Part 1

Preface:

The following is my non-scientific effort to distill from the tall stack of books by my desk how I see the body interacting and communicating with the environment (inside and outside) and ultimately with the stretching work I do. I wrote this for non-scientific readers to have a new vision of the some of the mysteries going on inside, as I understand them. I look forward to feedback and a discussion.

The Music of the Body

If we could hear the orchestra playing inside of our bodies, we would be awestruck at the complexity and brilliance that is going on just below our skin. I say orchestra, not because I imagine it to be musical in anyway, or maybe it is, but because of its perfect harmonies and rhythms. Exactly in ideal proportions. Everything in absolute balance, as long as we cooperate to some degree.

Those Very Busy Cells

If we plunge our bodies into icy rivers, they will struggle to conserve heat and keep us alive to the extent possible. But there is a limit to their capacity to make up for our blunders. If we cut ourselves, fibroblasts rush to the scene to begin making cells to fill in the cut, building the correct new tissues for that location. Macrophages troop in to pick up bacteria and the litter of dying cells and clean up the place. How did they know to do this? How did they know they were needed? How did they know where to go? How did the message arrive…local post office, telegraph, email? And how fast did it happen?

Every cell in your body (50 trillion) is covered with hundreds of thousands of specialized “antennae” (actually they are protein chains) to communicate with the inside and outside of the cell. Inside the cell some of the effectors  (the active end of the “antennae” to start the communication from the inside) are calling for pizza (nutrition), some for garbage pick up, some for an important ingredient for a current project inside the cell. The receptor ends on the outside of the cell are standing by ready to catch the required item when it arrives. If it has the secret code, the receptor and the delivered item match up, like a key in a lock, so the arrival can pass inside and through a secret “gate.” No one gets in or out without their special code. In the case of the garbage pick up, the receptor is on the inside and attaches to the garbage, sending it to the outside of the cell for the pick up. Everything the cell needs to do its job is managed through this system. Consider all of those hundreds of thousands of “antennae” busy at the same time on every cell. Staggering!

We cannot conceive the complexity. Those cells are very, very smart and very busy keeping us alive and functioning. They can actually produce virtually everything our body requires…except water!

The Semiconductors Inside

What turns these processes off and on? Simply put…imbalances in the environment. That is both the environment inside the cell as well as outside of the cell. Too hot, too salty, too dry…the system flies into action to restabilize, sending messages to get what it needs. Since smoke signals have gone out of fashion, all messages are forms of energy. They may be converted to sound, light, words, images, pulses, vibrations, well maybe even to smoke since fire is a form of energy! Inside the body they use vibrations to communicate. Energy (vibrations) moves much faster than “stuff” like hormones, chemicals, and such, so these messages arrive almost instantly.

If your body were full of semiconductors that could pass the energy messages on around the whole system or where they needed to go, that would be as fast as a good computer…or maybe faster. And definitely faster than nerves. Well…drum roll…it is. Your body has 50 trillion semiconductors from top to toe. That thin membrane surrounding each cell with all of the “antennae” passing in and out meets all of the requirements to be a liquid crystal, and liquid crystals can serve as semiconductors.

Following this line, we should be able to communicate with our own cells through energy. Everything has a signature vibration…the various parts of your body, fluids, solids, colors, tones, plants, minerals, literally everything. This is how medical scanning systems work to portray what is happening inside your body. The scanner displays the variations in vibrations (healthy tissue, diseased tissue, blood, minerals, and so on) and identifies the source. If we can create a beneficial vibration and transmit that into the body, it could harmonize/synchronize/resonate with the cells it reaches on that beneficial wavelength to enhance or create change. We do this in meditation, in some forms of movement, in using crystals, aromatherapy, massage, acupuncture, some music and tones, in nature. By choosing substances, actions, attitudes, colors, or sounds with appropriate vibrations these can be forms of energy healing. The level that we can connect and do this for ourselves depends on how well we focus, our level of awareness, how much we can quiet the mind and slow down the body, and to some extent how much we trust in our abilities.

The Energy for Conversation

All of this back and forth vibration conversation takes energy. The cells produce their own energy in the process of opening and closing those “gates” mentioned above. The heart and brain are both large sources of electromagnetic energy (this is the energy we are referring to), but anyplace we have polarized ends or surfaces we have an electromagnetic field or energy. Tissue that is compressed (massage and some forms of movement) will develop a negative charge on one side and positive on the other creating an electromagnetic field. The flow of energy produced is piezoelectricity…electricity produced by the body and available to carry all of those messages.

Being in communication with your own body at this level is delicious. Feeling the energy flowing…you really can…as in Chi Gong and some other movement or meditation forms including Organic Stretching, is both empowering and humbling. I invite you to explore the ways you could use a two-way conversation with your body.

If you are interested in exploring some of the sources in that tall stack of books by my desk, they are all listed on this page of my website. Mind opening for sure!!

A final comment:

When I began working with Heather Wallace, to train in her pain therapy system, I wanted to understand how it worked, what was really happening inside. I wanted that depth to reassure myself and to be able to look for ways to enhance what I was doing. Those answers did not emerge. As I began working and then teaching on my own and creating Organic Stretching, that need grew rapidly. It took me into strange new arenas and enriched my overall appreciation of the wonder of life. I cannot tell you precisely what is happening. For one reason: we are all different. Our bodies’ histories are unique. The way we approach anything in life is individual. It is a journey with way-points, intersections, and detours where we can choose the next turn. This makes predictability very difficult. No tests have been done on Organic Stretching as a system. All I know “for sure” about the effectiveness of Organic Stretching is experiential—from my students when they have shared their breakthroughs, and many have been astonishing. My own experiences with these bodymind movements have changed my life–on both a physical as well as a spiritual level.

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