My animal

Consists of body

And amygdala

Together

They control many things

If I don’t tune in

Reactionary

And quick to panic

The animal can be soothed when it is allowed to breathe

Move

Slowly

And treated with care and gentle loving awareness

*i think it was listening to Leonard (Cohen) that had me thinking about the body as an animal. It’s so true.

Because of the more advanced areas of our brain we think we are above all this animal stuff. We live so deeply in our minds as we go about our daily lives that we forget

We all have an animal with which to contend

It’s a beautiful animal, capable of flights of fantasy and bliss. It also gets afraid and I have such deep compassion for it. The same as I would for a beloved pet.

As much as many deny and ignore – the animal that we are housed in runs much of how we live and thrive (or don’t) in this increasingly unnatural world.

I could go on for days and if you’re a thinker like me you are already considering, yes, animals are suffering everywhere because of shrinking wild places and a lack of diversity, polluted environments. Well even as our increasingly man built world meshes with the natural one which we are wreaking havoc upon, we are causing even more stress and damage to our own animals, with which we live within.

There is no escaping this.

We are not robots

We have teeth and eyes and skin, hair, thirst, hunger, emotions – we also need natural spaces, clean water, trees, earthing.

When an animal is sick they will take on less or no food, they will lie in the earth. Let their spirit heal where it can, away from tribe and brethren.

When humans are sick we go to hospital wards, take on a plethora of medication, artificial lights and too many people.

Where am I going with this?

The Vagus Nerve

It is our animal’s tool for healing and bringing the body back into balance

Deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve which has a sensor in every organ and tender point of the body. This amazing bundle of intelligence is in charge of everything going on within our animal. Gut instinct? Vagus nerve. There is a lot to this nerve far more than I am writing here because I’m putting my phone down.

I’m spending the day gardening and earthing after one of the best meditations I have had for ages.

Because I read this article which I’ve saved to Mix https://mix.com/!xcHG0TXI?utm_source=sharesheet&utm_campaign=ios&utm_medium=mix_share (hopefully that is the one!) and remembered the Vagus nerve and it all came together with other things I had been pondering lately.

Poetry is here, just behind my tongue I am waiting for it to settle down and line up a little more neatly.

Love

Kate X