Senses, right angles, dimensions and transcending
"we/they" polarities
10Dec2006 07:36 AM Musings
I woke up this morning thinking about our the
geometry and (3D+) dimensions of our senses. It
occurs to me that the symmetry of our 5 "traditional"
physical senses (assuming we're "awake" and standing
or at least sitting upright, perpendicular to the
surface of the earth) is mostly horizontal for each
sense. For example, our pair of eyes are situated "on
a plane or a line" about the same distance from the
surface of the earth; our ears and nostrils both have
the same horizontal orientation. One might imagine a
person's hands as being an iconic metaphor for the
sense of touch. I seem to recall a graphic in a
textbook years ago, showing the sizes of areas of a
human body exaggerated to show how many nerve endings
we have in a more correct proportion, and our hands
(particularly finger tips) were huge, so if both our
hands were "emissaries of the physical sense of touch
(and nominally at the same height above ground, that
would be another horizontally oriented sense. The
last sense, taste relies on our tongue, which,
although singular, seems mostly in aligned in a
horizontal plane as far as the portion we usuallly
see.
Now contemplate the spinal (vertical, if we're upright) orientation of the 7 "traditional" energy centers in the body, called the chakras in eastern lore. My understanding of the principle of health (and transcendence, enlightenment, etc.) is that balance is achieved through communication and integration of the energies along this vertical axis. For example, when our heart and head are in communion, we transcend the polarized notion of "we" and "they"... it seems that so often to resolve the conflicts in one dimension, we need to find a new dimension (in this case perhaps literally geometrically!) to see the whole terrain and not get caught up in the drama...
Now contemplate the spinal (vertical, if we're upright) orientation of the 7 "traditional" energy centers in the body, called the chakras in eastern lore. My understanding of the principle of health (and transcendence, enlightenment, etc.) is that balance is achieved through communication and integration of the energies along this vertical axis. For example, when our heart and head are in communion, we transcend the polarized notion of "we" and "they"... it seems that so often to resolve the conflicts in one dimension, we need to find a new dimension (in this case perhaps literally geometrically!) to see the whole terrain and not get caught up in the drama...
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