Your Magnificent 7 Layer Liquid Crystal Oscillator: Your Heart

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. -The Buddha

Heart Nebula

     Your heart is home to your vital energy and spirit. The primary function of the heart team is the development of blood and its transportation. The heart controls life and movement. According to eastern medicine, the heart is also the center or "king" of our emotional existence, so that any extreme emotion injures and afflicts the heart and its mate (the small intestine). A person who has no spirit, no zest for being alive, is said to be, in part, suffering from a malfunction of the heart team.The heart is also the supreme governor of thought and rational behavior. Feeling irrational or lackluster? Maybe your heart is out of balance.

Here is a 3 min. video of Anatomist Dr. Gil Hedley showing a heart in an unembalmed cadaver. He gets pretty emotional about it. Every time I watch it, I do, too. This fist-sized ball of muscle is so enigmatic, can you blame us?

The Heart produces the strongest electromagnetic fields of the body. Recent studies have shown that when people touch or are in proximity, one person's heartbeat signal is registered in the other person's brainwaves (EEG). Could it be the intermingling of these waves?

The above picture illustrates the electromagnetic fields that are produced by the life force/electricity generated by the heart in the chest.

Here is the magnetic field of the Earth. (Look familiar?)

The magnetic fields surrounding a bar magnet. 

And here are the magnetic fields generated by the heart, seen expanding outside the physical body (some believe that this field extends up to several miles outside the body, possibly ad infinitum).

"I was given a young man's heart--

and started craving beer."

     Ever heard of a heart transplant recipient who begins to crave the favorite foods of the donor or be moved to tears by songs the donor once loved? There are countless stories of this happening. Click here to read an article about it. This phenomenon is amazing and mysterious. Does the heart have memory? Which memories does your heart hold?

Separate studies show that the risk of developing heart disease is significantly increased for people who impulsively vent their anger as well as for those who tend to repress angry feelings.

An Exercise For Your Heart 
(that you can do on the couch):

"There are moments when we feel very grateful for the other person in our life...Withdraw yourself to a quiet room and write down your feeling of gratitude. [This is your Heart Sutra.] This moment of gratitude is a moment of enlightenment, of mindfulness, of intelligence. It is a manifestation from the depths of your consciousness...Keep your Heart Sutra in a sacred place. Try to chant your sutra often." -Thich Nhat Hanh

"A wise person nurtures and guards his heart energy with greater attention than he would show for all his physical possessions and wealth." 

Keep in mind that according to eastern medicine, the heart is injured by:

-excess walking, running, jogging, etc.

-anger/rage

-"dark" or evil thoughts

-sudden fright or terror

-being too exuberant or dramatic

-excessive emotion of any sort

-hot clothing/drinks/foods/weather

-boozin' and usin'

-excess salt

-eggs (esp. whites) and dairy products

Nurture your heart with laughter, joy, moderate exercise, electrolytes (see ConcenTrace here), MASSAGE, and COMPASSION. Your heart has been working non-stop for you. Isn't it time to give it some attention?

I'll end with this funny video from a Happy Days episode--it's a good anatomy review of the heart and if it gets you to laugh just a little, is good for your, well, you know. 

"My boy don't cheat"-Fonzie

Enough Said

(snapped this today at Delicomb!)

An Apple A Day

I recently returned from a wonderful trip to New York & New Jersey. I  enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and attending an Anatomy Trains workshop. Here are a couple cool pictures that I snapped at my favorite store, Evolution. 

Here is a human skull that has been disarticulated and displayed under this shiny glass dome. Notice how the upper palate of your mouth, the maxilla, is a fusion of two bones and that your brain is sitting on boney pockets of air.  If we know that the human body is basically just a sack of sea water walking around and that living bone is flexible and spongey, do you think that there is any movement among the sutures of a living skull? That which isn't flexible breaks easily under pressure, right?

As a burgeoning anatomist, have I died and gone to heaven? Here is a collection of actual human skeletons--from a tiny baby up to a full grown adult. (Too bad there isn't a scoliotic 80+ skeleton.) Notice the head/body size ratio in the baby vs. the adult. Can you tell the sex of a body, just by studying its skeleton?

The human structure is an artistic, engineering marvel!