A Heart Story

Imagine for a moment - coming home after a long journey.

Venous blood (blue - rich in carbon dioxide and low in O2) arrives in the right atrium of the heart via the inferior (from the lower body) or superior (from the upper body) vena cava. It is then pumped through the atreoventricular (tricuspid) valve into the right ventricle. This valve has strong ligaments attached to it inside the ventricle that prevents the flaps from caving in against the pressure of the ventricular contraction - this holds true for the mitral valve in the left ventricle as well. The right ventricle pumps the venous blood through the pulmonary semilunar valve into the pulmonary artery (this is the only artery to carry deoxygenated blood) and to the lungs. The artery branches off into arterioles and then into capillaries where they interface with the alveolar sacs of the lungs - there is gas diffusion across a distance only two cells thick. The diffusion is a passive process based on relative concentrations of gasses across a mucosal layer. The newly oxygenated (red) blood recollects in the pulmonary veins and enters the left atrium of the heart where it is pumped through the mitral valve into the left ventricle. The atriums are on the top third of the heart and have thinner muscle walls than do the ventricles as their purpose is to load the ventricles with blood and stretch-prime them for contraction. The left ventricle pumps blood into the aorta and from there into all the arteries of the body. Two arteries leave the aorta right above the aortic valve - these are the left and right coronary arteries - they have the important duty of supplying the heart tissue itself with blood. The heart baths itself first in its rhythmic nurturing warmth.


The aorta has a significant amount of stretch. This buffers the circulatory system from the powerful blast of blood erupting from the heart and extends that force over a longer duration with its elastic muscular recoil pushing arterial blood through the body. This muscular contraction extends through the major arteries assisting the heart in the process of distributing warm pulsations of oxygen and nutrient rich blood. The vessels are also capable of vasoconstriction and vasodilation - this is how the body is able to regulate where blood resources are directed based upon tissue needs and sympathetic / parasympathetic stimulation. Passing down from arterioles to capillaries, nutrients, oxygen and other gasses pass out of the blood into the interstitial fluid and from there pass through the cellular membranes into the cells themselves.
Cellular respiration!
The cells expel CO2 and other metabolic waste much of which returns to the bloodstream via the interstitial fluid on the venous side of the capillary isorings, then venules, veins, and eventually the vena cava and the right atrium of the heart. The veins are not heavily muscled like the arteries and depend a great deal on movement and skeletal muscles to act as a secondary pump to assist venous flow. Throughout the veins are valves which prevent venous blood from flowing back into the system due to gravity. The venous blood has a swooshing quality like waves lapping at the shore endlessly with a nurturing and self-nourishment quality of returning to the center for replenishment. It is warm and earthy and nurturing in contrast to the strong rhythmic arterial pulsations of nourishment outward.

Blood also passes glands to pick up endocrine messages for general distribution; through the gut to retrieve nutrients and fluid to pass along to the liver which filters toxins and transforms, stores, and distributes nutrients; through the kidneys to filter urea...

Breath is also involved in circulation by decreasing the pressure in the thoracic cavity and sucking venous blood towards the center. By virtue of the pericardial sack being attached to the diaphragm and the posterior sternum, breath creates space for increased stroke volume.


blood is a living fluid organ.
bathing you endlessly.
from the heart.
and returning to the center.


for a soundtrack:
A Soothing Edge

Play is for Serious

Play:
A state of total absorption in which creative expression of a life-form's intelligences and skill-sets self-propagates.
Play exercises meta-intelligence and assists in accessing both physical pleasure and personal genius.

What are your earliest play memories as a young child? What are different ways you played? Did you make up stories or create a magical universe for yourself? Did you run and jump and tumble? Did you dance or swim or build things? Did you play games with other children or make art? Did you do something else? What was your favorite-ist?
Remembering these activities and the physical sensations can act as a key to re-accessing this non-ordinary state of consciousness.
Would you like to share a story about how you as a child played?
Love,
eYe

Mental Balancing

For helping with the integration of information and balancing communication between hemispheres of the brain - essential when doing any activity intensely for a long period of time (ie: studying):
("brain button")

Position 1 - index finger and thumb of one hand just underneath the collar bones to either side of sternum

Position 2 - all 5 digits of other hand in/around belly button

Deep exhalations and scan your eyes back and forth Slowly across the horizon. 2 minutes.

Near bottom of exhalation, clavicles (collar bones) and sternum (breastbone) should sink and flatten in slightly. Wait - gently drifting towards empty - until your body inspires spontaneously - Sternum lifting and Clavicles rolling up and back.

Hands in both positions 1 & 2 are soft and sensitive. Pressure and quality of touch varying as you listen in and follow what feels good.

Connect with softness to the rhythm of bulging and hollowing, opening and closing, through your soft belly and mobile upper chest. This provides rich sensory information about your mid line and the relationship between two important organizational centers in the body.

Notice as you scan your eyes Left to Right and Right to Left across a horizon line:
- are there places your eyes tend to jump?
- do you notice yourself looking up or down?
- notice when your gaze is approaching the center and how that transitions to leaving the center

Are you holding your breath?
Commit to surrendering deeply into the space.

small reminder

feeling the ground beneath

surrendering *breath* deeply

&

*breath* pouring up from the earth
filling this container
bottom to top



may and those around you feel supported by their ground.


eYe

Recess - a Soma Break

How many of us can remember being told: "Sit still! Don't fidget!
How many of us are still startled and frightened into frozen stillness?

Listen and let yourself fidget! Squirm and rock and wobble!
Have you ever seen a 2year old sit still? how does your inner toddler want to move?!
Have Fun!

recess mix

take your time with explorations... feel where your body wants to go. start slow.

in starting this session, the initial movements are gentle nods:
yes - nose goes up&down / back of head goes down&up
no - nose goes one way / back of head goes the other
maybe - forehead goes one way / chin the other
--> a 3D set of axis: breath soft spaciousness into the center

from there this mix is all about weight-sensing (feeling weight on earth) and undulating.
- as you shift and move feel the weight shifting between sitz bones and or feet - feel the earth pushing up on you!
- undulations can arise from a yield and push on the ground to initiate from the foundation *or* as rhythmic pulls from higher in the body

ie: reaching the tip of one shoulder into space and then the other.
reaching though the top of the head to draw on roof
perhaps finding reaches through the fingertips - undulating with articulate collarbones...
let your body Be Moved!
let it shake off the holding
learn to return to center by gently leaving it...
where is play for you here?
look into your body
what do you see?

Cyclic Blissings

May you feel the support of Earth welling up and pushing on your bones.
Providing structure and stability - spiral crystalline mineral sculptures - earth-within-us.
May you Yield fully into Her support - that She might Push up on you
Force from the center of our Mother - meeting your surrender and trust
with the gift of infinite equanimity and support.

May this spread out in a plane all around you
- ready to offer support in any direction you may flow.
Stepping into each new moment and cycle.
Support providing the basis for mobility and actualization.
As well as a resting place in the Here and Now.

May you Reach out into the world through your Heart
Pulling in and integrating into your Self only what is nourishing.

May cycles and rhythms sing to you:
Yield into Push
Reach into Pull
Closing into Opening

Structured Patterns
Fluid Pulsations
Surrender and Inspiration

Space caressing our cell(ve)s

Thank you for touching my life.
In this Rebirth of Light - blessed Initiations.
______

nourishment and the connoisseur

habits that help me both appreciate my food more and regulate how much i eat:

- take the time to smell food. opening the olfactory sense starts the digestion process by forwarning the body of what it is consuming and allowing it to prep the appropriate digestive enzymes. smell is also very connected with the emotions and gives important information about how we feel towards the food on a deeper level. food will often also stop smelling so good when we don't actually need any more.

- take the time before and during eating to smack your mouth and swallow rhythmically. feel how the smooth muscle pulsations travel down through the esophagus, to the stomach, into the small intestines, up/across/down through the L intestines, and to the anus - the whole gut tube from top to bottom. connect with the sensation of your oral/anal pulsatory rhythm - yourself as a internal tube from top to bottom. awareness of the gut body highlights how our consumptive (needs & desires), integrative (nourishment & discretionary), and elimination (what we do not need or cant integrate) functions are feeling in the moment. this also helps food to move along, and sensitizes one to the messages of the digestive system.

- use chopsticks!

- take moments to pause, appreciate, and bless

- chew more - and even though it might be considered rude (it matters less when we are eating alone) try smacking your mouth while chewing. this mixes air with the scent of the food being broken down by saliva enzymes and blows it out the nose - increasing our experience (smell and taste) of the food. in oriental cultures this is the polite way to eat and appreciate food - chewing quietly means that you are trying to minimize how much you are tasting - and that you do not appreciate or like the food - especially when someone has prepared it for you.

- see how far down you can continue experiencing food after swallowing

all of this really speaks to me about sensitizing oneself to the present moment experience - in this case of eating. by opening ourselves to the moment and listening in with all our senses, our experience comes alive, we comes into consciousness, and the self-regulating genius of our being is allowed to express itself.

we become connoisseurs of experience.