Oxygen, essential to cellular life, comes into the body through our nose and mouth and travels through the trachea to the lungs. As the diaphragm descends, the lungs are expanded by the inrush of air called inspiration. When the diaphragm releases, the lungs are compressed to expel carbon dioxide in a process called expiration. The oxygen is absorbed through the capillaries in the lungs and enters the blood to be pumped by the heart throughout the body. Arteries carry the oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the periphery. Each cell participates in the absorption of oxygen and the removal of waste materials in connection with a process called cellular respiration. Deoxygenated blood returns via the veins to the heart. Through this process, every cell is in connection with the outer environment and “breathes.”
Tension in any part of the body restricts cellular activity vital to healthy tissue. Through bodywork, we use the responsiveness of the cell membranes and the skin to heat, vibration, and touch to bring awareness and affect change. ❖
TO DO
Cellular awareness:
Image yourself as a single cell. Feel the boundary of the outer membrane. Be aware of yourself contained, as a single unit, with all parts of the body contributing to the whole. Allow exchange with the world around you. Notice what flows in, what flows out.
Cellular breathing
20 minutes
Lying in constructive rest with your hands on your ribs, eyes closed:
❍ Bring your awareness to your breathing. Feel the air coming in through your nose and mouth, passing down through the trachea in your neck, and filling the lungs inside your ribs. Feel all the ribs move as you breathe. In the damp, warm environment of the lungs, the oxygen is transferred from the air to the blood through tiny capillaries. This is “lung breathing.” Three-fifths of the volume of your lungs is blood and blood vessels.
❍ Feel the pulsing of your heart. Image the blood being pumped by the heart through the arteries, carrying oxygen from the lungs to every cell in the body. This absorption of oxygen and removal of waste materials through the cell membrane is called “cellular breathing.” Image the deoxygenated blood returning through the veins to the heart, and the process repeating. Place your hands on your belly and your ribs, and feel them both move as you breathe.
❍ Image the flow of oxygenated blood from your heart down into your belly. Let this continue through the hips and knees, and into the ankles and feet. Allow the flow to return like a wave from your feet to your heart. Feel the movement under your hands. Image the flow of fluids moving from your heart up through the neck and into the skull to bathe the brain, and back to the heart. Feel the flow out through your shoulders and elbows and hands, pooling in your palms and fingers and returning to center. Feel the continuity and constancy of flow through your whole body. Image the fluids moving simultaneously from center to periphery and from periphery to center.
Breathing spot
5 minutes
In constructive rest: roll to your side, flex arms and legs close to the body and continue to roll to a “deep fold” position: arms and legs tucked close to body, forehead on floor, spine curved.
❍ Place your hands on your lower back, just above your pelvis. Feel the movement of the skin and muscles as your breath enters the lungs and is released. The diaphragm compresses the abdominal organs and expands the back. We can call this area your “breathing spot.” Encourage its movement with each breath.
Photograph: Bill Arnold “Allan’s Boys”
DAY
5
EVOLUTIONARY STORY: In the Water
The evolutionary story of the human species begins in the water. In that fluid environment, diverse forms of life emerged. Plant life preceded animal life as a producer of oxygen and a primary food source. About 3.5 billion years ago, according to available fossil records, photosynthetic bacteria and blue-green algae formed in the primordial seas demonstrating the basic characteristics of life: the ability to reproduce, metabolize, and respond to change. By 1.5 billion years ago, the first single-celled organisms appeared with the capacity to reproduce sexually (mixing of the DNA of two cells) instead of by cell division (division of one cell into two identical parts) thus increasing the potential for diversification. Around 600 million years ago, we find evidence of a full range of multicellular life with unique body structures: primitive forms such as sponges and jellyfish; shelled mollusks including snails and clams; starfish and sea cucumbers with radial (five fold) symmetry; elongated or segmented forms of worms; joint-limbed creatures whose contemporary ocean relatives include lobsters, shrimp and crabs; and the more advanced creatures with backbones such as cartilaginous sharks or bony fishes. We can experience a similar diversity today by observing the multiplicity of underwater life present in a coral reef!
Throughout the evolutionary story, species (populations of individuals which habitually mate with one another) become extinct, remain constant, or adapt in a process called natural selection. Change occurs by random genetic mutation, followed by successful reproduction. Some creatures evolve characteristics which allow survival when new conditions such as increased population or climatic shifts force a change. One example is the freshwater lungfish, which evolved internal air bladders and muscular lobes on its fins. These preadaptive structures eventually facilitated the species in walking on land. Some forms, such as the shark, are so successful that they have remained almost the same for millions of years. Others, like the dinosaur, dominated the land for 150 million years before they became extinct. The human species, Homo sapiens, has walked the earth for a mere two million years and continues to evolve.
We will look at three types of body symmetry and their relationship to human movement patterns. Asymmetry is characterized by a single-celled organism, like an amoeba, in which all components of the membrane are of equal importance. Exchange of nutrients and waste materials takes place through this semipermeable membrane, and the organism moves as its protoplasm shifts in relation to the environment. A sponge, a loosely organized collection of single cells, provides a multicelled example of asymmetry. (If you put a sponge through a sieve, the cells will reassemble in their original form.) Radial symmetry brings the mouth and gut to the center, with appendages radiating from this core. The starfish, as a lasting example, walks on the ocean floor to find and devour its food. Bilateral symmetry differentiates a “head” and a “tail” end with paired body parts. The mouth and primary sense organs gravitate towards the head, and appendages for propulsion and elimination towards the tail. In some species, like the shark, a cartilaginous “spine” links head and tail for stability and directionality, with fins used for buoyancy (if a shark stops swimming, it sinks), but in others such as the bony fishes, a skeleton and paired appendages develop for additional stability and mobility in the water (with internal air bladders providing buoyancy). The sea squirt demonstrates the transition from invertebrate (without a spine) to vertebrate form. The adult has radial symmetry and lives planted in the ocean floor, but the juvenile form has a notocord (primitive spine) and swims like a tiny fish, with bilateral symmetry, before changing into its less mobile adult form. Bilateral symmetry and a bony skeleton provide efficiency for basic survival needs such as going towards food, escaping from enemies, pursuing a mate, and exploring the environment, and are useful components in the transition to land. Although our discussion is primarily anthrocentric – focused on the human species – ninety-five per cent of the animals on earth today have no backbone!