The Wisdom of Bodies
The Light That Lives Within
Dear Ones,
Hi mortals! Escape artists. Nothing shocks me anymore. Especially the chemistry of human fear. I don’t think goodness is rare. I think the expression of goodness is rare.
Fear knows no grace. Human fear permits human control. Give up fear. Give up being controlled. If it were easy, we would not be pickling in this pickle, now would we, sapiens?
Humans are conditioned for fear, particularly in the West. This conditioning is older than the mountains.
THE ART OF DYING
I am not afraid of death, are you? Why would we fear something so natural and so true? Can the art of dying stand a chance without the art of living?
Do you know how often I witness crippling fear at the edge of hospital deathbeds? Checks 20 years of notes...
I see your inflamed bodies protruding over the bedrails. I see necrotic tissues trembling with fear, despair, and regret. I see souls not knowing how to handle pain and darkness. Souls disempowered by the uncertainty of acute on chronic sickness.
In your poisoned bodies, I see maladies of our past, present, and future.
I can’t unsee it.
HUNGRY GHOSTS
Humans of modern society suffer from poor brain health and the more, more, more phenomenon. We are hungry ghosts feeding on breadcrumbs. We don’t grow anything but waistlines, clots, and fear. Master gardeners. Overfed and undernourished. Coagulated hearts.
I did not have to live in rural Haiti for a year to see extremes of starvation. I am at a county hospital in Southern California.
I can’t unsee it.
SPRING IS NOT SILENT
Ours are wild times. Geomagnetic storms, arrested sunlight, and the emergence of cicadas, oh my! Spring is not silent… at least not yet.
Susan Sontag once said that “a writer is someone who pays attention to the world — a writer is a professional observer.” Are you paying attention to the world, sapiens? Are your observation skills rusty?
The sacred act of embodied writing teaches us:
how to master effective observation skills (5 sense awareness)
how to process the wholeness of life at once (build containers for holding light and dark)
how to grow flowers and not weeds (master weed patrolling)
how to process the difference between it all
INFLAMED BODIES
Cells of modern human bodies are inflamed and exhausted. Even lovebugs living on and in our bodies are weary. When will the anesthesia wear off, sleepyheads?
Healthy friends recently shared hospital stories of raging appendices. Appendicitis. Fire-breathing human organs. -Itis means inflamed. Humanitis must mean inflamed human. Is that a word? It should be. It is growing on me.
By the way, who knew the appendix would be prophetic? And here we thought it was a useless appendage. Will we heed body signals and warnings of inflammation?
SLEEP IS RADICAL
My circadian rhythm is like a child with special needs. It’s okay, sweet child. There, there. The journey of sleep protection is a never-ending pilgrimage.
I urge you to approach the subject of sleep with peaceful surrender. Your bed is not a battleground.
Protection of sleep is vital for:
higher consciousness maintenance/wakefulness. Sleep to stay awake.
self-directed neuroplasticity success aka healthy brain rewire.
emotional, mental, and physiological regulation. We live in dysregulation nation.
stress recovery on cellular, molecular, and macro levels.
avoiding eclipses in judgment and improving cognition. Critical thinking uses up A LOT of energy.
learning to be the CEO of our own brains. An amazing, high-paying, vacant position.
immunity strength. Poor sleep leads to more infections, autoimmunity, cancer, amputations, strokes, heart attacks etc etc. Period. The end.
hormonal balance, weight control, appetite regulation. Poor sleep is obesogenic.
Cut the sh*t. Be your own sleep ambassador. No one else is coming to help. You are the rescue squad.
And for the last time: No, you do not need sleeping pills. Best to get to root causes, my beloved addicts.
Go to sleep early tonight, friends. Start by setting an alarm for waking and for sleeping. Commit to 7-9 hours. Call me when you wake up.
CONSUMPTION CHOICES
We sleep poorly. We make poor life choices.
I vote we rename In and Out Burger to In and Out of Hospital Burgers. May the fools depart.
I vote we feast on healthier food now. Once and for all. By food, I mean anything that our senses consume consciously or unconsciously. Anything we put into our mouths, our ears, our eyes, our bodies etc.
**NESSA TIP**: Can you use your attention to tease out conscious habits from subconscious habits? Take walks outside and eat mindfully using all 5 senses. With regular practice, you eventually develop your awareness muscle. This helps with conscious control of your nervous system as opposed to the subconsious nervous system controlling you.
COLONOSCOPY FOR BRAIN GUTS
Time for spring cleaning! Present moments are hard. Preparation is required to move through them smoothly.
Think of your mind cleaning like a colonoscopy prep for the brain. Long overdue detoxification. Mindfulness clears the path of stool in the bowels of our mind. Scope thoughts, understand them, free them, and exit them. Do not identify with them. Sterilize until they run clear. Rinse repeat.
MIND GARDEN
My totalitarian neurons (monkey brain cells) or what I call “tormentors of my past and future” routinely visit me still. I do not feed them anymore. Ever try hugging a porcupine? They only get 1 cup of wholesome tea. No more. No less. They depart earlier than planned.
The neurons I do grow in my mind garden are peaceful and thrive in present moments. I feed them like I feed the life forces of my beloved garden. These newbies know how to connect with my body and with my soul. Cheers to the new language synapses between my body and mind (a language not taught in Western medicine).
I till this ground.
TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE
Moonchildren, you already know that animal and celestial bodies are made of stardust. We are luminaries!
Tomorrow, the sun will reveal a ring of fire. It will unsun for 4 minutes. The earth, moon, and sun will align and there will be a total eclipse of our lives.
I won’t be in the path of totality. I will be in the garden during totality. I will be grounded with my tiny revelations and revolutions. From sanctuary, I observe the blossoming of light and the blossoming of darkness. I make space for it all.
Maybe at the exact moment of darkness tomorrow, the lanterns of our hearts will illuminate a path. Maybe just maybe we will see light in the darkness. Or maybe not.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your kindnesses.
May All Beings Find Peace.
Nessa (born at 333 ppm)
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“Can the art of dying stand a chance without the art of living?” Thank you for all your beautiful words about living well. I’m not afraid to die, but I do want to learn to live well and die well. Keep teaching my dear sister.
I love your writing style, Dr. Nessa.
Indeed, we are inflamed with violence. And the common justification is "they started it." Don't they see that if we dissolve our attention towards survival, the threat disappears as well? There is even a hunger not just for desire but for violence too. We continue to run away from what we fear, yet it continues to grow.
Thank you for this piece, a great reminder of the power of our attention. Just subscribed!