#21 - The Linearity, Circularity, Spirality & Singularity of Time

It’s fascinating how time passes. It moves in circles… you can see it in the way the seasons change, or generations come and go, or civilizations rise and fall. It’s as if time is a template, out of which forms emerge… bearing shared archetypes, but expressing themselves in different styles.

Yet despite the sort of circularity of time, I think it’s fair to say that there is also a linearity to it as well. There’s this sense that what happened before is behind us, and what is still to come is ahead of us. This understanding, that the moment as it exists right now, will never exist again. Putting this into perspective gives life it’s precious quality of fleetingness, that life is short, and that we must make of the most of and have gratitude for what we have now.

Yet back to the circularity, there is this sense, at least in many cultures and world views, that we will have another chance, another shot, another live in a time to come. This idea that the soul will continue in a karmic wheel of death and rebirth.

Oh the paradox, these feelings of time. I feel like there’s a tendency to fall into the trap of linearity, and then once circularity is discovered, to condemn linearity as short sighted, narrow minded way of thinking. But what if both can exist, and must exist simultaneously? What if time, is not linear of circular, but is instead spiral? That it moves in a circle, and in a direction at the same time. That the patterns repeat themselves as one makes their way around the circle (or the circle makes its way around one), and that there is also a distinctness of each moment that will slip away into the wake of the path of time, never again to be found in its exact form?

For me at least, this makes the most sense. Baked into this model, I also find what I think might be an explanation for what seems to be the changing speed of time. You know, that feeling as you get older, that time is flying by. When all of a sudden a year feels like two months, whereas it used to feel like a decade? Sometimes I feel crazy when I think about how quickly the last 4 years have gone by. The 4 years before that were like an eternity, and the 4 before that were like a straight up lifetime. I could chalk it up to this notion that I’ve just got more things going on which is keeping me busy or distracted… but that’s not a satisfying reason for me.

I think what might be happening, is that our lifetime passes, we move further and further down along our spiral, spiraling ever inwards towards our omega point. Our own singularity, in which our life makes its way to its end… spiraling around and around the years ever quicker, in tighter and tighter circles, as we move in the direction of our end point. It’s as if the black hole of our ending, is beckoning us towards it, while we spin down the drain of life.

That sounds so morbid, and I’m sure there is a lighter way to frame this, but in a sense I think that’s what’s happening. Yet, science tells us that time actually slows down in a black hole. And while on one hand this might throw my whole theory out the window… it actually makes me think that there is more to the story. That perhaps, right at the point where time is moving the fastest, time is also moving the slowest. Perhaps the world spins faster around us, as we sink deeper and deeper into the timelessness of our own soul.

Then, right at that still point of complete darkness, when all is warped and stretched and pulled apart, we are spit out the other side. Time slows down to a complete stop and then we reemerge on the other side, ready to slowly start speeding yet again quicker and quicker along another roller coaster ride of a drop down to our next destination.

More to come on this strand of thought…

#20 - A Filamentous View of Being

Recently, I came across the work of Karen Kirkness, a yogi, anatomy scholar, and author of the book Spiral Bound. Her work is rooted in the concept that our bodies, and nature for that matter, is composed of spiraling patterns. From conception through all the stages of physical development and anatomical manifestation, the spiral is making it’s way through the structure of our being, from the cellular level all the way up through the tissues and limbs. It’s fascinating, mind blowing, and clearly is a portal of information and practice that penetrates beyond the physical body and into the structure of time and space itself… I’m getting carried away, but the other night after some studying, I voice noted just a little reflection and musing on what I’ve been learning. My hands have been in a very strange sort of constricted, dried out type of pain, where it’s uncomfortable to sit and write…. so instead, I spoke…

From our skin down to the intracellular matrix  throughout our bodies, we are composed of filamentous, thread like structure. Even the collagen which makes up these threads, at its molecular level is spiral in nature. It’s funny, I looked up, collagen spirals on Google and came across these beef skin dog foods, that are in the shape of a spiral. It’s crazy how spiral at the micro level of being scale all the way up into the macro level.

Not only do the spirals exist in these connective tissues of the body, but they also manifest through way in which our body develops from the womb. As an embryo, our hands and feet popped out of our torso, spiraling upwards and downwards, respectively. To this day, those spiraling motions still exist in our limbs, and you can see it simply by lifting your arms and pressing your feet into the ground and witnessing the direction in which your hands and feet want to spin naturally. The spiral has been with us from our conception up until this point in time and it threads our body together from infinitesmal to the life-size forms.

And as we continue to develop through childhood into adolescence and adulthood, we move through spirals of time living through the seasons, circling and circling yet progressing forward through time… it’s the circling in a particular direction which creates the spiral.

And as we look back on the stories of our life with their ups and downs and peaks and valleys, they create the wave form… a two dimensional view of the spiral. By the description of the spiral, it might seem as if I’m saying everything is a spiral. And yes, I sort of am, but at the same time there’s something more to it. Just as a blanket is nothing but threads of yarn, it is actually something more. And so are we, in our lives, nothing but threads of a mysterious substance, yet also so much more.

#19 - I Stopped Working Out, and Started Working In

It’s been almost 6 months since I’ve worked out… like gone to the gym to lift weights. If someone would have told me one year ago that I’d skip the weights for that long, I would have told them they’re crazy.

A couple of years ago, during the peak of physical pain I was experiencing, I started to take up a pretty intense workout, weights and running routine of about 5 days per week. I developed a lot of strength, and my body was looking fairly chiselled, and I learned to do some cool pull up flip things and even how to do a handstand. But no matter how much I worked out, I always felt extremely tense, tight, and my body parts felt tweaked and misaligned.

Towards the end of my workout phase, I started to find myself spending half of my 1 hour weight training time doing extremely slow, almost meditative-like movements. Just allowing myself to feel all of the micro movements within my body. I wasn’t getting my full workouts in, but it felt, good, relaxing, opening and energizing, as opposed to clenching and stressful.

I bring this up now, not because I feel 100% in optimal health with zero pain, but because after 6 months of not working out I’m beginning to feel my body fall into a new alignment. My hips are opening, knees are unkinking, toes are spreading out and my torso is expanding. Sounds sort of crazy to say, but it’s as if my body had been held in this perpetually tight and wound up state… my muscles were getting stronger but in the process, my body was getting further locked into a pattern that wasn’t actually ideal for the flow of energy and blood and breath throughout my system.

Now, it’s not like I haven’t been doing anything with my body the last 6 months. I’ve started training in Bagua Zhang, a Chinese martial art which is rooted in spiral movement. It’s aim is to align with and leverage the naturally occurring spiral patterns in the body for martial power. Rather than rely on muscle strength, bagua develops tendon and fascial strength (although I’m not sure if strength is the right term… springiness, elasticity, bounce, pop, vibrancy?) and gets one in touch with these lines of force in the body system in order to harness their flow of energy using the least amount of physical exertion as possible.

So I’ve been practicing the fundamental movement patterns of bagua, allowing my muscles to de-tensify and even dissipate a bit, in order to create space for a new structure and strength to emerge. It’s absolutely fascinating. I’m still in the beginning stages of the process, and while I’ve started to incorporate some more body weight movements and exercises back into my routine (yes, I am doing these at the gym now, albeit without weights!), I am still largely focused on deprogramming my fascial and nervous systems to allow for the new forms to take hold throughout my body. 

#18 - Wiring and Firing Together

A company that wires together, fires together. A little play off Joe Dispenza’s concept of neuronal activity. It is essential for information to be flowing across an organization at all times. Information designed and shared in such a way that it is aligning people towards the mission or vision of the company. Information is energy, and the energy must be flowing in order for the parts of the business to be connected, and collaborating with each other towards the common goal. This is what company health looks like. Company disease is when there is a void, that is consuming the attention of everyone, trying to figure out what is going on and where the company is headed. The story must be provided. In this way, people can then focus their time and energy on living their story, and playing out their own role in the grander narrative they’re a part of. To be aligned with the story of the company is to be aligned with the source of energy, the fire, the light that keeps the company on and moving forward. This is what transformation looks like. When the story is activated and is pulsating across the organization. It is the fabric of the culture, the foundation of the future. It must be identified and aligned with, communicated and expressed, in order for people to attune their own frequencies to that of the company. This is when connections happen, when there is an understanding that takes place, a harmonizing of frequency, and and interweaving of life force, story and purpose.

#17 - January 15, 2025 - Patterns All the Way Down

Life moves in seasons and in cycles, which contain infinite multitudes of seasons and cycles within themselves. For example, we’re living within a season, within a time of day, within a state of mind, within a period of one’s life, and so on and so forth.

I started thinking about his after listening to Tony Robbins talk about the seasons of one’s life. He pulls the concept from the thinking of Jim Rohn and his book The Seasons of Life, and in it is the idea that there is a proper time for everything. Just as the year has 4 different seasons, for each of which there are specific activities that resonate with the period or not (planting seeds in the spring, reaping harvests in the autumn, bundling up in the winter…).

They extrapolate this out to the notion that there are times in one’s life when it makes sense to pursue different sorts of things and embody different types of actions. 0-22 years old is spring time, 22 - 40 something is summer, and so on. The philosophy of numerology also dives into this from a different angle, with the thought that there is another grouping of seasons that run in 9 year cycles. Year 1 is for discovery, 2 is for community building… and on and on.

The numerology piece may be a stretch for some, but the idea of seasons is largely common sense. Yet when we zoom out and consider the anciently held hermetic principle of “As above, so below” “microcosm and the macrocosm” then we might yonder to speculate that the patterns run all the way down. That within each season is the whole spectrum of seasons… within spring there are days that are most spring like, or more summer, fall or winter like. That within each day there are moments which embody qualities of the summer (noon time) or winter (midnight). And within each moment there are states of mind that inhabit each of these seasons.

So this started to get me thinking. How do all of these layers of time interact with each other? I’m really not sure. But I think what this view indicates is that down on the quantum level, where time and space shrink down into the invisibles, that the cycles and seasons essentially collapse, into a vacuum.

There are so many of these patters overlapping and interweaving that they become so dense, that a sort of vortex is created. At our core, we live in a time and space that is so dense that it collapses in on itself… and opens into a deeper and more expansive dimension of our being.

What would be the implications for this? Perhaps that at any moment we can tap into that center, into the eye of the vortex, and step into that place of greater perspective to be able to observe many of the different layers of the place in time that we are in.

This ability wouldn’t erase the fact that I am 31 years old, or that it is 9:01 PM, that I’m living in New England and it’s 12 degrees out. But it reveals to me that I can step back, or look within, and be aware of these facts, and take on a wide enough perspective in order to better see the larger patterns that my mind and body are swirling in, and do my best to live in right harmony with these patterns, take the best actions in alignment with their flow (e.g. building my visions, getting some sleep, wearing a coat… maybe drinking some herbal teas that warm my inners :)) and ultimately leveraging the place I’m in now, and the elements I’m moving through, for the greater good.

#16 - October 30, 2023 - Unwinding the mind and body

“I need to unwind.” It wasn’t until recently that I actually thought about the true meaning of this phrase.

To relax, to settle down, to calm the mind and body. If you were to ask me what this meant 2 years ago, that’s what I would have responded with. But I’ve come to realize that there is an actual, literal unwinding that takes place when one unwinds.

Not just in the metaphorical sense, as if there is some sort of ball of wires in the mind that must get untangled in order for one to properly rest. But in the physical sense as well.

When one truly unwinds, there is an unfolding of the facial layer underneath the skin, that wraps around the entire body. From head to toe, winding around the body like a sort of serpent, there is a fascial ribbon that extends across and throughout the muscles, bones, organs and ligaments.

When one is stressed, this ribbon tightens, like a boa constrictor would. The vascular, nervous and energetic channels close up, and flow of blood, of water, of air of energy comes to a slow.

Yet when one relaxes, when the body loosens from it’s rigid posture and the mind decouples from the ideas and objects it’s often tethered to, the ribbon begins to loosen, and that which it holds begins to unwrap. The body unwinds, and true, unrestricted being, springs forth.  

#15 October 14, 2023 - Thoughts on Astrology

Many people will say there’s no scientific foundation to astrology.

They ask, how is it possible that a planet millions of miles away has any influence on us here on Earth? They say they are too far away, their gravitational force is too week, that they are just masses of rock with no conscious will to be exerted on planet Earth, on humanity.

I used to think something similar. Yet at the same time, there has always been this sense that there is some truth to the Zodiac. There has always been something about my sun sign, my birth chart, the unique placement of the planets and stars at the time of my birth that I do resonate with.

I would go out on a limb to say that most people probably do resonate in some sense with theirs. Or at least, they get excited to talk about themselves, and reflect on their unique quirks or habits that set them apart from the other, that was born under a different Sun or Saturn.

If nothing else, the sun and the stars, planet and the moon tell us something about the nature of the universe. The ways they move across the sky, the patterns they make and paths they take at different times of the day, and seasons of the year. There is a relationship that these celestial bodies have with each other. There is a relationship that they have with the Earth. And thus, there is a relationship that they have with us, as inhabitants of this planet.

Again, one might say that they are still too far away to have any sort of influence on us. That we may be in relationship with them, but they still do not have any force or power they can exert over our minds, our bodies, and being.

Nevertheless, we are in relationship with them. If not a physical relationship, then at least there is a mental relationship with them. Our awareness of their presence, has a psychological effect on us. Through our awareness of them we can observe their patterns of movement, and learn what it is their made of. We can learn something about the nature of the universe — that is, the space — that we all find our homes in.

And therefore, with the assistance of the stars, the planets, and the unique patterns they make in the sky, at our birth, and every waking moment, we can learn something about the nature of ourselves. If only we look deep enough.

#14 October 3, 2023 - Keep it Loose, Keep it Tight

“Keep it loose, keep it tight,” sung Amos Lee. Neither one is right or wrong, but they are both needed. Like the strings on a guitar – too tight and they’ll snap, or too lose and you’ll just have a sloppy mess. To tune your instrument just right, so that the strings are nice and taut, and when strummed, resonate a beautiful note. That is the art. That is life.

#13 - October 1, 2023 - Communicating What We Believe

How is community built? Simon Sinek, in one of his speeches, talks about how it is a clearly articulated belief which organizes people around it. When someone has a strongly held belief, rooted in clear values, and it is articulated in such a way that it resonates with others, those others will gravitate towards the message.

In my last entry I mentioned how it is the process of remembering that which we share, that brings people together. That is what a clearly articulated belief does as well. When we hear one from others, it reminds us of something that we already believe in, that we resonate with deep in our bones, and it calls forth this belief or understanding within us.

If we wish to initiate this process, of finding the common ground with others and building community, we must first find the ground within us. The foundation on which our sense of self in this world relies, the values and visions that we hold to be true. We must commune with the core of our being, the source of our beliefs, and then, we must communicate that essence out with the word.

#12 September 25, 2023 - Communication & Finding Common Ground

Communication, community, commune, common. Looking at this family of words reveals something about the nature of communication.

Communication is not just about talking or speaking itself. On one level, it is about sharing ideas. Transmitting  thoughts and feelings through words, but also other forms like body language. And on another level, I would say it goes beyond the sharing of new ideas, and is about remembering that which we already share.

It is about being with another in such a way that a common ground is found, and an understanding takes place.

#11 September 23, 2023 - Thoughts on the Fall Equinox

Nobody really knows exactly why the leaves change colors when they do. That’s what my father in law told me the other day as we drove down the road to pick up a car from the shop.

He told me about the combination of factors that affect when the leaves in New England begin to shift from green to orange to red. The temparature, the elevation, the soil, etc. But what is that X factor, that determines the day the first color turns, or when the whole forest finally bursts red in full force?

The question reminds me of a lecture Terrance McKenna once gave, on the nature of time. He explored the idea that time itself, has a quality to it. We often talk about the quality of a place, and the effects it has on the environment within it. But what about the time, in which the environment is taking place?

Time changes, and with time, the environment changes, we change. When you really think about it, it’s a bit absurd that we don’t account for time as a relevant factor when conducting any sort of science experiment. Morning, evening, fall, summer — unless it has some obvious physical effect on the subject, due to temperature, or sunlight, or noise or something, then it’s not measured or taken into account. But perhaps there is a deeper element to time, that does have a meaningful influence on the event being observed.

The I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of changes, is based on this understanding. That there is a quality to time, an archetypal dimension to moment we are in, that is important to acknowledge and consider. That it has an impact on our minds and bodies, as well as the decisions and actions we take.

The practice is to pick up a handful of special sticks, and the way in which they drop determines the ‘hexagram’ which you are supposed to read, for insight into your life at that moment.  Leaders of those times would consult the I Ching to make important political and business decisions, and perhaps they still do. It was held to be a powerful and reliable source of wisdom and guidance into the best way to navigate life and weather the changes.

It’s worth noting, that the number of hexagrams within the I Ching also corresponds to the number of codons in the genetic code – 64. More recent philosophies such as Human Design and The Gene Keys have noted and built upon this fact.

Is it possible that the qualities of time that the I Ching depicts, is not only influencing ourselves and our environment, but that it is actually inherently woven into who we are at our core? That these qualities of time are actually qualities of ourselves, and as the wheel of time spins the circle of life manifests itself, and nature expresses the colors, sounds and seasons encoded in the fabric of its being?

I like this explanation, of what is behind the beautiful kaleidoscope of change that we witness in the autumn, New England leaves. And yet as I write this, I also wonder if I’m simply trying in vain, to fill the void left by a question, that is ultimately best left unanswered.

#10 September 16th, 2023 - Tension Release Technique

Clenching the fists and then letting go is a wonderful therapy to reduce tension. At first, it might not seem like much is happening. But underneath the surface, fascia throughout the entire body is at work.

When the fists clench, the tissues in the hands tighten. Meanwhile, the fascia in the hands is connected to the fascia in the arms which spreads out all over the body in many different bands and patterns. Like I mentioned in my other entry, I don’t know all the different fascial trains laid out by Tom Myers. But what I do know is that the extreme tightness in the fists, creates a sort of ripple effect of tightening and shifting throughout the body.

For one, this clenching seems as if this helps to shift and release tension in other parts of the body. Then, when the clenching subsides, and the fists opening up, an opening takes place. The tigther one can go, the more open one can go. The fascia is like a rubber band, and once the fists are clenched extremely tight, the fascia within them, and throughout the body must rebound into a more elestic state.

I’m sure there are other ways to explain the fist clenching phenomena. I’m sure it has to do with activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Perhaps it’s true that the nervous system is at play too, and operates in a similar way to the fascia, tightening into a high stress state (sympathetic) and then loosening into a relaxed state (parasympathetic).

There is also the practice of gagging yourself (not to the point of throwing up, but of activating your gag reflex) that is also supposed to put the body into a parasympathetic state. And I know, from experience, when this happens, all of the abdominal muscles clench, and subsequently must release.

Perhaps the question of whether these relaxation techniques have to do with the fascia or the nervous system isn’t that important. Perhaps there is a deeper inquiry we must explore, into the balance between the states of loose and tight themselves, light and dark, yang and yin – these states of mind and being that are perpetually at play, and have us in the throw of their game.

#9 September 13, 2023 - Songs of the Soul

Something interesting happens when singing a song. When the lyrics are felt and believed, when they resonate with the core of one’s being, the voice deepens. The body opens up, and the sound of the voice reverberates through the entire body.

A healing takes place. A release of stuck energy. The story being sung guides this process. It helps clear the mind and body and bring the singer directly into the present, to become a channel for the song to come through.

A powerful story that resonates with the hearts and minds of people, whether it’s in the form of a song, a book, a speech, or a brand, will also have this healing capacity. This transformative ability to help people get in touch with the deepest part of themselves, and bring that to life.  

#8 September 11th, 2023 - Sailing the Seas of the Mind & Body

With each breath, the fascia moves. It twists and turns up and down, and all around the body. Every breath brings a charge that activates the connective tissue and puts it into motion. Just as wind makes waves. The longer and harder the wind blows, the bigger the waves, the stronger the current.

Sailing the seas of our minds and bodies takes skill and refinement. It requires a captain, dedicated to their craft. Without a clear direction in mind, the winds will push and pull us in any which way. A strong wind will capsize our ship. A soft wind won’t help us go anywhere. When the sails are firm, and a destination is pinpointed on the map, then a strong wind will be a great asset to our voyage. And a gentle breeze will be a pleasant rest along our path.  

#7 September 10th - The American Spirit

At a time when the polarization in our country is at extreme levels, we need more than ever to find common ground. To realize that we are more alike than different. That in order to prosper, we must work together. Rather than shout across the aisle at each other, we must listen to each others’ perspectives, in order to compromise.

One party gets elected and strongmans all of their policies through, only to have them demolished by the next administration to take office 4 years later. It’s getting to the point where we recognize ‘the other side’ as a national threat, rather than our fellow citizens, with a shared patriotic interest.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has set out to heal this divide. And his message is resonating with Democrats and Republicans. The goal is to convince Republicans that they aren’t Republican, and Democrats that they aren’t Democrat. Reviving this American Spirit is essential to the health of our country.

The past few years, the censorship of free speech has been one of the most inflammatory issues tearing us apart. It was just ruled that the Biden Administration and the CDC did in fact collude with the social media companies to surpress any information that did not fall in line with their official narrative about COVID. All of the ideas and facts and remedies being shared and discussed by passionate and concerned Americans were shut down and deemed lies and conspiracies. Can any entity expect to function when it is not listening to and respecting the people that it claims to serve? No, it cannot.

Just as the body begins to die, and businesses begin to fail when it’s constituent parts are not communicating with each other effectively, so will the country. Voices shut down. The windows close. The breeze that once kept the flag flying high slowly comes to a standstill.

If we don’t remember who we are, and come together for a common cause, the Spirit will make itself heard. It is already showing us where we are going wrong, and people are crying out in pain to be listened to, to be supported, to be acknowledged as integral members of the whole.

Will we continue to drown out and demonize those we don’t agree with? Or will we realize that we are all part of the same system? That we are all responsible for upholding our part within this system, and working together with the others, to maintain its health and vitality?

Either way, the American Spirit will speak. Perhaps the real question is — will we listen?

#6 September 9th, 2023 - Health & Harmony

When you think about health, what comes to mind? Mental clarity, physical strength, overall vitality and happiness. There are so many different wellness routines and hacks to look and feel better.

Yet so often we focus on just one aspect of our wellbeing. On making our head clearer, our body looser, our energy charged up. Drink this, eat that, don’t eat that, smoke this, sleep like this, think this way. So many different tips, tools and techniques to improve our state. Not to mention all of the different molecules, hormones, and bodily systems through which these course.

But zoom out from all of the different body parts, chemicals and systems and you can see that we are one dynamic organism, an organism made of parts. And in order to be healthy all of the parts must be working in harmony. They must be functioning and communicating in such a way that they harmonize.

A car whose engine doesn’t work will not generate the energy needed to power the tires. An organization that doesn’t have marketing department may have great products, but may not have any customers to share all of that creativity with. It’s not enough to focus on one part of the organism, and forget about the rest.

They all must be kept in mind. They all must be re-membered. They all must be given the proper attention and materials in order to re-connect and communicate with each other. And when this happens, when the parts of the body come in tune with each other, the energy which lays underneath and within them all, can finally flow freely and sing its song.

#5 September 8th, 2023 - The Golden Rule of Being

The other day I was taking a hike through the woods, and as I touched the moss on the old winding tree I thought – what if we treating everything like a person?

Now, this could mean a lot of things, as we know we don’t always treat people that nice. How would we like to be treated by others? Perhaps that’s the standard we should use, when thinking about how we should treat other people, and by this idea I’m proposing -- how we should treat everything.

It’s the golden rule, that has been taught and lived by the sages since ancient times. A quick search on Google calls it the ‘most culturally universal ethical tenet in human history’. Yet what if we expanded it out beyond the realm of culture, and humanity? Because after all, like I mentioned in the last entry, at our core we are all energy. In essence, you could say, we are all one. And this includes not just the energy of humanity, but permeates the energy of all things, living and ‘non-living’.

So this goes deeper than personhood, and into the nature of being itself. Anything that is, that is part of this existence, is being within and of the fabric. So what if we acknowledged the ‘being-ness’ of everything, and treated it how we would like our ‘being’ to be treated. What a more intimate place this world would be.  

#4 September 7th, 2023 - Quantum Ground

Quantum physics says that everything at its core is vibrating strings of energy.

That energy is vibrating in this sort of formless state, until it is observed, that it becomes a particle. We have this perception, that humans and plants and animals and the planet are all sepearate entities. And in a very real way, we are. We have distinct shapes and functions and identities. Yet when you penetrate down to the core we are essentially all the same, strings of energy, vibrating at different rates, along a spectrum of frequency.

We are exchanging our energy with others at all times. We are one with others, taking in others, giving ourselves to others at all times. This perspective that quantum physics provides, and that the yogis have talked about for millenia, goes a bit beyond the notion of the body or the planet as our common ground. It points to something even deeper, even more essential.

It doesn’t negate the fact that this energy manifests in the forms of bodies and planets. But it does indicate that perhaps there is another level of commonality that is important to consider when connecting with ourselves, and connecting with others.    

#3 September 6th, 2023 - Common Ground

Perhaps the greatest thing that we all have in common is the fact that we have a body. Of course, bodies come in many different shapes and sizes, but we all have one.

At some point in the future, some may say, we will not need a body. That our consciousness can be uploaded onto some sort of harddrive for eternity. But for now, at least, part of what defines being a human being on this planet is that we have some sort of physical, organic vessel that is anchored to the ground by the force of gravity.

As we see society and the world become increasingly polarized, we try to find common ground. But is not the Earth we live on, our most basic common ground? Is not our anatomical template, that morphic field that guides the development of all human embryos in the womb, another type of common ground?

For some reason, humans like to tinker with our foundations. Manipulate the planet to our ‘benefit’, genetically alter our foods and ourselves to live longer and grow larger. It seems that once we lose sight of our common ground, that is when we begin to disrespect it, to break it apart. It begins to fade away.

To remember and pay homage to that which we come from, that which holds us up, that which gives us life may be an antidode to the current malaise we see plaguing our world.    

#2 September 5th, 2023 - Fascia

Today I’ll write about something that’s been on my mind for the last year or so – the fascia. A not-so-often talked about but all-so-important membrane that permeates every organ and muscle within our bodies.  It keeps everything held together. Do you ever wonder how everything in your body stays in place? Why we’re not just a big soppy sack of meat and blood? It’s because of this gelatinous fabric that extends from head to toe, weaving around our bones that our bodies have a coherent structure.

I learned about the fascia last year when speaking with a functional medicine doctor about the tightness I was experiencing in my jaw. She suggested I do some stretches to open up my hip – that the fascia in the hip is directly connected to the fascia in the face, and that some lower body work could release the pressure I was experiencing in my head. All of these seemingly disparate parts in the body are actually held in relationship through tension formed by this fascial membrane, and therefore pain caused in one place may be the byproduct of tightness on the complete opposite side of the body.

There is a developing science that studies the different patterns of the fascia and how it weaves throughout our body (see Anatomy Trains for courses and books on the subject).  Just like the study of any other body system, analyzing the anatomical structure of fascia is very intricate. I started to read the Anatomy Trains book the other day and am finding it incredibly dense. However, mindful practices like yoga and Qigong are great for developing a first-hand experience and awareness of the fascia.

There is so much more to write about regarding the fascia. Learning about the ways that tightness originates and manifests within the body has been fascinating, and an incredibly healing process for myself. To learn that the pain I experience in my body is not happening in isolation, that it is often if not always connected with hidden tightness and traumas in unexpected places has been a humbling experience. Rather than try to fix or numb the pain here, it may be worth exploring and giving attention and care to that which is tight, there.