#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. 

#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.  

#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.

#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.  

#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.