EMBODYING THE ORGAN SYSTEM
PART ONE
This is the first in a series of post addressing how we can increase our conscious embodiment of our deep organ bodies.
Consciousness is everywhere within our bodies and is expressing through all of our tissues constantly. Our organs contain an immense amount of fluid body awareness. Actively embodying them increases their prana flow and reveals their differentiated consciousness. Our attention helps them to function optimally and maximizes their potential to be healthy and vibrant. Equally, embodying our organs opens us to a vast reservoir of inner feeling and connects us with our humanity. It gives us an opportunity to witness and transform some of our deeply held self concepts.
Organs are the storehouse of conscious and subconscious thoughts and feelings. Desire, fears, and joys inhabit the organ body. They speak to us in images, feelings, intuition, and dreams. Their rumblings are often below the level of conscious awareness, yet they profoundly color our perceptions and all that we hope for.
Organs function both independently and as a unified system. Each organ and organ system carries and expresses its own specific innate qualities of consciousness. We sometimes call this the "mind of the organ". The mind of the organ is a blending of its universal and individual qualities. It is the rhythm and hum, the underlying tone that an organ expresses into the body-mind family. The harmonious functioning of the organ body generates comfort and ease.
Organs develop during gestation and continue to change and mature into adulthood. Babies gain organ tone after birth through compression in swaddling, nursing, and being held in flexion around their navels. Nursing and sucking activities give them their first experiences of receiving nurturance into their own bellies. As they continue to grow they increase their organ tone from explorations and movements, especially in the belly down position of often referred to as, "tummy time".
Many of us experience a lack of balanced tone and awareness in our organ body. Chronic holding patterns anywhere in the organ body can restrict energy flow and have consequences for overall health. Patterns of restricting have different causes but there is always the possibility to heal and find greater inner comfort. As growing people, and adults, we have the opportunity to visit our organ-body to restore lost balance and tone, or even to discover it for the first time. We can recognize, soften, and release patterns of holding or restriction that are no longer useful. We can bring fresh balance and life to this level of our being.
As we explore we discover that the experience of human vulnerability (whatever the specifics are) is universal. In fact, our vulnerabilities are the shadows of our strength and unless we recognize and accept them we will never claim our own true power. In embodying the organ system and allowing its reservoir of feelings to be revealed, we touch into the depth of our humanity and vulnerability. If we chose to allow ourselves this journey, it translates into increased self compassion and acceptance.
ORGANS NEED TO MOVE
Our organs give us heft and volume. They provide our three dimensional experience of density and fullness. In a way, our organ body forms our contents in the same way that our musculoskeletal system forms our container. Each organ has its own intrinsic movement and moves in relationship to one another and its environment. Movement is critically important to health and well being in our organ system.
Many of our organs are contained within a supple membranous structure called the peritoneal sac. It too needs to move in order not to become glued, or adhered to itself, the abdominal wall, or individual organs. Fluids within the sac and between the organs help to maintain optimal movement between them. The fluid lubricates the spaces between organs and between the organs and the peritoneal sac, providing the means for slipping and sliding on one another.
YOGA AND ORGANS
We access our organs through inner touch and feeling, and by tuning into the consciousness that is expressed by them both individually and together. Yoga postures and movements are a perfect framework for exploring organs. The compressive and suspending movements that are inherent in our yoga practice bring up the sensitivity and feeling-qualities of the organs, and through our practice, we begin to experience them in a new way.
Practicing yoga always affects the organs. However, by attending to, and embodying them specifically and directly, we increase the beneficial effects. Our attention and resultant witnessing are powerful tools. Wherever we place our awareness prana flow increases. This is part of the physical practice that can be forgotten or simply passed by too quickly. Our witnessing becomes focused and our perceptions clarify. We can also simply settle our awareness within and around the organ space and wait, with discrimination and acceptance to see what is arising. Organs love this. They become free to move, expand, condense, or do whatever they need to increase their own health and resilience.
Movement is as natural to organs as breathing. With patience and time we learn to initiate movement directly from individual organs. The intrinsic cells and tissues of the organ are always moving. The movement is carried through the family of tissues, into the surrounding tissues, and through the whole body. Allowing the initiation of action to arise directly from the organ itself balances its tone. By waiting, we allow the inner movement to direct the outer movement. This practice deepens our comprehension and experience of the weaving of body and mind, and the weaver—Unmanifest Creative Intelligence.
HEALTH AND ORGANS
Clear consciousness is not reserved for the fit, beautiful, or strong. Everyone has the same core essence. For one reason or another its expression may be distorted or limited at any given time. This is a restriction, or an obstacle to the prana flow. It will be evident as lack of comfort, agitation, or other symptoms all the way up to full-blown disease.
Through our yoga practice we aim to establish less restriction and inhibition in our movement and our life. We seek to maximize our health, and develop our inner witnessing. Through embodied-inquiry we can begin to assist letting go of the patterns that cause disruptions in natural prana flow. The body will heal, if it can, when it is allowed. By discarding our personal agenda, we free the inner release and movement back to wholeness.
EXPLORATIONS IN ASANA
Organs recognize and experience their own existence. They have interoceptive and proprioceptive cells, through which they feel themselves and know where they are in space. We stimulate the sensitivity and consciousness of organs through touch, movement, sound, and breath. We choose asanas that compress, expand, suspend, rotate, and squeeze. We turn our organs upside down, and roll through them. We breathe into them. We enlist sound through ujjayi breathing, humming like a bee and chanting mantras. We vibrate and we jiggle. All with respect and love.
Reclining in constructive rest, place your hands on your belly. Soften and release the muscular container of your navel region and allow your organs to drop down, under gravity and into the back abdominal wall. Yield the weight of your hands and feel their warmth penetrate deep into your body.
What feels the touch? Using a soft open hand, very gently push into the belly in different areas and directions. Don't poke. Feel the family of the organ body and its resilience under your hands. From the surface you touch organ, and the organ itself moves and touches other organs. Feel the soft density of that touch and how deep it goes through your navel region. Be gentle and stay curious.
On hands and knees let your belly organs completely drop away from your back body and toward the earth. Can you let them go?
Lying prone on the ground, roll slowly from side to belly to side, etc. Let your organs release and drop into gravity as you roll. Roll all the way to your back and feel them slide into your back body.
Rest in a posture that is particularly stimulating to a region of the organ body and notice what you do and don’t feel. Perhaps, a reclining twist. Move into and out of the posture, feeling the organ movement within. Find positions that compress and expand, rotate, tilt, flex, and extend. Continue to be very gentle.
Open to the feelings that are expressing.
Once you can feel the organs in stillness and when it is receiving movement, you are ready to initiate the movement from the organs themselves.
To learn more about your organs and practices for exploring them, choose a paid subscription. In this case you gain access to a PDF of the 22 page manual, Embodying the Organ System.