roots of personal existence
and the roots of perception.
Training Wheels.
Again -- why?
Because the accumulation of memory clumps
is like cotton balls in the head
or
like the accumulation of barnacles
on the hull of a seagoing vessel.
In all innocence, as we accumulate memories
as the gathered pearls of wisdom of a lifetime
and as refuge from the storms of life
we are weighed down by them.
In an age of increasingly fast change (so they keep saying)
it's helpful to lighten the amount of drag we experience.
Training wheels for what?
Both changing our environment by our contributions
and being changed by our environment
as we partake of the contributions of others.
Those who contend with the particulars of things
may find themselves struggling to stay up with things,
much as, when on the other side of the Looking Glass,
Alice came across people running as fast as they could
just to stay in the same place.
At least your hamster enjoys it.
The alternative?
Working with our ability to attune ourselves to different states
different possibilities
different scenarios in life than those to which we are accustomed.
This is not a mental process proceeding by conceptual analysis
and leading to an earnest attempt
to convince oneself to believe it.
It's an observation and a shift of feeling,
a shift of perspective and a shift of action.
The "domain" (or field of experience of this kind of evolutionary transformation)
is our proprioceptive sense,
our ability deliberately to sense our own internal state.
By proprioception, we sense our emotions (and those of others),
we sense our movement and state of balance,
we sense (however, vaguely) what's going on in that noisebox of a mind,
we sense the feeling-qualities of various places
and how we feel dressed in different ways
the qualities of places
and the impending quality of an approaching change.
Proprioception is how we delve into the imagination.
It's where dreams live.
It's how we distinguish truth from falsity
(more or less).
Our proprioception is the more tangible and less tangible foundation of our world-view.
Mind occurs "within" proprioception (self-sensing)
as a movement of attention between memories and present sensations
and the rousing of intentions that goes with that.
Mind is intentional movement of attention.
Proprioception.
Internal self-sensing (enteroception).
Exteroception:
Sensing what has not been identified as "self".
Humans have evolved to be predominantly exteroceptive,
males more so than females
females being both enteroceptive and exteroceptive.
Even so, the ability to put attention "out there" has developed
more so than the ability to put attention "in here".
A shift is occurring: increasingly common development
of internal awareness.
The balance is tipping more toward the balanced awakening of both faculties.
Training wheels for what?
That kind of awareness
that kind of development
that kind of capacity to bring on
the emergence of the new
in all domains within reach of our attention.
MORE:
The Gold Key Release Technique | The Structure of All Senses of Identity
The Controlling Moment | video
If we examine the course of somatic education, we find a developmental process that starts with the awakening of a person's faculties. As we know, not everyone has the same set of faculties or the same faculties, but not equally developed to anyone else, but all awaken and become functional, part of the person's repertoire of behaviors.
That's the start.
What follows is an ongoing process of refinement of those faculties, again, uniquely according to the individual.
The ability to make finer distinctions, the ability to be more masterful (and therefore, less effortful) and more creative (and therefore, less habitual) in our responses to the conditions we face in our lives, to our experience of the moment.
Memory patterns form, at first faintly and then more substantially. Dominant themes emerge. We take the shape of whatever residue exists in memory of past experiences. It's both a figurative shape and a physical one. The shape we take is that of our dominant way of dealing with things, our attitude, our presence of mind, our freedom of attention, our emotional state, our intelligences -- and also our physiological state: metabolic rate (arousal state), nervous system arousal (sympathetic and central), postural set and the muscular tensions that maintain it. Subjective condition and objectively observable physiological condition. Conceptual and experiential.
All of that finer differentiation forms and emerges with the development of memory and memories.
The next step: the dissolution of all that
First, awakening
Next, maturation (making functional)
Next, differentiation (making more functional)
Then, the progressive dissolution of the "memory clumps"
formed out of experience
that have their hold as habit and chronic physiological states,
generally unnecessarily draining activation states,
but also most virtuous habits and practices.
For surely, as conditions change,
changes to our faculties
or entirely new faculties
are needed and called for.
Habit is momentum
and tends to persist.
Mastery of habit, then,
is needed and called for.
Mastery of habit
is mastery of memory
in part,
in mastery of down-regulating (relaxing) the force of any memory
and in part,
in mastery of holding attention on something long enough and intently enough to form a memory.
It's both --
memory formation and memory dissolution.
Back to our original question:
training wheels for what larger process?
The process of taking on forms
and of dissolving the forms we take and inhabit
in the course of life.
If we don't dissolve, "memory clumps" eventually collide
in a confusion of actions constrained by memories of earlier actions.
Confusion is the right word, both figuratively and literally.
Literally: con: with + fusion: merging
Figuratively: immobilization of the will, generally by internal friction/internal contradictions.
When two memory clumps collide
the non-aligned forces of their intent
interact.
Where they meet, there is a pressure wave
from which emanate all manner of unpredicted effects.
Another name for colliding "pressure waves"
is crisis.
Crises of life occur when such a pressure wave
formed from two habitual, but non-integrated
memory clumps -- two habitual, but non-integrated
aspects of oneself.
A weather front forms
where "warm, moist air" and "cold air" meet
and events precipitate out of the meeting.
What is the solution, when the weather gets rough?
Dissolve the glue that makes it hard to for the two fronts to integrate with each other --
the glue of "right knowledge"
the glue of "personal and transpersonal virtues"
the glue of sourpuss moods
the glue of Ebenezer Scrooge-ness.
Training wheels for what?
Training wheels to learn to dissolve the grip
of habits,
at first in gross movements (sensory-motor)
and then in terms of our internal habits of mind
our internal habits of emotion
our internal habits of imagination
and our internal habits of remembering things.
Training wheels to form something new.
Training wheels to an exploration of consciousness
that starts with the sensory-motor body,
proceeds to our own habitual personality habits
and further to the root of all that in The Big 4:
- attention
- intention
- imagination
- memory
into the roots of personal existence
and the roots of perception.
Training Wheels.
Again -- why?
Because the accumulation of memory clumps
is like cotton balls in the head
or
like the accumulation of barnacles
on the hull of a seagoing vessel.
In all innocence, as we accumulate memories
as the gathered pearls of wisdom of a lifetime
and as refuge from the storms of life
we are weighed down by them.
In an age of increasingly fast change (so they keep saying)
it's helpful to lighten the amount of drag we experience.
Training wheels for what?
Both changing our environment by our contributions
and being changed by our environment
as we partake of the contributions of others.
Those who contend with the particulars of things
may find themselves struggling to stay up with things,
much as, when on the other side of the Looking Glass,
Alice came across people running as fast as they could
just to stay in the same place.
At least your hamster enjoys it.
The alternative?
Working with our ability to attune ourselves to different states
different possibilities
different scenarios in life than those to which we are accustomed.
This is not a mental process proceeding by conceptual analysis
and leading to an earnest attempt
to convince oneself to believe it.
It's an observation and a shift of feeling,
a shift of perspective and a shift of action.
The "domain" (or field of experience of this kind of evolutionary transformation)
is our proprioceptive sense,
our ability deliberately to sense our own internal state.
By proprioception, we sense our emotions (and those of others),
we sense our movement and state of balance,
we sense (however, vaguely) what's going on in that noisebox of a mind,
we sense the feeling-qualities of various places
and how we feel dressed in different ways
the qualities of places
and the impending quality of an approaching change.
Proprioception is how we delve into the imagination.
It's where dreams live.
It's how we distinguish truth from falsity
(more or less).
Our proprioception is the more tangible and less tangible foundation of our world-view.
Mind occurs "within" proprioception (self-sensing)
as a movement of attention between memories and present sensations
and the rousing of intentions that goes with that.
Mind is intentional movement of attention.
Proprioception.
Internal self-sensing (enteroception).
Exteroception:
Sensing what has not been identified as "self".
Humans have evolved to be predominantly exteroceptive,
males more so than females
females being both enteroceptive and exteroceptive.
Even so, the ability to put attention "out there" has developed
more so than the ability to put attention "in here".
A shift is occurring: increasingly common development
of internal awareness.
The balance is tipping more toward the balanced awakening of both faculties.
Training wheels for what?
That kind of awareness
that kind of development
that kind of capacity to bring on
the emergence of the new
in all domains within reach of our attention.
MORE:
The Gold Key Release Technique | The Structure of All Senses of Identity
The Controlling Moment | video
Cleaving the Diamond of Life
"Neurophysiology is a metaphor."
"Function determines structure."
"Know thyself."
-- three statements by Thomas Hanna during training Wave 1
Of these three statements, the more obscure (and perhaps, vexing) is the first, "Neurophysiology is a metaphor." I didn't know what to make of it, at the time, and I wonder if anyone else did. Tom Hanna didn't explain and no one asked. I wonder if anyone else remembers him saying it. It might be in the lecture recordings, though he didn't record everything.
In any case, now I can explain it and show its usefulness.
First thing: No one has ever had a direct experience of neurophysiology or of their nervous system. What we experience is our functioning -- not nerves, not a brain, not even of sensory receptors. Those are objects, 3d-person, objective structures viewed from outside. However, all of our experiences are inside, subjective, and none of them looks like what we see when we regard neurological structures, clinically dissected or chemically analyzed.
So, what are we left with?
Let's take a few terms of neurophysiology and see what we can make of it. (If you know the basics of neurophysiology, you know these terms.)
Here's our first step:
Here's our second step:
Now, we see and recognize how neurophysiology is a metaphor for something more basic and familiar: a somatic experience of life, functioning.
The term, "Sensory-Motor Amnesia", of course, refers to alterations to all five functions. (Somas, for some reason, like the number, "five".) S-MA is the displacement of a previous pattern of function by a new one, triggered by strong experience and memory formation, entailing all of those functions.
Attention, intention, imagination, memory and communication are the five fundamental functions of all somas -- present to varying degrees according to the species. All of the physiological structures we identify by dissection and chemical analysis are the ways those functions exist in life-forms, and those vary according to species, also.
So, though an amoeba (our primitive, squooshy relative) has no central nervous system, as we think of it, clearly it directs attention (e.g., moves toward food), exercises intention (e.g., engulfs food), makes connections (e.g., adapts to new environments), has a memory of what constitutes food, and responds to chemical communications. The same is true of a jellyfish.
DNA, itself, is a structure of memory -- genetic memory and, as we now know from discoveries about how environment affects "gene/genetic expression", adaptive memory. (As a giant leap, we might also say that the Kosmos is a process of evolving memory, where "tendency" stands in for "intention" and "persistence" stands in for "memory".)
Let's take a look at some of our familiar somatic functions:
Clearly, movement involves attention, intention, memory, imagination and communication. Think of an elite athlete, say, a basketball player during practice (movement-memory formation) and then in the game (execution of movement memory formed during practice), with attention and intention active throughout the game, communicating with other players.
Emotions, likewise, always involve attention on a situation, memory of what it signifies richly colored by imagination (consider jealousy), and an intention to have things be a certain way and, of course, the communication of emotion.
Thinking involves attention on a subject, an intention to arrive at a conclusion, memory of what concepts/language mean, and, in the case of developmental thinking, imagination (emergence of the conclusion), and language.
The physical structures (nerves, brain, fascia, muscles, etc.) give persistent form to those functions. Let's make that giant leap and say that those five functions underlie all somatic functioning and experience.
What? You don't want to?
OK.
Let's examine your resistance. I hope it's strong, so it's easy to examine.
Touche!
Now, if you're resisting my "Touche!", examine your resistance as the action of intention, attention, memory, imagination and communication. Look at your resistence in terms of each one.
Yes, it's inevitable and (wouldn't you say?) irrefutable.
This structure of experience and identity is the same as the structure of a diamond -- four carbon atoms in crystalline relationship with other structures of four.
THE USE
So much of what we live out is subconscious or unconscious and persistent. We're stuck in and stuck with it.
A quick way bring a persistent state to consciousness and get free of it is to discern its structure in terms of our intention, our attention, the synergy of our memory and our imagination and how it communicates to us and to others.
I've written up a practical process for doing so, in my previous piece, The Basic Structure of All Senses of Identity | The Gold Key Release. It's a way of cleaving the diamond.
Test it once. You'll never be the same and you'll have stupendously expanded the scope and understanding of your somatic growth potential into freedom.
Still resisting? I understand.
Apply the process to your resistance and understand yourself. Feel the relief.
"Function determines structure."
"Know thyself."
-- three statements by Thomas Hanna during training Wave 1
Of these three statements, the more obscure (and perhaps, vexing) is the first, "Neurophysiology is a metaphor." I didn't know what to make of it, at the time, and I wonder if anyone else did. Tom Hanna didn't explain and no one asked. I wonder if anyone else remembers him saying it. It might be in the lecture recordings, though he didn't record everything.
In any case, now I can explain it and show its usefulness.
First thing: No one has ever had a direct experience of neurophysiology or of their nervous system. What we experience is our functioning -- not nerves, not a brain, not even of sensory receptors. Those are objects, 3d-person, objective structures viewed from outside. However, all of our experiences are inside, subjective, and none of them looks like what we see when we regard neurological structures, clinically dissected or chemically analyzed.
So, what are we left with?
Let's take a few terms of neurophysiology and see what we can make of it. (If you know the basics of neurophysiology, you know these terms.)
- afferent
- efferent
- synapses
- neural pathways
- neurotransmitters
Here's our first step:
- afferent = sensory
- efferent = motor
- synapse formation = making connections/learning
- neural pathways = more-or-less integrated functions
- neurotransmitters = chemical messengers
Here's our second step:
- afferent = sensory = attention
- efferent = motor = intention
- synapse formation = making connections/learning = imagination
- neural pathways = functions = memory/persistent functional patterns
- neurotransmitters = chemical messengers = communication/relationship
Now, we see and recognize how neurophysiology is a metaphor for something more basic and familiar: a somatic experience of life, functioning.
The term, "Sensory-Motor Amnesia", of course, refers to alterations to all five functions. (Somas, for some reason, like the number, "five".) S-MA is the displacement of a previous pattern of function by a new one, triggered by strong experience and memory formation, entailing all of those functions.
Attention, intention, imagination, memory and communication are the five fundamental functions of all somas -- present to varying degrees according to the species. All of the physiological structures we identify by dissection and chemical analysis are the ways those functions exist in life-forms, and those vary according to species, also.
So, though an amoeba (our primitive, squooshy relative) has no central nervous system, as we think of it, clearly it directs attention (e.g., moves toward food), exercises intention (e.g., engulfs food), makes connections (e.g., adapts to new environments), has a memory of what constitutes food, and responds to chemical communications. The same is true of a jellyfish.
DNA, itself, is a structure of memory -- genetic memory and, as we now know from discoveries about how environment affects "gene/genetic expression", adaptive memory. (As a giant leap, we might also say that the Kosmos is a process of evolving memory, where "tendency" stands in for "intention" and "persistence" stands in for "memory".)
Let's take a look at some of our familiar somatic functions:
- physical sensation and movement
- emotions
- thinking
Clearly, movement involves attention, intention, memory, imagination and communication. Think of an elite athlete, say, a basketball player during practice (movement-memory formation) and then in the game (execution of movement memory formed during practice), with attention and intention active throughout the game, communicating with other players.
Emotions, likewise, always involve attention on a situation, memory of what it signifies richly colored by imagination (consider jealousy), and an intention to have things be a certain way and, of course, the communication of emotion.
Thinking involves attention on a subject, an intention to arrive at a conclusion, memory of what concepts/language mean, and, in the case of developmental thinking, imagination (emergence of the conclusion), and language.
The physical structures (nerves, brain, fascia, muscles, etc.) give persistent form to those functions. Let's make that giant leap and say that those five functions underlie all somatic functioning and experience.
What? You don't want to?
OK.
Let's examine your resistance. I hope it's strong, so it's easy to examine.
- First thing: You feel compelled to resist (intention).
- Second thing: You feel that you're right to resist; it's necessary, inevitable, valid because of ...
- the Third thing: You feel that you know what you are resisting and you imagine that something else must or might be correct (whatever that may be, even if you don't know what it is). There's some balance and synergy between your memory and your imagination that gives the whole thing substance. (I write about how attention and memory make reality seem solid in my piece, The Geometry of Consciousness.)
Touche!
Now, if you're resisting my "Touche!", examine your resistance as the action of intention, attention, memory, imagination and communication. Look at your resistence in terms of each one.
Yes, it's inevitable and (wouldn't you say?) irrefutable.
This structure of experience and identity is the same as the structure of a diamond -- four carbon atoms in crystalline relationship with other structures of four.
THE USE
So much of what we live out is subconscious or unconscious and persistent. We're stuck in and stuck with it.
A quick way bring a persistent state to consciousness and get free of it is to discern its structure in terms of our intention, our attention, the synergy of our memory and our imagination and how it communicates to us and to others.
I've written up a practical process for doing so, in my previous piece, The Basic Structure of All Senses of Identity | The Gold Key Release. It's a way of cleaving the diamond.
Test it once. You'll never be the same and you'll have stupendously expanded the scope and understanding of your somatic growth potential into freedom.
Still resisting? I understand.
Apply the process to your resistance and understand yourself. Feel the relief.
God is not An Unpredictable, Potentially Dangerous, Autocratic SuperSpook
Is the limit of development of God's identity to be
some sort of unpredictable, potentially dangerous, autocratic
SuperSpook?
It has been written,
"No man may look upon the face of God and live."
That sounds like a SuperSpook, to me.
How about another perspective:
that whatever God may be
God is not a he
or a she
although God may pervade
he and she
as the mystery at the deepest unknown essence
of a he or a she.
God is not a person
but God may be perceived to pervade persons
to appear via and through a person
as the person's radiance, the person's light.
The God-light of consciousness pervades all.
God pervades all,
though that may not be noticed
in the distracted involvement with it all
buried in the density of self.
The heart of all, is mystery
the substance of all, even the atoms
and also the continuing appearing of all,
even your own next thought.
The Mystery of it all cannot be denied.
Mystery is ever-present, before all, after all.
But Mystery confounds us
with our inability
to get a fix on it,
deflected, as the same poles of two magnets,
seek to deflect each other aside.
It is that force of deflection
when we persist in facing into the Mystery
that dislodges us from what we know.
Then, our actions communicate the genius of the Mystery, itself.
From Mystery all emerges.
Mystery is Source,
undefined
pervading all that appears defined
as living genius.
The God Myth:
Pushing the swirling memories of existence around
emerging with ever-new genius.
Existence, given momentum by density and the slowness of density to change
creates the appearance of Time,
the movements of things
and the changing of things
from one thing into another.
Density gives substance to, and is, the experience of, things moving.
Things moving creates the appearance of time.
Gazing into Mystery
dissolves us in Mystery,
so that it is said,
"One may not see the face of God
and live."
Rather, our density softens, expands and loosens
so that we change more readily
from one thing into another.
In that sense, no one may see the face of God
and live as (s)he has lived.
Mutation is upon him
who feels attention into the ineffable, deflective, indefinable Fount of Mystery.
Inspiration comes not from self
or the effort of self
or the aspiration of self,
but from the confounding of self
in intentional confrontation with Mystery
present in every moment of creation.
We witness the emergence of "something and everything" from the Mystery.
Everything appears in the medium and language of our lives of action,
Mystery paradoxically embodied in form -- as form --
form being recognizable, because of memory and language.
The resurrection of the being
comes with dissolution in Mystery --
to be transformed (softer and looser)
to be outshined by the Mystery
even as we appear to be mired in and as
a dense, slowly changing form with momentum to endure as we are.
God is not an unpredictable, dangerous, autocratic SuperSpook.
God, if we may say, is the genius of newness, the enlivening of life
and the mysterious power of life, beyond life, itself.
But not a "Him".
Not a "Him,"
but the Mystery of all
that gives rise to all of life
and life more abundantly.
The glory is not "His",
but that of the great Mystery and Source
called The Father.
Not a "father"
nor a Grandfather
or a Grandmother,
or even a rich Uncle.
Therefore, submit all things
before the Mystery
as if as a sacrifice,
so that Mystery may transform all --
not through burning to ashes and drippings
but through transformation and pervasion
by Mystery,
the intuition of which attracts attention, erotically --
curiosity enticed by Mystery,
Mystery that internally corrects and reforms
shapes and guides
the living form that we verily are
not by action, but by absorption in its own nature.
Now, if you understand that,
I have this piece of property in Brooklyn --
a bridge, as a matter of fact,
that for the right price . . .
But that's in another universe
another world
another dream.
some sort of unpredictable, potentially dangerous, autocratic
SuperSpook?
It has been written,
"No man may look upon the face of God and live."
That sounds like a SuperSpook, to me.
How about another perspective:
that whatever God may be
God is not a he
or a she
although God may pervade
he and she
as the mystery at the deepest unknown essence
of a he or a she.
God is not a person
but God may be perceived to pervade persons
to appear via and through a person
as the person's radiance, the person's light.
The God-light of consciousness pervades all.
God pervades all,
though that may not be noticed
in the distracted involvement with it all
buried in the density of self.
The heart of all, is mystery
the substance of all, even the atoms
and also the continuing appearing of all,
even your own next thought.
The Mystery of it all cannot be denied.
Mystery is ever-present, before all, after all.
But Mystery confounds us
with our inability
to get a fix on it,
deflected, as the same poles of two magnets,
seek to deflect each other aside.
It is that force of deflection
when we persist in facing into the Mystery
that dislodges us from what we know.
Then, our actions communicate the genius of the Mystery, itself.
From Mystery all emerges.
Mystery is Source,
undefined
pervading all that appears defined
as living genius.
The God Myth:
Pushing the swirling memories of existence around
emerging with ever-new genius.
Existence, given momentum by density and the slowness of density to change
creates the appearance of Time,
the movements of things
and the changing of things
from one thing into another.
Density gives substance to, and is, the experience of, things moving.
Things moving creates the appearance of time.
Gazing into Mystery
dissolves us in Mystery,
so that it is said,
"One may not see the face of God
and live."
Rather, our density softens, expands and loosens
so that we change more readily
from one thing into another.
In that sense, no one may see the face of God
and live as (s)he has lived.
Mutation is upon him
who feels attention into the ineffable, deflective, indefinable Fount of Mystery.
Inspiration comes not from self
or the effort of self
or the aspiration of self,
but from the confounding of self
in intentional confrontation with Mystery
present in every moment of creation.
We witness the emergence of "something and everything" from the Mystery.
Everything appears in the medium and language of our lives of action,
Mystery paradoxically embodied in form -- as form --
form being recognizable, because of memory and language.
The resurrection of the being
comes with dissolution in Mystery --
to be transformed (softer and looser)
to be outshined by the Mystery
even as we appear to be mired in and as
a dense, slowly changing form with momentum to endure as we are.
God is not an unpredictable, dangerous, autocratic SuperSpook.
God, if we may say, is the genius of newness, the enlivening of life
and the mysterious power of life, beyond life, itself.
But not a "Him".
Not a "Him,"
but the Mystery of all
that gives rise to all of life
and life more abundantly.
The glory is not "His",
but that of the great Mystery and Source
called The Father.
Not a "father"
nor a Grandfather
or a Grandmother,
or even a rich Uncle.
Therefore, submit all things
before the Mystery
as if as a sacrifice,
so that Mystery may transform all --
not through burning to ashes and drippings
but through transformation and pervasion
by Mystery,
the intuition of which attracts attention, erotically --
curiosity enticed by Mystery,
Mystery that internally corrects and reforms
shapes and guides
the living form that we verily are
not by action, but by absorption in its own nature.
Now, if you understand that,
I have this piece of property in Brooklyn --
a bridge, as a matter of fact,
that for the right price . . .
But that's in another universe
another world
another dream.
Somatic Harmonization | Bringing Probabilities into Existence
Hey! FOLKS!! Let's do an experiment in "somatic harmonization"* and see what we can do.
*through group alignment of attention and intention
in a certain direction,
setting up a resonance in the morphic field
for the self-organizing,
self-reinforcing,
and immanent appearance
of a good-hearted "possibility-become-event".
We call the act, "somatic harmonization" and the event, "an attractive possibility to actually happen."
We organize for new experiences from our core | our attention, our intention, and our memory-imagination coalesce and move. In the coalescence of imagination (daydreaming, fantasizing, anchor aweigh), memory (getting situated, anchor down), material appearance (believing it matters) , and perpetuation (our imperative, whether toward, away or around) we generate a favorable condition for an event -- remembered, happening, or fantasized/dreamed -- to occur in our experience.
Let us "imagine into being" more and more use of Tibetan icons in the mass-entertainment media -- for mass preservation and regeneration of the Tibetan people and culture. Icons in advertising, in drama and comedy, in film, just momentary appearances, enough to make an impression on memory that can accumulate.
Lest this be confused with "Harmonic Convergence" thinking, let me point out that it takes sufficient time to stabilize a readily accessible memory in the morphic field as if were presently happening. A day, even with buzz before and after, is insufficient to set up a stable morphic field when random public individuals are involved, who otherwise have little in common. That was "The Harmonic Convergence, and "11/11/11" -- a lot of imagination, some memory, and not much correlation between the talk and the events. Somatic awakening is a trump card, a special resource, a secret potentiality -- an actuality -- the potentiality available with greater somatic awakening and higher integration, dissolving old and materializing new imperatives.
Hearkens back to my essay, "Where is Somatics Headed?"
The proof of the pudding is in the eating (not in the recipe).
I will say this: What I have described, here, is what makes "Mastermind" groups effective.
yours truly,
Voice in the Wilderness
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE????
hell-o-O-o-o . . . . .
*through group alignment of attention and intention
in a certain direction,
setting up a resonance in the morphic field
for the self-organizing,
self-reinforcing,
and immanent appearance
of a good-hearted "possibility-become-event".
We call the act, "somatic harmonization" and the event, "an attractive possibility to actually happen."
We organize for new experiences from our core | our attention, our intention, and our memory-imagination coalesce and move. In the coalescence of imagination (daydreaming, fantasizing, anchor aweigh), memory (getting situated, anchor down), material appearance (believing it matters) , and perpetuation (our imperative, whether toward, away or around) we generate a favorable condition for an event -- remembered, happening, or fantasized/dreamed -- to occur in our experience.
Let us "imagine into being" more and more use of Tibetan icons in the mass-entertainment media -- for mass preservation and regeneration of the Tibetan people and culture. Icons in advertising, in drama and comedy, in film, just momentary appearances, enough to make an impression on memory that can accumulate.
Lest this be confused with "Harmonic Convergence" thinking, let me point out that it takes sufficient time to stabilize a readily accessible memory in the morphic field as if were presently happening. A day, even with buzz before and after, is insufficient to set up a stable morphic field when random public individuals are involved, who otherwise have little in common. That was "The Harmonic Convergence, and "11/11/11" -- a lot of imagination, some memory, and not much correlation between the talk and the events. Somatic awakening is a trump card, a special resource, a secret potentiality -- an actuality -- the potentiality available with greater somatic awakening and higher integration, dissolving old and materializing new imperatives.
Hearkens back to my essay, "Where is Somatics Headed?"
The proof of the pudding is in the eating (not in the recipe).
I will say this: What I have described, here, is what makes "Mastermind" groups effective.
yours truly,
Voice in the Wilderness
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE????
hell-o-O-o-o . . . . .
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