Resiliency

Etching by CJ McGannon

Our beings, on the long life trek we make in this existence, are models of a tremendous resiliency.  The ability to sustain and survive the small and large nicks and breaks to our hearts, bodies, psychs, souls and minds endured over a lifetime is just short of miraculous.  A broken heart, a catastrophic accident, traumatic events, repeated loss, soul numbing extended misery circumstances-- how is it we don't die a million times over with the suffering and pain this life provides us on almost a continual basis?

Resiliency.  The body alone is a wonderful example of responsive rebound.  The body's design, from its replicating cells to its innate protection properties irrepressibly urges:  "Live!"  Vital organs are protected by bony prominences.  The ever mobile joints are useful and guarded by their artistically layered ligaments, tendons and fascia and well oiled by the buoyant, slippery synovial fluid.  Who could imagine twenty eight feet of intestine would be useful crammed into half of the torso's relatively small cavity?  And yet it is useful; brilliantly.  Incredible. And the tremendous cooperative symphony this complex organism creates between the parts, harmonizing the whole, whether it be useful bacteria in the mouth/saliva jump-starting the digestion process (actually initiated in the use of the eyes, nose and brain) or the pumping action of the heart in concert with respiration.  When something goes awry in one aspect of the body's function, there is a usually graceful accepting of the workload by another aspect. The spleen, liver, pancreas and kidneys all function in some capacity to filter toxins from the blood.  If the spleen is removed the pancreas and liver pick up on the function of the missing spleen's work.  Sometimes it is seamless, sometimes it is a dysfunctional undertaking.  But the body is a community and in relationship to its parts.  And most of all, because of this relationship, it is tremendously resilient.

The Three Shades, Rodin*

Similarly, the psych has a host of coping mechanisms to buffer the suffering experienced through our timeline.  It's actually quite remarkable, even elegant.  The strain of the brain and ego to return to a semblance of  "normalcy" in a crisis, has useful initial functions like denial, projection, isolation or rebound reactions to put into play when necessary, when the pain is too great, in order to survive.  This is how we carry on.  This is irrepressible life force trying to find a way to survive.

Even though we are programmed from the get go to move toward death, dying can be a difficult business; the collective body doesn't want to do it, even when it is unbearably tired of the struggle.  We have this incredible resiliency, life force that streams through us resisting capitulation with a universal energy. Our being is made to struggle, overcome, or at least to die trying.  And even in the process of the inevitable surrender of the body to the dying process, quite often resiliency is seen as the Spirit takes over this urge to live and adapts.  Again, one area in the community of the self fails, lets go; another part picks up the "life" action and becomes resilient, and rebounds.  Amazing.  This sophisticated organism we inhabit is a finely tuned orchestra; layered, complex and multifaceted, even when it is at its most dilapidated. From this point of view, it's hard to imagine that the spirit doesn't transcend the body post mortem.

Honoring this meta collective aspect of the divine in us seems mandatory. 

* " These identical male figures--known as shades, or ghosts from the underworld--are closely related to Rodin's figure of Adam.  However, rather than awakening to life as Adam does, the Shades embody death, sleep, and a loss of consciousness."  (description of statuary at Rodin Museum, Philadelphia)

Resistance

photo: Irene Becker

The experience of resistance in life has many nuances.  It often comes from our human propensities to not want change or an unwillingness to move out of a comfort zone.  It also can manifest from an unknown part of ourselves who knows better, who is waiting, not willing to act just yet.  These sublime aspects of ourselves are a mystery very often.  Why not take that advice given by a loved one, it makes sense, is well meaning?  Why skip that daily walk today?  "Why" does not seem the appropriate question, but "where" is that sense of resistance coming from perhaps the more expansive approach. The "why" question to resistance is an open and shut, black and white, brief and easy dismissal of myself.  The "where in myself" approach produces a quiet, possibly still opening for further inquiry.

"Where in myself" is another direction. It drops me down into a deeper layer of the possibility of an understanding and the unknown that is resisting.  It is not a question to ruminate on (although that temptation is ever present).  It's a question that begs for more of me to be present with it.  It begs to just Be. There is rarely a cognitive response to "where", but a more fuller experience that unfolds if one can stay with it.  The problem is I don't stay with it.  Once the window of the the walk I am resisting has closed, I go on to the next thing.  Or after the initial  dismissing of the advice has transpired, I move on.  What is of value in resistance is the staying with it in a fuller, experiential way.

To stay with the resistance would mean to bring a subtler, more quiet attention to it, even if I have to move on to the next thing.  Staying with resistance means allowing the resistance to drop into the great unknown, the black hole of myself I have some practice already going to (hopefully).  The "I don't know" place that probably has some tension and frenetic energy waiting for me.  Because of my previous experience in this unknowing place, the tensions can be more minimal.  Possibly, it is not so frightening; perhaps patience may prevail.  I can even be intrigued to find myself there, knowing it won't be as endless as previously feared, that a time being in the dark also will inevitably change.

Who in me resists?  And who asks that question?

I am not as willing (I have resistance?) as I was to assume self-deprecatingly that it is the automatic, lazy, "sleeping", fearful or weak self that resists. It would be superficial, partial and truly automatic to maintain that position. This organism is dimensional.  How could I possibly know this if I limit the interest I have of it to trite write-offs.  Yes, it is automatic.  Yes, it often takes the path of least resistance.  And yes, a part of me is absolutely unforgiving of that.  It is this lack of forgiveness, the propensity to judge she who resists that keeps the bigger understandings from me. There is no room for the scary black hole to emerge, the "where in me" questions to exist.

Often in the healing moment working with others, there is a palpable trace of resistance present; of the next action to take, or comment to say.  It is powerful.  It is potent. It is a moment full of energy.  The middle ground.  The Unknown.  The moment of resistance brings me back to the present and what Is. I have come to fully respect the resistance that can be occasionally present in another.  The energy of the healing wants to move forward, but there is resistance.  The client is not ready, the client is fearful.  So, let it be.  In the holding of that, there is plenty of worthiness to be had.  It is not a missed opportunity.  Everything in its own time. Resistance is to be respected if for no other reason that it is a voice needing to be heard.

The Body as an Ecosystem

In my post, Our Second Brain, I brought forth the health implications of this often overlooked aspect   of our physiology, the enteric system. The  informational links on that post, http://thepo
werof4-paula.blogspot.com/2011/05/healthy-gut-healthy-person.html?goback=%2Egde_65780_member_106590695, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain and http://www.psyking.net/id36.htm said it best. The enteric system is a major intelligence in the body, able to operate outside the brain's master command center.  This intelligence not only dictates digestion, but impacts our mood and emotional state.  When this system is unwell, in an inflamed state, it is a major player in the wellness/disease factor for the entire body.

On further readings about this second brain I am impressed with the idea of our bodies being made up of many ecosystems of "microbiota".  Especially in this day and age of routine use of antimicrobial soaps and antibiotics, we are systematically damaging this delicate ecosystem that co-exists in this singular organism, the body.

`"Each person is an assemblage of not only human cells but also many symbiotic species.  The abundant and diverse microbial members of the assemblage play critical roles in the maintenance of human health by liberating nutrients and/or energy from otherwise inaccessible dietary substrates, promoting differentiation of host tissues stimulating the immune system and protecting the host from invasion by pathogens.  A number of clinical disorders are associated with alterations in host-associated microbial communities (the "microbiota"), including obesity malnutrition and a variety of inflammatory diseases....Thus, the human body can be viewed as an ecosystem and human health can be construed as a product of ecosystem services delivered in part by the microbiota."*

This resonates well with the ideas of Oneness and everything being a microcosmos of another 'universe'; whether it be in relation to the details of a working star/planet system or the intricate operations of our cells and DNA.  Everything is related.  We are in relationship.  Unfortunately, we don't have a working awareness of this truth.  So (out of fear) we act blindly; for example, attempting to eradicate all mosquitoes from a community with two cases of West Nile virus and in doing so obliterate most of the entire lobster population from nearby waters (Pesticide effect on lobsters studied - Connecticut Post ), not only killing off countless creatures but dozens of livelihoods. (And how does this effect birds who feed on mosquitoes?)  Or we evolve innumerous MRSA (MRSA Strain on the Rise in Hospitals) noscomial infections in hospitals often related to the use of antibiotics. Antimicrobial soaps and alcohol-based "Purells" are used routinely in hospitals by staff instead of soap and water, mostly for convenience sake.  What is this doing to our personal ecosystems and our already health-compromised patients? We don't work with our inner or outer ecosystems, we attempt to conquer them.

Fungi microbiata on cork

"The human-microbial ecosystem plays a variety of important roles in human health and disease. Each person can be viewed as an island-like "patch" of habitat occupied by microbial assemblages formed by the fundamental processes of community ecology: dispersal, local diversification, environmental selection and ecological drift.  Community assembly theory, and metacommunity theory in particular, provides a framework for understanding the ecological dynamics of the human microbiome, such as compositional variability within and between hosts."*

Is this not an eloquent statement paralleling all that exists?  We exist because of the diverse and total Relationship always at work on all levels. In a way what is interesting, is the seeming natural inclination of humans to not acknowledge this, to act otherwise outside that knowledge.  The notion of "metacommunity" alone or being a "patch" in the collective habitat is incredibly moving.  The symbiosis of the universe's many "assemblages" (microbial or otherwise) is at work and counting on our awareness so that it is able to be maintained.

Science and the sublime meet.  The art of the universe's genius is displayed in the microcosmic truth of our guts' reality:

"Obesity is a pandemic which has been rapidly developing for three decades. When a population is submitted to the same nutritional stress, some individuals are less susceptible to diet-induced weight gain and hyperglycemia. This observation suggests that other mechanisms are involved which are not directly related to the human genome. The human gut contains an immense number of microorganisms, collectively known as the microbiota. Evidence that gut microbiota composition can differ between obese and lean humans has led to the speculation that gut microbiota can participate in the pathophysiology of obesity. Different mechanisms have been proposed to explain the link between gut flora and obesity. The first mechanism consists in the role of the gut microbiota to increase energy extraction from indigestible dietary polysaccharides. The second, consists in the role of gut flora to modulate plasma lipopolysaccharide levels which triggers chronic low-grade inflammation leading to obesity and diabetes. A third mechanism proposes that gut microbiota may induce regulation of host genes that modulate how energy is expended and stored."**

Information/research like this calls us to make a stand for our "microbial assemblages", our "patch habitats" which we systematically destroy by promoting inflammation with the pharmaceuticals and foods we ingest, the chronic stress and/or emotional toxicity we allow.  It's undermining our health and well being. Kefir, Kombucha, other probiotics are not FDA approved (and never will be).  If antibiotics are necessary why are probiotics almost never prescribed along with them? Why is the lag time of implementation so great when the science is there? Where is con-science in our health politics when entire populations of crustaceans are discounted and livelihoods of fishermen are marginalized? How are we at large not acting out of the knowledge of being in relationship to all that is inside and outside ourselves?  The universal human blind spot?  

Our bodies are ecosystems, sometimes in a delicate balance in relation to the ecosystems we internally move through at every moment and agriculturally benefit from everyday.  We are a colony within a colony within a colony, unabated and continually rippling out.

 * The Application of Ecological Theory Toward an Understanding of the Human Microbiome, Costello, Elizabeth et al. Science Magazine Vol. 336, June 8, 2012

**Arquivos Brasileiros de Endocrinologia & Metabologia, Print version ISSN 0004-2730

Cultvating Sacred Space

We will undoubtedly at some point find ourselves in our life not relating to the space we occupy.  Maybe not at the  moment we move into a space, but sometime down the line we lose relationship with where we live.  We take for granted environments we fall in love with, much like the human/animal loved ones we purport to cherish.  We  may set up our sacred spaces with that love and honoring vibration present, but then we stop paying attention.  We stop paying attention to ourselves, our changes and this manifests in our environments.We internally become static.  Our external space in turn also becomes static.

I discuss this at length in the post Place, Space, Materiality and Health.  I hope in this post to expand on that previous post and discuss the relevant relationship of space and objects to myself and the reflection of my state to my space and what I surround myself with and how that relates to my well being.

As was mentioned in previous posts, everything is energy.  What happens when my sense of relationship with myself becomes thin or tenuous,  my sense of relationship to that which is outside of me becomes same.  As I renew myself regularly with hygiene practices, nutritious meals, clean water, movement and spirit renewal in regular prayer/meditation or play time, my external space needs to be considered similarly.  Space carries energy; objects carry energy.  This energy not only reflects on me but influences me.  We are on a continuous give and receive energy loop in relation to our insides and outsides.  When we break an aspect of this circulation by allowing stasis to move in, the rest of the cycle's rhythm and flow is arrested.  Our "castles" and "kingdoms" no longer are a place of haven and refuge, but a place that leaches on our energy and sense of peace.

Looking at space in relation to our well being is really interesting.  It reliably brings up my edges. My edges around my needs and wants, around the things I have and don't have, my longings and my discomforts. Everything I grapple with inside somehow manifests on the outside.  If it is one's tendency to become overwhelmed, looking at one's surrounds will probably elicit the same response in either an external emotional reaction or a shut down response.  A decade ago an exercise in maintaining an empty space helped me to look and consider space in an entirely different perspective.

I found myself with an almost empty room in my home and this was exciting.  I always wanted my own space a room of my own.  I had shared space with others for forever.  In my dreams, this room of my own would be empty.  When I found myself with this opportunity,  I made a pact that I would maintain the emptiness no matter what.  It took me six months of struggling to stay close to this wish to actualize it.  Not only did I have to fend off infidel household members who wanted to fill the space, I surprisingly found I was guilty of the same inclinations. There was no good reason not to fill it and I couldn't explain away to others or myself this pact.  But I gave my admittedly feeble reasons anyway ("just because").  And with some adamant vigilance the empty room stayed empty.  I meditated there.  I visited it often and wondered at the blank walls and open corners.  I rolled around on the floor frequently and layed in the sun spot which arrived between 3 and 4pm on winter days through the little attic window . And with the pleasure came the pain.  Those six months were very uncomfortable a lot of the time;  empty space, like a blank canvas is intimidating.  Initially, there is a lot of pressure to "do" something with it, to make it something, to identify the space.  It was uncomfortable for me to just let it be what it was, empty. I wanted to at least have a picture or a stool or little table there-- anything.  Letting it be empty was a direct reflection of what it was for me to allow an empty room to exist in myself, to allow space in myself to breathe.  It was a wonderful, revealing six months including more than a few moments of agonizing ambivalence. And with less and less struggle it stayed empty.  And now after that little-big exercise, creating and maintaining empty space for myself has been easier.

I mention this story because it illustrates how the animate and inanimate energetically move through periods together, influencing and creating relationship.  My usual self discounts this.  It doesn't recognize the relationship, the vitality and the drain that can be present in the relationship, the give and the take the influence on a self, on an intimate atmosphere.

Looking at personal space and making changes isn't something that should be quick or immediate.  Respect for the space is required and that means spending some time there without doing anything but sensitizing oneself to the qualities of the room.  How does the light move through, how do the walls, floor and ceiling respond to that?  What are the dynamic qualities in the room?  Where is it's magnetism, the place that draws my attention over and over again?  Like everything else in my life (hopefully) I need to make a relationship with it.  This means I don't bulldoze ahead and "do" stuff to the room.  I consider the room as I consider myself.  I take time with it and in it.

What do I need from the room? Is it a place I need a sense of repose and relaxation or one of stimulation?  Is it a community space, where I hope to gather others?  Is it a private place for my own beauty to show, a place for me to self-appreciate?  And what does the room need from me?  A warmth because it faces north? Help in finding its spaciousness due to its low ceilings? A grounding due to its odd dimensions or many corners?  The function of a room can change or can (or need to) harness several different functions.  How do I consider this in the quiet of my examination of the room?  Everything, including space has a certain energetic capacity.  How can I think about, be with the capacity of this room and help it keep its integrity (keeping my own in the process)?

When I respect myself and a space, the energies of both join and I am informed in a clear way as to how to proceed.  The creative that lives in us both is the informant to the color and objects necessary to create the whole that is asking to be met. This is an exciting and exquisitely profound experience of being matched and bringing what can be a healing to both self and space.  Taste and aesthetic have nothing to do with it.  It's about what is right for the partnership at the time.

When I am close to myself and the room in all these considerations, there is no right or wrong, there is just what is and what must be. When I am not close to myself, I behave mechanically, I lose my thoughtfulness, my consideration of myself and the room.  My intimate, personal space of repose becomes cluttered with things I "love" but which energetically takes up a lot of soul/psych space.  This largely occupied space becomes about these things not about me and the rooms purpose.  This intimate breathing, dreaming space is considerably diminished because of these other energetic occupants.  We have to make choices for the room (table or altar) and myself on behalf of the relationship.  It's an interesting exercise to test for yourself how much (psychic/soul/physical) capacity the space has to accommodate objects before it begins to not feel like the relationship which is required now between you and the space.

Cultivating sacred space requires us to practice this type of cultivation within ourselves first. Allowing breathing spaces within, opens those private, intimate spaces inside ourselves creating a respect for the small, quiet and unexpected. That sensitivity creates a relationship that then can be recognized outside oneself.  Outer sacred space is but a reflection of one's inner sacred space. 

Healing in the Unknown

We are human.  We have our ideas and our expectations about everything.  However, sometimes a project, a healing, an effort of one kind or another takes on a life of its own.  It indicates to us how it should go, a direction sometimes quite counter to our expectations and even what we know we "know".  A totally unexpected understanding of how energy moves becomes apparent.

This is a huge opportunity. It is a huge opportunity to Be with what Is, to follow the course of energy that is present, that is guiding me in the moment.  Do I free myself from my rigid expectation, acknowledging what is, trust in the unfolding?  What is required of me to allow this shift of attitude, to change an approach?

Experientially, this opening and awareness has transpired because a modicum of relaxation has entered.  There is less tension around the original expectation. I see there is a slight difference in the apparent energy; before it was so dense, the layers endless, no relief in sight.  I sense a shift has happened, there is an open space available, some breath has been here.  When/how did that happen?  What was present before was a lot of chaotic and static resistance, a blockage. I want to discount this aspect of a healing.  I don't even want to admit it is part of it.  But it is.  It's the messy, ugly, tense part.  The part that doesn't work, has no flow, seemingly little hope is present there.  And that is how it should be; that stuck, uncomfortable no-way-out sense is necessary.  Without that piece, that fever pitch polarity, that excruciating rock bottom reached doesn't give relaxation the loosened door hinge to sneak past.

Especially when working with others, it is very easy to be automatic.  A type of judgement comes in where you've sized up their capacities, their weaknesses, you think you know how to approach them and how to approach the project or healing.  What happens is, quietly the other's efforts (which are unlike your own) have transformed the energy of the project. What you thought was going to have to be the first step, the first hurdle is not.  It is something else. Perhaps, another type of order due to that person's sensibility and type has altered the healing, the coming to a semblance of its own order in the healing.  In my normal way (usually when I've done all that sensible executive assessing), I've misjudged them and their approach.  My unrecognized prejudices have dismissed or denigrated their capacities and misinterpreted what I characterized as weaknesses.  That's human me pretending to be alpha. But the fact of the matter is something is different. The energy has changed.  The layers have fallen away, and I had very little if anything to do with that.  It's unlikely in my world view, but there you have it.  It's surprising.  It's mysterious.  It's welcomed.  It's the Unknown at work.


When this phenomenon occurs it is possible to be grateful.  Grateful that you apparently aren't in charge and don't carry the responsibility for the resolution.  This isn't abdication.  It is inclusion.  It is recognizing something greater than me is at work, something which is unknown.  The awareness of the unknown becomes more transparent when I let go of my personal point of view, my expectations.  It includes others and their seemingly impossible perspective. It allows for the unexpected.  This is what is interesting about healing work.  This is what is interesting about anything; a totally unimaginable, unexpected process and/or outcome.

Gabriel said: "None of us there is, but has a known station."  Koran, chapter 37, verse 164

Because of our chronically reliable attachments (ie: ideas, identity, beliefs, knowledge, feelings), it's a miracle the unknown ever comes for a visit making itself visible, or that we could experience a deep enough sense of relaxation to attract it or have an awareness of it.  In human indoctrination, it is mandatory to know.  It's a different matter entirely to be moving toward a "known station" as the Koran says above, while all the while not knowing what that is.  The known station is not in my power or understanding, but I travel the unknown to get there.  So goes the healing process.

"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations.  What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?  The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"  --Stephen W. Hawking