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Do we have a sixth sense or more? – Andreas N. Bjørndal

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Most peo­ple re­gard the five senses as ab­solute and a pos­si­ble sixth sense as a kind of un­cer­tain ghost. Af­ter hav­ing looked into the five senses, let us ex­plore if there are more (see bot­tom for ar­ti­cles about the five senses). If you think about it, you do get sense in­for­ma­tion from more than the five senses.

A sense is de­scribed as a fac­ulty by which stim­uli or in­for­ma­tion from the out­side and in­side of the body is sensed. You can say you feel, re­ceive and be­come aware or per­ceive some­thing through a sense. Next to hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste you also feel equilibrium, temperature, well-being and more. 

The sense of proprioception (Proprius [lat.] “ones´s own” and capio “to grasp”) is the ability to perceive the relative position and motion of the body and perhaps the sense most often mentioned next to the famous five.

You could divide the senses in exteroception (outside world perception), interoception (inside or body perception) and the relation of the body with the environment as proprioception. Receptors in the joints, tendons and muscles become integrated in the brain telling us our relative position. We share this with many animals. Examples are when a bug tries to turn itself after falling on its back, knowing up side down; but also plants have been shown to have this sense knowing which direction to grow roots or leaves.

An acrobat or dancer cultivates this sense more than others. It is a question of being aware of yourself and your position and motions as a centre of the circumstances around you.

Rudolf Steiner calls it the sense of movement and regards it as one of the lower or more basic senses, what he calls the physical oriented senses. He calls it a sensation sense as different to feeling and cognitive senses.

Steiner has a remarkable understanding of this sense relation with the recognition of speech or the sense of word or concepts. You must be able to quiet your own speech, or stop nodding the head or moving restlessly to really hear another person. He said the sense of understanding or perceiving the meaning of the other is based on the development of the sense of moving.

Language research has also shown the relation between the ability to handle small details with your fingers and the development of language. The Waldorf Schools are famous for the way they connect the learning with body movement, particularly hand movement in primary school.

Just imagine, for a few seconds, all the movements you can do with the hands to just make people stop talking, keep talking, take a break, speak louder or whisper. It is not difficult to understand that you need to stop your own moving to grasp the words of another. If you have small children, you will often experience this challenge when addressing them and they are full of their own movement. A simple trick you can use is to address them with their complete name and it works even better if they have double names or two family names or if you are close to them, just touch them gently to reduce them in their movement and guide their attention gently to your direction.

To learn to listen to nature, perceiving the way nature moves or changes is a good start; a beginning in understanding its language. The change of different clouds, the changing weather, the flowering or falling of leaves can be seen as expressions. The book of nature is not read by static pictures but by perceiving how nature changes and moves.

The connection between motion and perception can also be understood from the first movies or silent film and from mime. If you are good in perceiving meaning you have been good in moving, if you are good in moving you are probably good in perceiving.

Steiner also shows how the feel­ing of free­dom of the soul is re­lated to this sense. You can just imag­ine the feel­ing of learn­ing and mas­ter­ing to walk, bike, swim or do­ing ac­ro­batic sports and the feel­ing it gives. Or how you can ex­press vic­tory or free­dom through move­ment. Just imag­ine the an­i­mals in colder coun­tries when they are re­leased into the fields in spring af­ter be­ing locked in­side for months. They jump and run out of the feel­ing of free­dom.

I like to look at the sense of move­ment and the sense of word or con­cepts from the per­spec­tive of early an­i­mal life in the sea. In very early or­gan­isms at the bot­tom of the sea we can see how they ei­ther feel safe and free and let the wa­ter run through them or how they con­tract their shell or them­selves dis­ap­pear­ing into a hole. Con­tract­ing or ex­tend­ing, clos­ing off or com­ing for­ward. When they come for­ward they open up to the whole sea with its dif­fer­ent sen­sory in­puts telling them about the other an­i­mals and con­di­tions in the vast ocean. This is a ques­tion of ei­ther con­tract­ing into a closed place of si­lence and no mo­tion or ex­tend­ing into the big ocean of all “the oth­ers” with all their noise and tastes flow­ing through the wa­ter.

When chil­dren tend to get timid or fear­ful and fall into them­selves, they need to be stim­u­lated to come for­ward, by feel­ing safe, telling them sto­ries so they stretch out of them­selves, give them op­por­tu­ni­ties to do work and change things in the en­vi­ron­ment, in the kitchen or gar­den through mov­ing. That will give them a feel­ing of mas­ter­ing and free­dom. As they come out they will also open up to per­ceive what is around them and learn to un­der­stand the other.

Read about the other senses here:
The eye a ques­tion of per­specive 

Jus­tice a mat­ter of nose

Love comes out of the mouth

The sense of touch is the foun­da­tion of kind­ness

Read other articles on integrative medicine here.
Overview of main groups of articles here
Or ex­plore the blog by searching holonity.com

Health - Vix Medicatrix, Holonity, Models of reality

The sense of touch is the foundation of kindness – Andreas N. Bjørndal

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Here you can read about the sense of touch it is the fifth article in the series about the senses.

Skjermbilde 2017-08-17 kl. 00.24.27

 

You find the other articles listed here just under the list of articles about the organs.

http://themagichappensnow.com/the-sense-of-touch-is-the-foundation-of-kindness-by-andreas-n-bjorndal/

 

 

 

In this se­ries we have been look­ing at the senses and their re­la­tion to our soul-life (See the links to the other ar­ti­cles in the bot­tom of the page). Now the time has come to ex­plore the mys­te­ri­ous sense of touch.

The sense of touch is not as ob­vi­ous to lo­cate as sight or hear­ing. We sense touch all over the skin, but some places more than oth­ers. Par­tic­u­larly places where the skin is soft, places where it is not used to pro­tect from falls, blows or weather. If you look closely at your hand and arm you can see the skin on the back of your hand and the out­side of the arm is more red, more ruff. The Chi­nese as­so­ci­ate this with yang. The skin in the palms and the in­side of the arms is whiter, softer, more re­cep­tive and sen­si­tive. This is as­so­ci­ated with yin. This goes for the rest of the body too. Your back and the front of legs are ready for a blow or kick while the back of the legs, be­tween the legs, the gen­i­tal area, and front of the body is more sen­si­tive. The tongue and mouth, hand and gen­i­tals are par­tic­u­larly sen­si­tive to touch. These pro­por­tions are re­flected in the sen­sory area of the brain, see il­lus­tra­tion to see which ar­eas that gets most sen­sory space.

When we use the eyes and the ears to see and lis­ten we get ad­vanced in­for­ma­tion and even in­for­ma­tion of things quite far away from us. Even things from the vir­tual world (Here you can read Which World Are you liv­ing in)

Smell and taste are more ba­sic senses and re­quire closer con­tact with what we sense. The most ba­sic of all the senses is the sense of touch, which is de­pen­dent on di­rect con­tact with mat­ter.
The most ob­vi­ous way to ex­plore and de­fine the qual­i­ties of mat­ter is to touch it; its tex­ture, its weight and hard­ness.
The first baby toys are about touch, soft stuffed an­i­mals or things to chew on like paci­fiers. They give the feel­ing of touch­ing the mother.

Cruel ex­per­i­ments with mon­key ba­bies found that hav­ing the touch of a soft toy or stuffed mon­key was even more im­por­tant than food. To feel safe and cozy is more fun­da­men­tal than food. In Maslow´s Hi­er­ar­chy of Needs the need for sur­vival or safety is the ba­sic.

To feel safe, pro­tected and cozy is close to the sense of touch. If you want to con­sole or com­fort some­body you touch them gen­tly, if they are fam­ily or friends you hug or hold them in your arms. Your own chil­dren you take on your lap and hold them tight.

With touch you sig­nal your good in­ten­tions, your kind­ness, con­cern and wish to pro­tect.
Lack of good in­ten­tions to­wards some­body can also end up in a touch that is hurt­ing or dam­ag­ing. Kicks, strikes and blows want to touch some­body deep down into their skin and bone. In that case the feel­ings re­flect a lack of good­ness to­wards the big­ger whole that both per­sons be­long too. When some­body wants to hurt a per­son they do not un­der­stand the good­ness be­hind the pres­ence of that per­son in their own life.

Touch is a ques­tion of two sur­faces con­nect­ing, to be in touch or touché. It is a con­nec­tion and sep­a­ra­tion at the same time. It is like neigh­bours be­ing next to each other, but still liv­ing sep­a­rate lives. Touch gives a sense of be­ing to­gether, stand­ing to­gether, sup­port­ing each other or when neg­a­tive a wish for dis­tance or sep­a­ra­tion.

Touch is phys­i­cal, it is how close you are to the ma­te­r­ial side of some­thing, but un­der the sur­face un­der the ma­te­r­ial side you can track the roots back to Big Bang or cre­ation (holonity and evo­lu­tion). Be­hind all the ma­te­r­ial phys­i­cal there are atoms (atoms from solid balls to sparkling ghosts) that sparkle and or­bit, pul­sate and vi­brate like fire. The same fire we find in the depth of our bones (fire is burn­ing in your bones). Mat­ter is the far end of cre­ation the most dis­tant from Big Bang.
A mas­ter is a per­son with a deep aware­ness. When you see a mas­ter and how he re­lates to what most peo­ple think are dead things, you see his or her gen­tle touch, how they take things in their hands with care and ad­mi­ra­tion of the cre­ator be­hind every­thing. This comes from a sense of be­ing in touch with the cre­ator or his cre­ation even through the touch of “dead” things. It is a state of good­ness to­wards every­thing, com­ing from a place where we are more aware of the con­nec­tion with the cre­ator. Touch is on one side so ma­te­r­ial and phys­i­cal on the other side it con­nects you deeply with the foun­da­tion of the uni­verse.

This kind of touch is slow and full of pres­ence and aware­ness. It is like the magic of hold­ing a new born in your arms and feel­ing the con­nec­tion with the vast uni­verse that still is so pre­sent in them.

Here also there is an op­po­site side. Some­times you can meet mat­ter with too high speed or not be­ing pre­sent or aware in the here and n0w, that is what we call ac­ci­dents. Ac­ci­dents and in­juries are an im­pact from a touch that sur­passes the nat­ural bound­aries. It is an in­den­ta­tion, a strike a blow a re­minder. When you are fully pre­sent in the here and now you can­not have an ac­ci­dent. Ac­ci­dents are a hit from time-space to cor­rect your di­rec­tion and pace.

If you do not be­lieve in a big­ger whole, a big­ger holon where things are or­gan­i­cally con­nected, you could of course ar­gue; “but some­body that is not pre­sent them­selves could hit me by ac­ci­dent?”

It is a ques­tion of how you per­ceive re­al­ity (Read about your view can change re­al­ity). If you per­ceive things as in­ter­con­nected you re-act to ac­ci­dents as a mes­sage.

You can even go around in life “know­ing” some­thing is about to hap­pen and be re­lieved when the ac­ci­dent comes. Fi­nally it is man­i­fested and you know you can go through the gates and take your next step.

This could also be from ac­ci­den­tal hap­pen­ings in your life. Some­times you know or feel some­thing about what the fu­ture holds. It can be a blow or in­jury to your life, that you know is go­ing to make it go in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. Peo­ple around you might think it is de­stroy­ing you, but you might feel re­lieved; fi­nally I can take that next step and leave it be­hind me.

Some peo­ple are ac­ci­dent-prone or clumsy and are moulded by life. I have met peo­ple that hit their head again and again, other peo­ple are stroke by light­en­ing many times, or they twist their an­kle again and again. Yes you could ex­plain the head with the sight or pos­ture, the light­en­ing with where they live or the an­kle with mus­cu­lar weak­ness, but if you look closer into their life and their chal­lenges it will of­ten be clear that it is not a co­in­ci­dence.

One man I know had sev­eral se­vere car ac­ci­dents, but hardly any in­juries him­self. In these ac­ci­dents peo­ple died and the cars where be­yond re­pair. Still he could walk away with mi­nor com­plains. It was al­ways when he was trav­el­ling. First when he took a com­plete dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion in life the in­ci­dences stopped.

Your skin or sense of touch is your sur­face, the limit be­tween you and the sur­round­ings. When you meet your sur­round­ings in a har­mo­nious pleas­ant way, it feels good and you ex­pe­ri­ence com­fort.

The sen­si­tive ar­eas of the skin are also re­lated to in­ti­macy and sen­su­al­ity. That is why in the es­o­teric tra­di­tion the ar­eas that are re­lated to virtues of good­ness and kind­ness also are re­lated to pu­rity.

When your in­ten­sions are good, you have a pure heart.  Good­ness or kind­ness con­nects you with the foun­da­tion, it lets the skin of your soul touch the uni­ver­sal soul, it gives life to your soul, pu­rity to the heart and sanc­tity in your ap­proach.

To have a sa­cred place in your home a sacrum is and act of good­ness and gives your house a touch of pu­rity. This is one of the most valu­able as­pects of the sense of touch.

Other ar­ti­cles on the senses
Sight View can change re­al­ity

Smell Jus­tice a mat­ter of nose

Hear­ing Wis­dom is hid­den in the ears

Taste Love comes out of the mouth

The ar­ti­cle “Char­ity is the child of good­ness” in the Mag­a­zine The Magic Hap­pens Now

Read other articles on integrative medicine here.
Overview of main groups of articles here

Holonity

Your health is your potential to evolve – by Andreas N. Bjørndal

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There is a fascinating relation between your health and your ability to evolve or master life.

Let us look into this important mystery of life and see how it brings together modern psychology, old Chinese medicine and principles of healing that we see in complementary therapy and particularly homeopathy.

The old Chinese spoke about the three treasures in life or San Bao (San = three, Bao = treasures). These were; Jing, Qi and Shen.

Jing
You are born with an inherited potential that determines your life span, that is Jing. It is difficult to increased it but possible to some extent. I like to look at it as the quality and quantity of the vitality you get and pass on from or to your ancestors.

For woman childbearing, lactation and menstruation uses their Jing, for men ejaculations do the same. Sexual sublimation is hence one of the paths to strengthen the Jing. Slow quality sex is good for Jing as opposed to just having an orgasm.
Also overworking or staying up night after night or any activity that squeezes your resources exploits the Jing.

I have found that the easiest way to increase Jing is through spiritual work. You are a unit or holon (A holon is a wholeness and a part at the same time). You consist of smaller units of organs (also holons) that consist of cells (also holons), but you are also a part of a bigger holon. You are part of your family, of the human kind, of the living earth as well as the universe.
This is your ancestral roots; family, race, human kind, all life on earth and the whole universe back to Big Bang. If you work spiritually to harmonize your connection with these higher holons you get in touch with the source of Jing and it will increase within you. Every time you connect spiritually to a bigger holon a small drop of Jing is added to your Jing account.
As you connect deeper with your roots you also lay the foundation for a brighter future, strong deep roots gives your tree the potential for a high strong crown.

Qi
Qi is your daily vitality. After a good nights sleep or vacation you  feel fresh. After a walk in nature, working outdoors, sun-bathing, yoga, breathing deep or eating healthy food you can feel your health gets fresh and vital.
With every breath you take Qi is distributed to every part of your body.
To compensate for unhealthy living you spend your Qi to recover. A good Qi gives resistance to disease and a disease requires Qi to re-establish your state of health.

Shen
Shen is awareness, consciousness or mind. If you are tired, sleepy or in a state of indifference and loathing of life your Shen is weak. If you are present in the moment, inspired and spiritually awake your Shen is strong. A good Shen is reflected in your posture, your presence, your complexion and appearance. A good Shen sparkles through your eyes.

You can read more about the three treasurer here.

The old Qi Gong masters said:
Refine your Jing to replenish your Qi
Refine your Qi to replenish your Shen
Refine your Shen and return to the void

The void is the same as Nirvana (nothingness) in Buddhism or Ain (nothing) in the Kabbalah-tradition. It refers to a state where everything is so deeply connected that The All and The Nothing becomes the same thing. This is close to the term singularity in modern physics.

The Qi Gong saying tells us about the tree qualities that determines your health as well as how they relate to spiritual awakening. Let us look at some other principles regarding health.

Healing principles
When healing takes place it follows certain principles or directions. I have collected them and organized them here;

  1. Downwards
  2. Outwards
  3. Reversing
  4. Unifying
  5. From more vital to less vital organs
  6. From severe pathology to lighter pathology
  7. Increased comprehension
  8. Increased presence
  9. Increased meaningfulness
  10. Increased mastery or manageability
  11. Increased coherence
  12. Increased holonity

1. Downwards
Having worked with patients for forty years, I can confirm Hahnemanns observation (a German doctor that discovered the principles of homeopathy) that healing often has a downward direction. It can be understood in two ways. The most obvious is in the body itself. When young people come to me for pimples it is striking to see how the forehead clears up first, then the cheeks, chin and last the back. The same you see in eczema or rheumatism.
The other way you see this direction is that mental challenges become emotional and emotional become vital and the last physical. Patients with severe mental pathology can, during healing, get serious physical pathology, but it will still feel as an improvement.

2. Outwards
This we see as internal problems surfacing. It can be a longer healing process ending up in a skin condition before the patients is cured. It can also be mucus or other excretions from the skin, perspiration, urine and stool. This is regarded as an elimination from within outwards.

3. Reversing
Often we hear patients say; I have not had this for the last 10 years, or I got back my old problem. This is a passing process and can last from a few hours to a few days and with some patients you can follow their timeline backwards as healing takes place. It can be seen as cleaning up your desk or garage and as you go deeper you find older and older stuff.

4. Unifying (Balance of polarity)
Every patient has a split or polarity that decreases as you heal. This you can see from Jungian psychology as an increased awareness of your opposite unconscious side, your anima or animus. Or as the bridging of the archetypes in your psyche. A person that is very responsible and organized (see archetypes) tend to have a need to cultivate the connection with his needs. One part is too grown up and the opposite, child part in the person is an area that they have not developed enough, are not aware off or supres. This creates a tension between those two sides of life. You can read more about this split here.

5. From more vital to less vital organs
A person with repeating kidney problems could develop frequent bladder infections as they cure and get healthier. A patients with asthma could develop hay-fever as they cure (often also a reversing) etc.

6. From severe pathology to lighter pathology
Healing will often move from destructive pathology, to conditions of proliferation or excessive excretions and then to conditions where the underlying weakness reappears. In homeopathy there is a whole science about this under the heading miasms (See my book on Miasms).

7. Increased comprehension
As you heal you start to understand why you have certain complains or challenges, you start to see patterns in your life and symptoms. You become aware of disease as a process with its causations and an increased predictability.

8. Increased presence
Hahnemann says a healthy state is required to realize your potential in his Organon (§9), Jung uses the term individuation, Mazlow, self-realization, Rogers, self-actualization. It all is about the same thing about a potential to present something better in your presence. Very much like an increased Shen. I would say that working with patients four decades one of the most striking features of a healing person is how they become more of themselves, how their potential gets realized, how their inner core gets stronger almost like a willow becoming more and more like an oak, or a weak light becomes more and more brilliant and radiant.

9. Increased meaningfulness
As you become healthier you also feel confident of a meaning and purpose in life. This is represented by a providence full of wisdom and love for you as well as anything else. You feel an increased sense of trust and confidence as well as connection with something transcendental.

10. Increased mastery or manageability
Antonovsky has selected the term manageability and it is so close to my term mastery that I will put them together. Manageability is about competencies, skills or abilities to take care of challenges in a controlled way. The perspective of mastery takes it one step further and puts the emphasis on virtues as the source of mastering as well as the way to describe the manageability of your life.

11. Increased coherence or synchronicity
Antonovsky uses coherence as a heading and says it consist of comprehensibility (7), manageability (10) and meaningfulness (9). I think it should be a quality by itself and that it is so close to synchronicity that they could be put together. A person that has reached a certain level of development will realize that things are coming together in their life more and more. They stop believing in coincidences or that things happen by chance. They go with the flow, or Shakti and they see how external circumstances are in tune with their life on many levels. This is similar to number 4.

12. Increased holonity
A holon is both a wholeness and a part of a bigger wholeness. An organ that works in harmony with the body has a higher degree of holonity than an organ that is in disharmony with the body. A person that abides to the bigger wholeness or acts out of the principles of the best for the all has a bigger degree of holonity. Holonity is the degree of harmony between a holon as a part and the bigger holon it belongs to. As people get healthier you see an increased harmony with their family, and also that they consciously take a role as to increase that harmony. If your health is even stronger you can start to work for the better of the community, society, your nation or the entire earth.

Healing crisis
It is not uncommon in a natural healing processes to have a healing crisis. When you know this 12 principles you will see that a healing crisis is a healing process. If you like you can formulate it as a separate principle.

Principles 1, 2, 3 and 5 where formulated by Hahnemann, Antonovsky formulated 7, 9, 10 and 11 as factors for salutogenesis (“creation of health”) and I have formulated 4, 8, 10, 11 and 12.

I also have shown that all of them are one and the same thing, or different aspects or ways of explaining the same phenomenon (Here you find a live lecture that explains it all easy, illustrated and with much more information).

Evolution of life
From a meta-perspective the healing principles and the evolution of life follow the same laws and are very similar phenomenon. It is not enough space here to go into much detail but I will give you some examples.
If you look at the first principle moving from above downwards or from the head to the feet, you will see that animal evolution follow the same sequence; head, chest, feet.

Jelly fish and the very first animals had mainly radial symmetry. Like you find in a ball or bell. Radial or rotational symmetry is that it looks the same even if you turn it around, or from every angel. Then in worms and fish you see a line that becomes a spine and a bilateral symmetry. You get two sides, left and right. Fish have a head and a chest but hardly limbs. When fish develop to amphibians and later become animals on land (tetrapods) the limbs develop to carry the animal on ground or in the air. The sequence is head, chest and limbs.

Also in the womb the foetus is like a ball or mainly head that gets a chesty body before limbs become more and more differentiated.

The second and eight principle can be seen in how new abilities or skills (10) are internalized as evolution takes place. When cells go from procaryot to eucaryot they get a centre or nucleus, when plants go from monocot to dicot the seemingly unorganized or scattered vascular bundles become arranged in concentric circles as if a centre is present, when animals goes from ectoterm to endoterm, they get a central distribution of the self-created heat. All these are examples of a manifestation in the core or centre of a new ability as evolution takes a next step.

Also as life develops it gets a higher and higher level of differentiation and organisation in accordance with principles 8, 10 and 12.

So we can conclude that your improved health or your personal development are two sides of the same coin. As you get healthier in a natural way you grow as a person. As you grow as a person or work spiritually you become healthier. This should open up for some priorities when it comes to education of children and make the focus on the health of children that struggle with the educational system.

The center within, in a circle, is the top of the cone seen from above. Healing comes from connecting with and integrating or giving space to the higher, the top or center above of a bigger holon or you could say from connecting with the center within.
These are two ways of seeing the same.
The higher world constantly stimulates your evolution, transformation, healing or metamorphosis with the least possible intervention, you have a free will. 

To heal is to evolve, to evolve is to heal!



Have a look at the online-course!

You can read more articles like this in my blog holonity or here:

The Clapping Hands of God

Holonistic therapy and guidance

Silence

Be impressively expressive with the three treasures

Here the article was first published.

It is the second article about healing principles. Both can be read independently. The first is here.

Skjermbilde 2017-08-16 kl. 18.06.47

 

Health - Vix Medicatrix, Holonity, Models of reality

Online Course – Integrative medicine

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Skjermbilde 2017-08-30 kl. 07.52.11

If you want to be notified the easiest way is to press follow this blog at the top or bottom of this page.
Or you can send a mail to;  andreas at nan dot no

The first course in the series will cover signs of health and how you can know if the treatment you are taking or giving is helpful for the whole person or only for a small part of the person.

Some treatments seem to help but are actually turning acute minor or superficial complaints into more serious chronic conditions. This is called suppression. Sometimes one disease is replaced with another or the adverse effect cover up and mix with the original state.

There is a close connection between cure, general evolution of life, developmental stages and spiritual growth or mastering of life.

All these will be covered in an easy comprehensible way and unified into simple principles.

Holonity

Love comes out of the mouth – by Andreas N. Bjørndal

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Skjermbilde 2017-07-14 kl. 18.38.11.png

Let me start with an in­ter­est­ing pa­tient story:
.
The pa­tient
Forty years ago, a pa­tient came and said; “I dreamt you could tell me the spir­i­tual rea­son for my dis­ease.”

I was prac­tic­ing re­flex­ol­ogy and had just started to study home­opa­thy so my ex­pe­ri­ence was nei­ther broad nor deep. She had a mouth con­di­tion with in­fec­tion in her gums and was afraid to loose her teeth (Pyrea/​peri­don­titt).

She did not want any kind of treat­ment she just wanted to know why she was sick. I talked with her for 2 hours but still had no clue. She just said; “let me come back next week, you will sort it out.”  The night be­fore her third con­sul­ta­tion, I felt bad about not know­ing. As I was go­ing to bed I wished I could dream the an­swer.
I had the most mar­velous dream. I could look into the body. I had x-ray eyes. I could see only mus­cles or bones, only ar­ter­ies or any com­bi­na­tion of or­gans or tis­sues. I could make a hole into the tis­sues or make them trans­par­ent with my gaze. There were no lim­i­ta­tions.

Amaz­ingly, there were hun­dreds of small tags with a virtue or qual­ity writ­ten on what was con­nected with each body part! I knew in the dream that I would not be able to re­mem­ber them all, but took an ex­tra look at the mouth. On the gums the tag said “Grat­i­tude”.
Now, I was cu­ri­ous to meet my pa­tient and find out if grat­i­tude could be the is­sue. I was try­ing to find out if there was any­thing she was not happy about in her life. Dur­ing the third con­sul­ta­tion she re­vealed to me that her 60 year old hus­band had taken on two jobs work­ing from 07 in the morn­ing un­til 15, com­ing home for din­ner and then go­ing off to work again from 16 to 22, go­ing to sleep to get up at seven again. Sat­ur­days he would drive her to the shop­ping mall to do the shop­ping for next week and Sun­days they went to church. She com­plained that she was a lot alone and her hus­band did not make a pri­or­ity to be with her. When I asked her why he worked so much she said they had bought her child­hood house and to pay out her sis­ters the hus­band had to work so hard.

Here, she was not of­fer­ing to work, nor to buy an­other place, but just so she could be in her child­hood house the hus­band was giv­ing his life away and she had no grat­i­tude!

I met her some year later and she told me it took her time to rec­og­nize and re­al­ize that grat­i­tude was the true chal­lenge in her life. She said she now could say with­out doubt she felt grat­i­tude to­wards her hus­band and me for telling her and that the im­prove­ment of the teeth of course was slowed down by her age. The most im­por­tant thing for her all the time was to un­der­stand the jour­ney of her soul. (Read more about dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on life in my ar­ti­cle in this is­sues: View can change re­al­ity)

Eat­ing
Grat­i­tude, love and zest for life are strongly con­nected to the mouth. Want­ing to kiss some­body or say­ing I could eat you or I want to eat you! Not to men­tion the ex­pres­sion Makes one´s mouth wa­ter.

The de­sire for deep con­nec­tion and uni­fi­ca­tion is in the mouth, noth­ing gets closer to you than what you eat, be­cause it be­comes the you to be.

An­other known ex­pres­sion is You are what you eat, eat well! This sen­tence of wis­dom is not only for phys­i­cal food, it is for all kinds of food. While the body needs food to work, the will needs to be ex­er­cised, the heart needs feel­ings, the mind needs to think, your soul needs to con­nect with the feel­ing of be­long­ing to­gether in a big­ger whole­ness a big­ger holon and your spirit needs free­dom to man­i­fest in you.

Di­ges­tion
To un­der­stand di­ges­tion we will look at chew­ing or mas­ti­cat­ing and the evo­lu­tion of life.

Plants do not di­gest they as­sim­i­late and weave salts from the earth with air and light into their own struc­ture. A plant weaves the light of the sun into the fab­ric of the earth. When wood burns, we see the sun­light get­ting backs its free­dom.

Fungi one step more ad­vanced in evo­lu­tion than plants di­gest things, but only out­side them­selves. They do not have the com­plete strength to di­gest yet. They are im­por­tant in tear­ing down de­cay­ing things for re­cy­cling.

An­i­mals are the first liv­ing be­ing that can di­gest. Di­ges­tion in higher an­i­mals starts with chew­ing and chew­ing is like a se­quence of bites. Chop­ping things up. But the bit­ing is only first phys­i­cal, then it be­comes chem­i­cal, then en­er­getic and spir­i­tual.

Imag­ine, you have a dis­tance to walk, and you go and sing like in a mil­i­tary ca­dence; One two, one two, with my shoe, One two, one two your shoe too etc etc. . You di­gest the path step by step. If you want to eat a ma­mut you have to eat it meal by meal. Through life you eat meal by meal. Life can be re­garded as a life long march of eat­ing, or meals, chew­ing and chew­ing.

When worms (an­nelids) evolved into seg­mented an­i­mals (arthro­pods) di­ges­tion started to de­velop into a new level. In the ear­lier flat­worms (platy­helminthes) the seg­men­ta­tion is just start­ing in the in­te­rior and the di­ges­tive sys­tem has still one open­ing where food comes in and out.

As an­i­mals de­velop we see the seg­men­ta­tion com­ing  clearer and clearer. Worms get­ting feet, like the hun­dred footed an­i­mals (cen­tipedes). Every seg­ment is sim­i­lar rep­e­ti­tions. The feet in the front de­velop into an­tenna or sense or­gans, claws and teeth show­ing the same ori­gin of these func­tions.

Now you can un­der­stand the anal­ogy of walk­ing and chew­ing. Di­ges­tion, mov­ing and sens­ing are all re­lated. Sens­ing crea­tures emo­tions and mo­tion and e-mo­tion are both how you move or get moved by the sur­round­ings. So as an­i­mals de­velop an in­ter­nal ad­vanced sys­tem they are able to take into them­selves the sur­round­ings and di­gest them, sense them or move away or to­wards them. This is like love or hate, de­sire or aver­sion. As you ad­vance you are able to di­gest more and more of the ex­ter­nal world and be­come one with it, love it.

Om­raam Mikhaël Aï­van­hov said: “With­out love, life is in­sipid; even if some­one pos­sesses great wealth, in­tel­lec­tual learn­ing and worldly renown, with­out love he will have no zest for life.”

Love is the dri­ving fac­tor that pulls you to­wards what you de­sire as aver­sion pushes you from what you dis­like. All the you de­sire to put in the mouth is the same thing, you are dri­ven to­wards it, you want to con­nect to it and what your body does not like is pushed out.

Some peo­ple get so con­nected to food stuff or other things they love, that they cant let go, they get ob­sessed. They are in a con­stant state of con­nec­tion.

The process of dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion on one side and in­te­gra­tion on the other are im­por­tant as­pects of love and di­ges­tion. You have to choose what you con­nect with. You be­come what you eat, you be­come what you drink, you be­come what you lis­ten to, you be­come alike the peo­ple you con­nect with.

Read other articles on integrative medicine here.
Overview of main groups of articles here

Here are some re­lated ar­ti­cles:
Jus­tice a mat­ter of Nose
The Eye a ques­tion of per­spec­tive
Wis­dom is hid­den in the Ears

Holon, unity and wholeness, holonistic knowledge, self-development, spirituality, nature and mysticism as the way to truth