Local Whirls
Somatics offers us a chance to taken our unique experiences and unify them in a way that allows us to perceive our lives on a grander scale. Somas consist of a self and it’s surroundings ‘yoking’ themselves into an enformed whole. What we describe as our ‘body’ or our ‘mind’ in the traditional 3rd person perspective divides that up and makes our life events appear ‘external’ to us. Let’s correct that.
Back in the early 90’s, I was directed to read Michael Talbot’s book, “The Holographic Universe”. It’s still on my book shelf today actually. During the course of the book I was introduced to two very different scientists. One was David Bohm, a physicist by training, but a philosopher by trade. The other scientist was none other than Karl Pribram, MD, a man who would become a mentor to me in a few years as I shifted into studying brain development and his holonomic model. What I came away with from Talbot’s book was that reality wasn’t ‘out there’ at all. In fact, some of this ‘stuff’ I took for granted like colors weren’t ‘out there’ either. That realization reoriented me. I was trained to be very literal in my work and to focus on only those thing I could see and measure. No one told me that by doing that for any length of time, I was constructing a map inside that was filtering out information that could potentially help me help someone else. I was doubt-ful.
Using some of the evaluation tools I learned through the study of both General Semantics and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I replaced that doubt with curiosity. Over time I collected and internalized many maps of human experience. Not too much later on I had maps of my maps papering the walls of my office. Today I have boxes and looseleafs stuffed with these maps. I don’t need them now.
Here’s a crash course in how somatics simplifies things…
Early on, we see things and we attempt to name them. That’s a verbal form of codifying that is shared with everyone else. But then we tweak things according to their nonverbval idiosyncrasies – we also nickname things we see according to their dominant characteristics. This combination creates harmony in the brain. To use an old metaphor from music, the DO at the beginning of the DO-RE-MI and the DO at the end are not the same. They represent the circular path we take as we travel through what Pribram called an octal code. Long story short, the brain takes multiple variables and weights them in a pre-set template that neurologically allows it to form perceptions and act upon them. So between naming and nicknaming things, there’s a ‘middle six’ that operates to unify the two within us.
Those six are where the somatic interfaces operate. We’ve discussed them before, but not let’s apply them to some of this maps I worked with over the years…
Edgework
Back in 2003, I introduced a system of generating integration of vision and posture using physical landmarks as an ‘experiential anatomy’ to observe ourselves internally. The idea was to develop people skills for life puzzles we have in common. Here’s a chart to summarize how what this attempted to coordinate…
Back in the early 90’s, I was directed to read Michael Talbot’s book, “The Holographic Universe”. It’s still on my book shelf today actually. During the course of the book I was introduced to two very different scientists. One was David Bohm, a physicist by training, but a philosopher by trade. The other scientist was none other than Karl Pribram, MD, a man who would become a mentor to me in a few years as I shifted into studying brain development and his holonomic model. What I came away with from Talbot’s book was that reality wasn’t ‘out there’ at all. In fact, some of this ‘stuff’ I took for granted like colors weren’t ‘out there’ either. That realization reoriented me. I was trained to be very literal in my work and to focus on only those thing I could see and measure. No one told me that by doing that for any length of time, I was constructing a map inside that was filtering out information that could potentially help me help someone else. I was doubt-ful.
Using some of the evaluation tools I learned through the study of both General Semantics and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I replaced that doubt with curiosity. Over time I collected and internalized many maps of human experience. Not too much later on I had maps of my maps papering the walls of my office. Today I have boxes and looseleafs stuffed with these maps. I don’t need them now.
Here’s a crash course in how somatics simplifies things…
Early on, we see things and we attempt to name them. That’s a verbal form of codifying that is shared with everyone else. But then we tweak things according to their nonverbval idiosyncrasies – we also nickname things we see according to their dominant characteristics. This combination creates harmony in the brain. To use an old metaphor from music, the DO at the beginning of the DO-RE-MI and the DO at the end are not the same. They represent the circular path we take as we travel through what Pribram called an octal code. Long story short, the brain takes multiple variables and weights them in a pre-set template that neurologically allows it to form perceptions and act upon them. So between naming and nicknaming things, there’s a ‘middle six’ that operates to unify the two within us.
Those six are where the somatic interfaces operate. We’ve discussed them before, but not let’s apply them to some of this maps I worked with over the years…
Edgework
Back in 2003, I introduced a system of generating integration of vision and posture using physical landmarks as an ‘experiential anatomy’ to observe ourselves internally. The idea was to develop people skills for life puzzles we have in common. Here’s a chart to summarize how what this attempted to coordinate…
Body Markers
I continued to use the same landmarks in my YES Trainings of 2004 to help people use the discord they experience socially as an opportunity to re-thread their system.
1) Feet – This area nonverbally relates to the life puzzle of INDENTITY – Who am I?
2) Knees - This area nonverbally relates to the life puzzle of REALITY – How am I?
3) Pelvis - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of SEXUALITY – Why am I?
4) Belly - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of PRIORITY – Where am I?
5) Hands - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of EQUALITY – What am I?
6) Heart - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of POSSIBILTY - What else am I?
In this way a person can take any image they focus on and it’ll activate and settle into a one of these body markers. It helps to let us reveal our perceptual landscape.
I continued to use the same landmarks in my YES Trainings of 2004 to help people use the discord they experience socially as an opportunity to re-thread their system.
1) Feet – This area nonverbally relates to the life puzzle of INDENTITY – Who am I?
2) Knees - This area nonverbally relates to the life puzzle of REALITY – How am I?
3) Pelvis - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of SEXUALITY – Why am I?
4) Belly - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of PRIORITY – Where am I?
5) Hands - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of EQUALITY – What am I?
6) Heart - This area nonverbally relates to life puzzle of POSSIBILTY - What else am I?
In this way a person can take any image they focus on and it’ll activate and settle into a one of these body markers. It helps to let us reveal our perceptual landscape.
Blissful Practices
Finally in 2005, I combined the 12 Blissful Practices I’d developed for my e-book, The YES Factors, with these same 6 areas to provide an even deeper awareness of the sensory (passive witnessing) and motor (active witnessing) we do everyday…
Do you notice how these maps are intertwining and give us a new way to experience how our physical (literal) and mental (figurative) world in an embodied way? Now let’s go to the next step and toss another one of our maps on top of all this. What if we superimposed the Somatic Centers on the Edgework landmarks?
The 4 Domains
PHYLO
Sybil (possibility) meets SECURITY from opening Somatic Center #1 (breathing)
ONTO
Ida (identity) meets TRUST from opening Somatic Center #3 (feeling)
ECO
Lita (equality) meets INFLUENCE from opening Somatic Center #5 (relating)
EXO
Orie (priority) meets SPONTANEITY from opening Somatic Center #6 (expressing)
Isn’t it interesting that Big Al (reality) and Lotus (sexuality), which map to the knees and pelvis respectively do not overlap with the Somatic Centers? What we get here is that opening Somatic Center #2 (moving) which fosters MOTIVATION is geometrically linked to the landmark of the knees. The distance from our head where Somatic Center #2 is located (over the bridge of the nose) to the knees is the same as the distance of the heart (the landmark associated with the PHYLO domain) to the feet (the landmark associated with the ONTO domain). Isn’t our perception of reality a conversation between our heart and our head? The other landmark, the pelvis, would be left to map to Somatic Center #4, located on the chin. Here we form another geometrical association between the ENTHUSIASM that center fosters through what we say and how we ‘face the world’ and what we do with pelvis to ‘engender’ the passion behind those words. When they are aligned we experience an integration of all 4 Domains often associated with bliss. When we misalign our say/do ratio, we express our passions in a ‘bliss-less way’…
So to sum up, we can use our awareness of universal body landmarks as an objective way to track how well we’re using the full extent our innate resources to perceive and act on those perceptions in an integral way. This helps to paint our ONTO-somatic experience of our own physiology in a more PHYLO-somatic or shareable syntax. This process also gives us new portals into the world within each of the 4 Domains and how those worlds all blend to co-create our somatic terrain.
Use the balance of this lunar cycle to reflect on how centered your perceptions are.
Or Knot, MRF 11.05
The 4 Domains
PHYLO
Sybil (possibility) meets SECURITY from opening Somatic Center #1 (breathing)
ONTO
Ida (identity) meets TRUST from opening Somatic Center #3 (feeling)
ECO
Lita (equality) meets INFLUENCE from opening Somatic Center #5 (relating)
EXO
Orie (priority) meets SPONTANEITY from opening Somatic Center #6 (expressing)
Isn’t it interesting that Big Al (reality) and Lotus (sexuality), which map to the knees and pelvis respectively do not overlap with the Somatic Centers? What we get here is that opening Somatic Center #2 (moving) which fosters MOTIVATION is geometrically linked to the landmark of the knees. The distance from our head where Somatic Center #2 is located (over the bridge of the nose) to the knees is the same as the distance of the heart (the landmark associated with the PHYLO domain) to the feet (the landmark associated with the ONTO domain). Isn’t our perception of reality a conversation between our heart and our head? The other landmark, the pelvis, would be left to map to Somatic Center #4, located on the chin. Here we form another geometrical association between the ENTHUSIASM that center fosters through what we say and how we ‘face the world’ and what we do with pelvis to ‘engender’ the passion behind those words. When they are aligned we experience an integration of all 4 Domains often associated with bliss. When we misalign our say/do ratio, we express our passions in a ‘bliss-less way’…
So to sum up, we can use our awareness of universal body landmarks as an objective way to track how well we’re using the full extent our innate resources to perceive and act on those perceptions in an integral way. This helps to paint our ONTO-somatic experience of our own physiology in a more PHYLO-somatic or shareable syntax. This process also gives us new portals into the world within each of the 4 Domains and how those worlds all blend to co-create our somatic terrain.
Use the balance of this lunar cycle to reflect on how centered your perceptions are.
Or Knot, MRF 11.05
posted by Dr. Mark @ 3:20 AM
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