April 26, 2007

Muscle spindles- sensory organs of our muscles


Our muscle spindles are the sensory organs of our muscles; they literally "set the tone" of our body and therefore we can say that we are:
holding generational memory in our muscle spindles.
Families can often be "of one tone" and tone can be described as a readiness to move.

When our muscle contract and release the muscle spindles are affected and they contract, when our muscles are resting and release when the muscle fibers are contracting! Each spindle senses a bundle of fibers at once.
If , say we were to tune into our spindles and tone them( higher tone), this would release the muscle fibers - and were we to bring their tone down, it affects the muscles, by bringing up their readiness. So a calming, centering preparation, before an action, actually supports the strength and responsiveness of the muscles ( as say in Aikido).
Visualisation is a technique that employs this awesome organ: without moving, one prepares and tracks possible movement in the body/through the muscles, one changes tone. In Body-Mind Centering we differentiate visualizations that use the visual cortex to imagine and these tonal changes.
Next time, as you prepare to sit for meditation or begin your Yoga practice - tune into the spindles situated between the muscle fibers and instead of relaxing your muscles- tone these spindles and feel your body adjust it's tone; through the spindles you will facilitate balancing your tone.

http://www.neurosoma.com/musclespindle.html

April 25, 2007


On Bonding and Boundaries



This photo shows the embryo at 4 weeks. It is surrounded by the amnion and shows the thin amniotic sack around the embryo, then the chorionic fluid and sac and finally the squamous tissue reaching into the nutrient rich walls of the uterus.
All of these fluids and tissues are of the same DNA as the original new fertilized egg. So we become not only ourselves, but our own environment & supporting tissues. Development is initiated and formed not only from the sources within us, but our own fluid and cell movements acting upon us.
We decide how to interact and take in from our next environment which is the mother.

My first our environment is myself in different form. What is it like to know that we lay in our own amniotic fluid, not that of our mother? What is it like to know that we are suspended from our own cells inside the uterine wall? that the placenta is of our DNA? And any nutrients, warmth and fluid are filtered as they flow into our environment and finally into what will become us?

Lay in the fluid/membrane surrounding you and know that you are of this world, that you are protected , nourished and guided from within and without of the experience of yourself.