Geopraxis: Letting the World Love You

You have probably seen this famous drawing by M.C. Escher. Escher cutely captured the feeling of how the world works. It is a bit dizzy-making. We all have a very convincing sense that sitting inside the head is a “me” that looks out through the eyes on the world that is going on “out there.” Similarly we are hearing what it sounds like, smelling and tasting what things smell and taste like, feeling what it feels like. That’s not how it works. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear (or no creature with ears so this is a very odd forest) it does not make a sound. Sound is a thing created in your brain, not a thing in the world. Same is true of color and everything else.

 

While we are held in the clutch of believing we are viewing the world we are busy creating the world. What we are viewing is a model, not the thing itself. It may be that the thing itself is unknowable in any sort of direct sense of knowing.

 

For our purposes we will make but a brief foray into sensory biology and perception. What we are responding to I like to refer to as information. Information has been defined as energy that impinges on a membrane. Putting on the anatomy lens your body is made up of trillions of tiny cells. Each cell is bound by a membrane. Inside the membrane everything is kept “just so” by homeostasis. Outside the membrane all sorts of changes are happening. Every creature, from the unicellular kind to the big behemoths must be able to have some awareness of what’s going on in the immediate outer environment and some ability to respond to changes. Most of this sensing is done in the membrane.

 

Going down to the molecular level with our individual body scope, we will focus on the cell membrane. “All contemporary biologicalical membranes (or biomembranes) consist of lipid bilayers with protein insertions. In addition, most membranes also contain carbohydrate. The lipids form a matrix or scaffolding in which the proteins are embedded, whilst the carbohydrates (where they exist) are attached either to the lipids or to the proteins.”

 

“The boundary membranes of cells, located as they are between the external environment and the internal environment of the cell's cytosol, have developed many biochemical mechanisms which `transduce' external events into `messages' released into the cytosol. Most of these `mechanisms' take the form of protein molecules embedded in the membrane. Some are ion channels which open directly in response to mechanical stimuli, others depend on the mobility of other proteins in the biomembrane. In essence the latter depend on the presence of a receptor molecule which can recognize an environmental stimulant and a means of transforming this recognition into a message (italics added) which can diffuse into the receptor cell's cytosol.

 

The “protein insertions” float about in the lipid layer. The author above compares them to icebergs. My favorite of this, and considered to be the most important, at play in a variety of sensory modalities, is called a “7TM” serpentine receptor. This means that is resembles a snake and crosses the membrane 7 times. A very complex series of reactions is involved when one of these proteins “senses” something in the outer environment and converts that impingement into a message. To put it in very simple terms it gets bumped into by something and it flinches. Sensing is flinching. You don’t “see” the thing that did the bumping, you only “feel” yourself flinching.

 

Science has done a marvelous and impressive job of elucidating the details of what goes on in your cells that allows you to glimpse something. Stanislaw Lem, in his Summa Technoligiae wrote “…a neural equivalent of an act of sneezing would be a volume whose cover                              would have to be lifted with a crane.” This holds for every little act of glimpsing that we do, along with every hint of odor, note of music heard, etc. Fortunately we do not have to ‘know’ how it happens in order to catch that glimpse.

 

But this only addresses the sensory part of perception. It gets much more complicated and strange. What hits our sensory proteins is just a vanishingly small portion of what is flowing in the world. What we ‘know’ of what does interact is again but the tiniest fraction of what lands. One researcher in this arena, Jennifer Pluznick, director of the Pluznick lab of Johns Hopkins, asked her audience how many smells they thought they could detect. Her answer was an astonishing one trillion. That is to say that the olfactory system can interact with that many. The mind cannot deal with anywhere near that number (unless perhaps you happen to be a bloodhound).

We respond only to what is important to us. We have eyes with three color receptors and with only three our brains can distinguish about a million different hues; our minds do not make anywhere near this number of distinctions. Butterflies have four color receptors and can see the ultraviolet invisible to us. The mantis shrimp has twelve color receptors. Presumably they can see color we cannot imagine. Try imagining a color you’ve never seen. Each different sort of animal inhabits an entirely different world to ours.

 

Information travels from the sense organs to the brain. These are called afferents, meaning traveling toward the brain. These signals or messages get further split and only a tiny fraction of the messages go into the parts of the brain responsible for conscious awareness. Much more of it goes to what are called motor centers, triggering a response, or a behavior.

 

It is not a continuous stream of information that comes in, though it feels like it. There are significant gaps. The brain makes up stuff to fill in the blanks. Some of the information gets censored. If something does not fit with your idea of “how the world is supposed to be” that information is kept out of the party. In other words there are efferent fibers, going out from the brain that intercept signals before they get to the brain that predetermine what will be allowed in. Neurologists and philosophers say that the world is preconstrained.

 

To review, what we think is the world is a model of the world. We can only have access to a tiny portion of the world, a small sample, from which to create an impression. We have a lot of preconditions, based on social learning and experience that determine what this world is going to look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like. All that we know of the world is a change in our own state. The world “out there” is being experienced solely as things that are going on “in here.” It is very difficult to catch yourself in the act of doing this.

 

Your body is a part of this constructed world and is thus also a construct. Your body constructs within itself a model of the world and within this model is a model of your body. Your body’s own sense of itself is a sort of egg-shaped bubble in the middle of a bubble world. It includes in its sense of itself all that ‘space’ that it senses immediately surrounds it.

 

Objects become absorbed into the body as well. I recently watched a production of The Tempest at the Sydney Opera House. The actor playing Prospero sat in the center of the stage, appearing to be meditating, from the time the house opened. Him and his magic stick. The moment the play ‘started’ he suddenly arose and commanded the storm with his magic stick. There is no doubt in any mind that this stick was a part of his body. People talk about a near future where electronic devices will be connected to the brain. They do not understand that this is not necessary. The brain of the developing child, who has lived her entire life with various smart-phone-like devices experiences this device as a part of her body as much as an arm or a leg. Taking away the device is experienced as an amputation. People who have a hoarding disorder very likely have a disturbance in that part of the brain that absorbs things into the body model. Any thing that becomes theirs is more that just a possession, it is felt as a body part.

 

Now we have a body scope that brings inanimate things into the body picture.

 

I mentioned that a certain portion of space itself is included. This is a troubling idea for me. Our sense of what space means is far different from what space is. We don’t occupy space, space is not that non-stuff that fills in between objects in the surround. Planets to not move about in space. The body, the furniture I try not to bump into, the planets, all this stuff is no in space it also is space. But this is a really different discussion.

 

What is extremely important to body construction is place. Each body is located in a specific place.

 

A Brief History of Geopractic

I think it was 1986 when my friend and former Ortho-Bionomy Instructor, Kay Cavender, introduced me to a book she had stumbled across in a second-hand book shop. Vivaxis, by a Canadian chiropractor, Frances Nixon. Kay wanted to explore the possible validity of Nixon’s curious notions. I brief Nixon held the belief that our health is dependent on how we harmonically resonate with the Earth’s field. Each of us has a “vivaxis” or proper alignment. Certain things (x-rays, for instance) could knock us out of our proper alignment. She held that one should face toward the place of one’s birth in order to reestablish, or retune the connection.

 

Very soon quite a few difficulties arose in trying to test Nixon’s arcane processes. One example. I live in Hawai’i. Let’s say I had been born in Mecca and wanted to face toward Mecca. Since the planet is roughly spherical and Mecca and Hawai’i are almost exactly opposite any angle I would choose would have me facing Mecca. This is a convenient thing for the Muslims living in Hawai’i; they can place their prayer rugs any direction they choose and it will be pointing to Mecca.

 

Nonetheless, we played with the idea “as if” it were true. Let’s pretend, I proposed, that there is some preferred orientation, in some ways similar to the concept of preferred position. How could this preferred orientation be found. If there is any such preference the body must be able to respond to it. After all, the body of a monarch butterfly responds to a preferred direction of flight to fly from northern regions to a small bit of forest in Mexico. Their tiny bodies must be sensing something of this sort.

 

Reading once an atlas of human neurology I came upon a curious statement by the professor-author. It was his opinion (in a book with no other opinions) that our poorly developed “sense of well-being” was the cause of much of our illness. One thing that the practice and experience of Ortho-Bionomy does is teach us to recognize and respond to that subtle sense. When a joint is assisted into a position that is “just right” we feel in that joint (and often all over) this sense of well-being. I proposed that we look inside for this feeling as we slowly turn, a few degrees at a time.    

 

I make no claims for mysterious planetary fields. I am not interested in building any esoteric mythology. I do argue for developing and honoring one’s sense of well-being and of being more responsible for my sense of well-being. If I can find my inner sense of well-being in relationship to difficult and chaotic events going on around me how I “feel” is no longer at the mercy of what is happening. This approach to life is remarkable consistent with the current research being done across several disciplines (neurology, psychology, history, anthropology) on emotions. Emotions are constructed by you. They are not things being done to you, they are not “triggered” but you make them.

 

It is not at all inconceivable that we have some yet-to-be-discovered mechanism that responds to how we are positioned in the electromagnetic field and/or some “life force” of the biosphere. This may be interesting speculation but for our purposes irrelevant. What to me is relevant in this practice is that faced with any situation over which you feel powerless it is something you can do, and action you can take, a movement, that empowers. It allows you to “stay with the trouble” instead of running away.

 

Research on the notion of “happiness” is piling up. One consistent conclusion is that the more we are able to stay present with what is going on in our lives the happier we will be. Various forms of escapism tend to maintain and feed the problem. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an example. It can be called a disease of avoidance. I, as well as many of my students have found these simple practices to be highly effective in reducing or even eliminating symptoms of PTSD.

 

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Here is one example from many. One of my students, a practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy

(I will call her Amanda),  was visiting a friend (I will call the friend Sally). Sally had been

plagued for years by insomnia, anxiety, and digestive disorders. She told Amanda that

something terrible had been done to her as a child at her elementary school but she had no memory of it. All she knew was that whenever she approached the neighborhood of her old

school she began to have terrible anxiety. Also, after her mother died, she found a journal

of her mother’s with reference to “the awful thing that was done to Sally at school.” That

was the only detail but it was confirmation that something had indeed happened.

 

Amanda asked is Sally would be willing to try something and Sally agreed. They drove

toward the school and as soon as Sally started feeling uncomfortable the stopped and

got out of the car. Amanda guided Sally in turning until she found a direction that was

comfortable. Sally’s anxiety went down. They went further, repeating this a few times.

Finally Sally was able to be at the school quite comfortably.

 

“I don’t really care to know what exactly was done to me, I just want to be able to sleep,”

Sally had reported. No repressed memory detective work was needed. After this trip, guided

by her sense of well-being, Sally slept without difficulty. Her digestive problems went away.

She has continued for several years with no relapse of anxiety, sleep disorder, digestive upset.

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One of the areas of the body known to be injured by traumatic stress is the hippocampus, This region of the brain is known to be associated with memory. What is less widely known is that is also has specialized cells that are called “place cells.” The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John O’Keefe for the discovery of place cells, and to Edvard and May-Britt Moser for the discovery of grid cells. Damage done in this area of the brain manifests as an inability to distinguish ones actual ubiety. The person with PTSI often seems to be in two different places at once. The body seems to get fixated to the place of the trauma and the person responds to “here, now” more is if it were “there, then.” Clearly there is some sort of disruption of the function of the place cells.

 

I frequently refer to the “body schema.” This is an indispensable concept in understanding how the body moves in the world. Briefly, body schema The body schema “is usually defined as a continuously updated sensorimotor map of the body that is important in the context of action, informing the brain about what parts belongs to the body, and where those parts are currently located.” A body schema is an organized model of ourselves. I like to think of it as the software that controls the hardware.

 

I have written elsewhere about the body schema and its importance, most recently and extensively in my notes for the course Coloring Outside the Lines: Anatomy and Physiology for Healing. What I want to stress here is the involvement of place in the development of the body schema.

 

The body schema is formed through sensory input from both outside the body (exteroception) and signals originating from inside the body (interoception). One area of the brain, the insula, in the right parietal lobe, has been strongly implicated in forming the body schema from these multimodal sources. It appears to be the case that one particular somatic sensory channel is of prime importance: your vestibular sense. The vestibule sense is a complex sense concerned with the perception of bodily position and motion. It is concerned with your location and position in space. We usually think of the inner ear as the center of our vestibular sense but here are several other important vestibular centers in the body, the most vital being in the feet and ankles. The vestibular sense also closely coordinates with vision and touch. Vestibular sensory information is thought to be the foundation upon which the body schema is constructed. Who you are depends upon where you are.

 

Geopractic and “Phase 6” of Ortho-Bionomy

I have long been troubled by the notion of the “phases” of Ortho-Bionomy, which originated as a sort of  recapitulation of the development of the ideas of Ortho-Bionomy. Pauls decided to teach the work roughly in the same historical order in which it developed. It has been a continual source of confusion that the study begins with Phase 4. In my teaching I have rejected the idea that there is any necessary order in which the concepts and applications of Ortho-Bionomy need be learned. There are real advantages, for instance, in beginning at what is called Phase 7. There is great variation in students as to which “phase’ they find most accessible.

 

I have wanted to completely reject the whole use of “phases” yet at the same time I have had a sense that the concept points to something that is true. Though imperfectly formed this notion of phases offers us a range of ways of being with another that are not available to other similar practice modalities. Once I realized that the body is not a single, unitary, integral thing but can be viewed as all sorts of congregations and communities I also realized that the idea of phases had assisted me in coming to this realization. A body can have multiple versions. The body of the anatomist is but one possible version. Every version has its utility and its limitations. I now prefer the word ‘scope’ to the word ‘phase.’ Instead of saying “Phase 6” (the number ‘6’ is meaningless and confusing) I might think in terms of how the world is expressing through and being expressed by this person. Scope is a way of viewing a person as different levels of relationship.

 

Dr. Pauls referred to Phase 6 as working with a person’s aura. This is the most common way this is presented. Is there a human “aura?” If so what exactly is it? How is it measured? Can a practitioner influence another’s aura in some positive way? These are pretty much questions that have no answer. I will say that some of my most profoundly moving results were from playing in the personal space of another, without touching skin.

 

What so we know? One thing that appears to be a fact is the the body schema is ovoid in shape, it includes some area immediately surrounding the body, which we call the “personal space.” We know that vast amounts of information pass between one person and another, most of it tacit or below consciousness. It is not possible for two people in proximity to not communicate. Even if we are not aware of the exact nature of the communication our body responds with its own communication.

 

My attitude or posture towards another person, however silent I am about it, is there and at least some aspect of it will be “picked up” by that person. If I am able to “let go” of that attitude, the body of the other will feel that.

 

I have been making the case that a body is not a simple object occupying space. A body(person) is a complex, multidimensional nexus of associations and interpenetrations of self and world. I hold the other in my body (in representation) and the other likewise holds me.

 

One of the most basic principles of Ortho-Bionomy, and what is perhaps most difficult to fully embody, is that we do not attempt to change the other. I change some aspect of my own state of being when in relation to another. Most simply I orient to my own sense of well being. It has been through Geopractic exercises that I have learned to become more consistent with this practice.

 

When teaching a class that counts for Phase 6 credit in an Ortho-Bionomy Practioner Training Program I present  many of the same things that Dr. Pauls taught, maintaining some form of continuity. The main difference is that instead of students trying to ‘feel’ something ‘out there’ I want them to notice how they feel in themselves and move, from moment to moment, toward their own sense of well being. Geopractic exercises are the best way I have found to accomplish this.

 

In the beginning and for many years after Dr. Pauls taught only two classes. He called them Basic Ortho-Bionomy and Advanced Ortho-Bionomy. He made this distinction only because of the historical order in which the different aspects happened to occur. As it turns out the ‘advanced’ does not depend upon the ‘basic’ nor is it more difficult to learn (for a large number of people the opposite is more likely to be the case). The Basic class was primarily the material he called Phase 4 with some post-techniques and isometrics mixed in. The Advanced class was largely Phase 5 and Phase 6 and usually included a bit on Chapman’s Reflexes. Expanding these two classes out into a program of multiple classes was work done by a group of early Instructors, along with input and final approval from Dr. Pauls.

 

The only formal study experience of Phase 6 this original group of instructors had was less than one day of class time. Many of them continued (and still do) to teach the two as two days of Phase 5/6 and this class would need to be repeated to get the required hours to obtain the required credit hours to satisfy the program requirement.

 

Those of us who wanted to teach a full two days of either of these requirements were on our own.  Dr. Pauls did not always present the exact same things every time he taught the class so there was material that could be gleaned from repeating the class with him. But for the most part we added material to the class based on our own experience in creatively applying the methods and different didactic approaches to help the students “get it.” It is not difficult to teach pretty much all of what Dr. Pauls taught and fill up several says as well. My experience in presenting this material through a Geopractic lens for more than 30 years now leaves me convinced that this is a valuable contribution to the continuing evolvement of the original concept.

 

It is through exploring and better understanding our relationship to the world that we can better move in harmony with the world. Using a sufficiently large scope of magnification the distinction between self and  other vanishes; boundary lines become fuzzy then disappear.