Author: SomatiCat

Skeleton Meditation

Posted on by SomatiCat

I don’t sit and meditate.  I have a monkey mind some might call ADD.  My friends with monkey minds don’t sit and meditate.  Some bike, others run.  One non-moving meditation I actually liked and practiced for a while is Skeleton Meditation.  I don’t remember where it came from.  Probably Tibet or somewhere in Asia.  I’ve read or heard about it and just liked it.

In Skeleton Meditation, I lay down as a corpse (Shavasana if you are yoga person) and observe my body decompose layer by layer, muscle by muscle, till my form becomes a skeleton.  It was peaceful experience.  I liked my clean dry white skeleton on the ground.  Then I imagine a bamboo shoot coming through my eye socket, reaching up and up to the sky.  And I fell asleep peacefully.

There was one major problem for me with this meditation.  At that time I didn’t have much awareness of my own body.  My perception about my body was something like a gingerbread man.  So the entire process to become a skeleton took only a few minutes.  Poof, my leg muscles were gone.

If you are fully plugged into your body, this meditation could take at least hours, maybe years.  This is an ultimate “let it go” meditation.  Then you may let the skeleton go, too. Or you may reconstruct a new body from the skeleton, adding layer by layer.

After decades of training of one kind or another, the latest of which is a full body dissection workshop, I’m much more plugged in.  Tonight, I might be able to meditate for maybe 10 minutes…

Have a happy meditation.

Teacher

Posted on by SomatiCat

We don’t have to go and look for teachers.  Open your heart and you will find yours walking with you.

 

Snow

An old dog and his old human, supporting each other.

Our footsteps have merged on the snow-covered path,

In the winter of our life.

He still teaches me how to walk the life,

As he has been doing so since he greeted me in his full youth

With his shiny black muzzle, now gray.

He loves snow, and this could be his last.

It’s important to have teachers when you are searching for your path, just as it’s handy to have a trail map when you are trekking an unfamiliar territory.   Some people look for THE teacher.  I don’t have THE teacher.  Many teachers guided me to be here and now.   Anybody who teaches me what I didn’t even know I needed to learn is my teacher and I appreciate and respect them.  My teachers include my martial art instructor, my therapists, my acting teacher, my dog, my trainer, my yoga teacher, and go on and on and on.  Yes, you could be my teacher one day and I’m looking forward to learning from you. A teacher does not necessarily give me an answer. My teacher said, “I learn in order to ask better questions.”

I learn in order to ask better questions. ~Gil Hedley

 

Layer of Touch

Posted on by SomatiCat

I wish I had a lover who would allow me to touch.

A quiet night in early summer I would lay you down on the slightly wet grass

My hands will follow the lead of your skin

To the superficial fascia that stores the sorrow and joy of your being and that

Forms your form you present to everybody else but to me.

Lead my hands, My Love, toward your deep fascia that holds

The strength and vulnerability of your physical being.

My hands travel over the ever-changing topology of your muscles

In awe of a wayfarer who has found the land of grace nobody ever touched.

My hands are a witness of the grace unfolding

Layer by layer you allow me to touch,

And then I hold your heart in my hands

And dance the heart dance to the beat of our heart.

Then I will let you go, My Love,

Your peaceful skelton to the waves of the ocean that caress the sands

Where our castles once were.

I had the most profound learning experience in Integral Anatomy Workshop.  This poem is dedicated to “Tony” and  Dr. Gil Hedley and Somanauts.

Mindfulness of Changing Blades

Posted on by SomatiCat

When you find yourself in a new group setting, it’s a great opportunity to learn about yourself.

In the first week, I assumed my usual role in a group.   I was that person who perform mundane tasks in silence.  During the first week, I changed hundreds of scalpel blades for the entire class at the instrument station.

Each table were supposed to be responsible for taking care of the instruments, but there are always some who do it for everybody, and there are always some who just like to pick up a scalpel with a new blade.  The first time I came up to the instrument station holding a scalpel with a dulled blade, I saw scalpels with new blades already there.  I thought “Sweet!” and grabbed some back to my work station. The second time around I tried to change the blades by myself and I couldn’t do it.   Somebody nearby showed me how to do it and still I had a great difficulty and struggled every time.

As a kinesthetic learner, the best way to learn is to do it.  I decided to be the blade person in the group.

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

It is my way of introspection, grounding, taking a refuge from the group dynamics, or just to standing up and walking away from the work station.  I create a safe place for me by assuming an unremarkable role.  It is a way of hiding and anchoring at the same time.

Every time I felt tired, frustrated, or just lost concentration, I left my table and went to the instrument station and placed new blades on scalpels.  My hand learned the subtle angle to slide a blade into the notch and the pressure needed to pull the blade out.  At the end of the week, I was a quick and deadly blade changer.

Then the familiar pattern emerged.

I took dozens of “dirty” scalpels left to the sink to rinse them and found one scalpel with a blade still attached.  The used blade was supposed to be removed and disposed into a medical waste container by the user.  One person failed to do so and tossed the scalpel with a dulled blade into a pile of scalpels.

I could have cut my hands rinsing it.

I felt the familiar rage rising up from my gut.   I felt disrespected and taken for granted.   My historical anger dating back to the old days started to bubble up along with this particular anger.  I’ve been there.

I caught it in time.

Nobody asked me to change the blades.  It was not my job.  I was doing because it served my purpose.  Did I do it because I wanted to be appreciated and loved, desperately trying to fit in the group by being useful?  Then it’s an old pattern.  It won’t work.

I reassessed the situation.  I’ve learned how to change blades expertly.  I’m already an integral part of the group and feeling safe.  I don’t need to hide.   It doesn’t serve me anymore.

By 10th day I stopped being a blade changer of the entire group and only took care of my work station.  When I came up to the instrument station to change MY blades, I saw one person struggling with the blade.  I showed her how to change blades and left for my work station.

Now somebody else is changing blades for the entire group.

Every day is a good day to learn something.

Integral Anatomy Workshop: Day 5

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Today, we observed the variety of superficial fascia presentation in multiple forms.  Superficial fascia layer is mostly composed of adipose tissue.  i.e. your friendly loose connective tissue with fat.  It lies between the skin layer and the deep fascia layer.  It’s a matrix filled with adipose tissue.

What I learned today:

  • Slight or moderate kookiness is very good for the universe.
  • Being yourself and keep on pursuing whatever crazy idea that would keep you interested in is the source of the Great kookiness in a very positive way.
  • When I massage, I am not accessing muscles.  I am talking to the superficial fascia which is inseparable from the skin layer, just like the skin of an apple.  The skin is continuum of the flesh.

Gil Hedley’s Superficial Fascia Meditation

Integral Anatomy Workshop: Day 4

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We freed Tony from the restriction of the skin.

What I learned today:

We can be respectful of and happy with the cadaver.

The Color Wheel of Somanauts.  Morning Healing Ritual.

workshop3

Dealing with cadavers requires us to embrace our own mortality. When uncomfortable, we tend to “check out” of the reality of our body and take a refuge in our mind.  It is important to stay grounded and connected to the physical reality of each other.   Unexpected emotions could bubble up to the surface.  We need a safe container for them during the workshop.  It is safe to let it speak and it is also safe not to share.  It’s O.K.   You process in your own way.  We just hold a safe space for ourselves, absolutely with no judgement.

Gil, the instructor,held a space for every one of us.

Gil Hedley’s Skin Meditation Audio

Here is a mp3 of Gil’s Skin Meditation.

Integral Anatomy Workshop: Day 3

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We are still working to liberate Tony from the restriction of skin.

Since skin is the largest organ that covers entire what-is-us, we make the best effort to keep it intact.  It requires  a meticulous work.

What I learned today.

  1. How hemostat numb thumb feels like.
  2. Human forms vary significantly.  No standard form, no average form.  Nobody looks like the anatomy models in the text books.

barkpeeling

Integral Anatomy Workshop: Day 2

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We spent entire day separating the skin from the underlying superficial fascia, literally getting under the skin of Tony.

What I learned today.

  1. The skin separates me from what is not me.
  2. The skin protects me from what is not me, like a breathable armor.
  3. We shed the surface layer of skin like crazy.
  4. Shed skin becomes what is not me or is it still part of what is me?
  5. You should not cut your armor unless absolutely necessary.  Once cut, the energy field changes dramatically even in a cadaver.  Tensional integrity will be lost.
  6. We are innately wet and moist being but without the skin/boundary, we dry pretty quickly and it will change the quality of being.
  7. The skin does not want to be separated from the adipose layer.
  8. Considering how delicately we worked to seperate the skin intact, liposuction is abomination.

I am happy with the way our group members treat Tony. I feel each of us is making our best effort to make Tony comfortable. He is cared and respected.

We have 8 groups.  Each group has started to show its distinct personality and it’s reflected on the cadaver we are working on as if we are sculpting our own image out of the “form”.

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

The Infinity Circle of Lunch

Most of us spent one hour lunch time outside on the green grass under the blue sky.  We spontaneously created the infinity circle of lunch.  After iIntensly staring at yellow adipose tissue, we need other colors to balance our brain.

Infinity Circle of Lunch

Infinity Circle of Lunch

Integral Anatomy Workshop: Day 1

Posted on by SomatiCat

Today I met the legendary Dr. Hedley, the Fuzz Speech Guy, and our cadaver “Tony” at an undisclosed location (out of respect to the donors).  Entire class consists of about 30 people.  My team includes two structural integrators (a Rolfer and a KMIer), a Pilates teacher, and a massage therapist.

I will spend 8 hours/day, 6 days a week, for three weeks to learn who I am with Tony.

What I leaned today:

  1. Skin color is not even epidermis deep.
  2. When you stand cadavers up, they look happier and you feel them more personal.
  3. Cadavers go where their hips go.
  4. An Invisible and inaudible bell works as well as a visible one
  5. Hands and feet are as personal as faces.
  6. Once I get used to, my brain re-calibrates for through-the-exam-gloves touch and I can feel detailed texture just like with direct contact.

Gil calls a cadaver human “form.”

Holding each form in the standing position revealed the story we didn’t see when they were lying on the table.  How the body occupies the space is an integral part of who they are.  Standing makes them look closer to the life.  One female form was surprisingly tall with dancer’s legs.  Standing, she looked younger and livelier.  Personality of the form takes shape through interaction with the gravity.  Narrative emerges from the relationship of the body with gravity in space.

Integral Anatomy Workshop is an intensive hands-on human dissection workshop for manual therapists/structural integrators/body workers/philosophers.  It’s quite different from medical school gross anatomy lab classes.

Dissection is an act of introspection. By unwrapping the layers of the donor’s gift, participants uncover hidden layers of themselves.  Gil Hedley, Ph.D.

The Gross Anatomy Lab is super clean.

The Gross Anatomy Lab is super clean.

The lab is super clean.  The color scheme is:  whitish linoleum floor; white lab coats; black counter tops; black chairs; orange cabinets, and lots of stainless steel glare under fluorescent light.

We spent about 7 hours in this totally artificial sanitized space with continuous humming of some kind of machines in the background.

Day 1 is for observation.  No scalpel.  We spent long time with Tony, taking notes of surface marks, such as surgical scars.  Most of the students are one kind of manual therapists or another.  Our way to relate is distinctively different from med students.  We touch and feel to relate.

Deep Rollers Club

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empirestate

“There are shallow rollers, and there are deep rollers. You can’t breed two deep rollers… or their young, their offspring, will roll all the way down… hit and die. Agent Starling is a deep roller. Let us hope one of her parents was not.”     Quote from Hannibal

Work of deep psychology requires us to roll.  There are shallow rollers and there are deep rollers.  We need to teach the young how to roll deep without crashing.

I used to roll deep.  I guess one of my parents wasn’t a deep roller.  I survived.  I don’t deep-roll anymore.

I believed that I should roll deep, that I should risk crashing and dying, and that the psychological work should be painful.

I suspect that I was addicted to the sense of elation after the deep roll.　From the bottom of self-hatred, we soar to the high of “I am different because I roll deep.”

After all it was millions of rolling without crashing that saved me.

Psychological work is just like athletic training.  You need to train your mind’s muscles to roll deep.  I hope you find a good trainer/coach/therapist, who could teach you how to roll without crashing.