Themes for September 22nd to October 21st
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7103/287/320/Soma%20Made%20Simpler.0.jpg)
The perception that each day is a nice, neat little square on the calendar is false and misleading. In actuality, we live in an ocean of rising and falling waves of activity that interlock many levels of our ever-evolving relationship with our environment and ourselves. Thomas Hanna first articulated this when he authenticated that our behavior follows a rhythm that has nothing to do with our personality, but our somatic design. He explained our behavior in terms of our core biological drivers.
“…at the most general level of behavioral description, ethologists see all animals as being motivated by four basic adaptive drives, each of which is very practical: flight, aggression, nutrition, and mating — or, if you prefer a subjective listing: fear, anger, hunger, and lust. All animals display these major "big four" drives — as Lorenz terms them-a-nd each species displays each of these drives in very particular ways, according to its phylogenetic blueprint.” http://somatics.org/library/htl-beyondbodrev.html
He broke these four drivers down further to two oscillating processes ; assimilation and accommodation. From the four-fold pattern, we get these two complementary sides of the wave, exertion and recovery. The first, assimilation, is a tricky concept. We usually perceive that as a passive process of blending in, when in somatic terms, it’s an active one of aggressively pushing back at the environment (anger) or pulling away from it (fear). The second one, accommodation, lets more of the environment into our organism, as we do when we eat (nourish) or mate (lust). Here’s how Hanna tells this story of our somatic ebb and flow…
"The prime modes of assimilatory adaptation — those which defend, protect, and preserve the structure of any animal — are the modes of flight and aggression. That is their ancient and practical function when the organism must hold its own against some threatening presence within the environment: remove yourself from that threat, or remove the threat from yourself. The prime modes of accommodative adaptation-those which reach out, flow with, and merge with the structure of the environment — are the modes of nutrition and mating. That is their ancient and practical function when the organism must surrender to some hungered-for presence within the environment: ingest the desired presence or be ingested by it.
Fear and anger are assimilative events which, when the occasion arises, aid in the survival of living creatures. Hunger and lust are accommodative events which, when other occasions arise, also aid in the survival of living creatures. Both forms of adaptational behavior are necessary. None of these is any more important for survival than the other; they are equally important. Out of the phylogenetic repertoire of drive systems, the type of behavior which adaptively comes forth is that which is appropriate to the organism's environmental situation at that moment. We must bear in mind the perennial business of life, of adaptation, is to relate appropriately to the environmental situation. An assimilative response to an inviting situation is, in the long run, destructive: in the same way, an accommodative response to a menacing situation is, in the long run, equally a farewell to survival.” http://somatics.org/library/htl-beyondbodrev.html
When we take that awareness and transpose it to the lunar cycles and our knowledge of the 4 domains we see how all our friends our represented. The initial rising part of the lunar cycle is marked from New Moon to Full Moon, which encompasses the PHYLO (rising mood of vulnerability, Goodman) and ONTO (rising mood of creativity, Goodman). In somatic terms, the PHYLO phase is associated with the receptive accommodative or allowing in our nourishment (feeding) and the ONTO phase is associated with the assimilating new conceptual information, which is experienced as a exerting our beliefs (fighting) in a social context. So as we rise up the wave of the lunar cycle, we experience a rhythm shift of mood from the yielding, externally-focused PHYLO to the unyielding, internally-focused ONTO somatic orientation. A wave within a wave…
So to sum up, moods are supposed to swing, but not in some idealistic clock-like manner where we eternally happy and open. That is just as unbalanced and dysfunctional as living in state of closed off sorrow for extended periods of time. What the seasons offer us is a 3-act play on the very drivers, rising moods and somatic rhythms we experience each day into a tighter and subtler spiral of unfolding. We can go deeper still.
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7103/287/320/Breath%20Square.jpg)
Take it from me, your ECO representative, fix the roof before night falls.
Have a great ride up the wave….back with more the weekend of OCT 8th.
With Turbulence, MRF 09.24
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home