by Erik Borg.
Underlying Patterns: Body
Evolutionary Movement uses the metaphor of evolution, from the state of undifferentiated wholeness, through cell, vessel, tube, fish, reptile, and mammal, to open up fluid movement capacity and inspire a sense of relationship with the natural world.
—Caryn McHose, Resources in Movement
We live in a fluid body; our origins were in the primordial seas. If we follow the evolutionary story, derived from fossil record and close observation, we see that our ancestors traversed through various body forms. Through all of these changes, we retained our liquid core. The amniotic fluid in the womb and our blood retain the saline content of the sea. Our skin keeps us from drying up; in fact, a human can be described as a sack of water walking around on feet! Although we may think of ourselves as solid, fixed, or hardwired, we are indeed fluid creatures, with adaptability and responsiveness as key characteristics for survival on earth.
Underlying human complexity is the unity of the single cell. The unique pattern for the whole body is contained in two strands of DNA housed in the nucleus. The fluid cytoplasm of each cell, like the body as a whole, is approximately 70 to 80 percent water. The selectively permeable cell membrane, like our outer skin, both separates and connects internal contents and the external environment. A collection of like cells of similar structure and function is called a tissue. Groups of coordinated tissues form organs that comprise a body system. For example, muscle cells form muscle tissues, which make muscles, which create the muscular system. For our study we will differentiate seven body systems, based on the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and the School for Body-Mind Centering®: skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, organ, fluid, and connective tissue.1 Although we can look at each system individually, it is essential to remember that the body functions as an interrelated whole and that the systems balance and support each other.
Study for the Couple—Woman, painting by Gordon Thorne. Watercolor, 3 6 in. × 4 5 in.
HERITAGE
My colleague, Caryn McHose, teaches the fluid body by introducing the image of “blenderized tissue.” It’s like putting the body in a blender and turning it on high, she suggests. Suddenly, all tissues are one tissue; we are back to the primitive cell.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh encourages awareness of breath. In Peace Is Every Step, he offers a simple meditation: “Breathing in, I feel my body. Breathing out, I smile.” Repeating the thought with the action, several times, heightens awareness both of the body—as we breathe in—and of connection to the world—as we breathe out. He writes, “If we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Top to bottom: cell; multicell; vessel; bilateral symmetry (horizontal): fish; bilateral symmetry (vertical): human
We can revisit our phylogenetic history, the development of our species through evolution, to discern various body systems. From the oceanic matrix came the asymmetry of the first living cell in a shallow tidal pool, the sharing of resources in multicelled organisms such as sponges or sea coral, the vessel-shaped digestive cavity of sea squirts attached to the ocean floor, the central organization of radial symmetry in starfish, and the bilateral symmetry of fish, with many permutations in between. This oceanic heritage of our species is still present in our structure, such as the hollow tube of our digestive system and our segmented spine.
As our predecessors washed up on shores and became land creatures, gravity and inertia placed new demands on successful forms. The skin became the mediator between the fluid interior and the air-exposed exterior, modulating exchange of fluids and nutrients and maintaining a range of temperature suitable for life. Our ancestors traversed from belly slithering to four-footed to two-footed creatures. The head lifted away from the earth to heighten effectiveness of seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. What had been a mobile spine was now also used for stability, as the primitive tail and fins differentiated into legs providing effective locomotion. Eventually, in the bipedal stance, hands were free for carrying, manipulating, grasping, and tool use. Hand and visual acuity required coordination, learning, and memory and stimulated the nervous system, increasing brain size. These neurological connections still exist in bipedal hominids, supporting more complex connections such as contemplation, creativity, and imagination.
Human development, our ontological progression from conception through birth and early developmental processes, generally reflects phylogenetic history. Early developmental sequences of all vertebrates are similar, although there are deviations in timing. For example, arm buds from widely differing species are almost identical in the embryo, yet they may develop into a wing, a flipper, or an arm.2 Within the human developmental progression, we have each passed through the stage of the first cell of a new individual, called a zygote, at the moment of union between sperm and ovum; a hollow multicellular ball called a blastocyst (implanted in the uterus around day 7); a three-layered embryo with central umbilical cord (around day 16), followed by the head/tail differentiation of bilateral symmetry (around day 24) and the budding and the emergence of tiny hands, mouth, and feet of the fetus (by day 56—eight weeks), initiating our venture into the complexity of human form.
All this occurs suspended in the amniotic sea within the uterus, supported by fluid and stimulated by the polyrhythmic sounds of the heartbeats, rumbling organs, and vibrations of external sounds (listen through a stethoscope!). Massaged by the mother’s breath and rocked by the rhythm of her walking, the human fetus develops over 280 days (40 weeks) toward the process of birth. A significant shift in environment occurs as the newborn is greeted by the challenges of adapting to life in the world, in air, in gravity.
Bonding with the earth underlies all other developmental responses. A healthy baby bonds with air on the first breath, with earth by releasing weight to be held, and with mother by touch and nourishment by the first suckling. We have to release our weight down to the earth in order to lift the head up. We have to feel the ground to push away, to initiate movement, and to have support for a reach. Humans require connection to air, earth, and nourishment for survival, as well as touch, movement, and community.
Another of the many reflexes from our evolutionary heritage is physiological flexion, drawing the body parts toward center, and it is present in the womb. (Touch a caterpillar and watch it curl protectively toward center.) This is balanced by pbysiological extension—Stretching outward—present during birth. The modulation between flexion and extension continues throughout our lives as we draw inward, returning to safety, and extend outward, daring to risk. Head righting, reflexively supporting and lifting the head during movement, protects the brain and allows focused perception of the environment. Just as bonding takes us toward the earth, head righting moves us out into space, supported by the ground.3
Reflexes and developmental patterns are encoded in the body for survival, supporting coordinated growth of all the body systems. These patterns essentially retrace evolutionary history through movement during the first year of life, preparing us for the complexity of our bipedal gait. To understand this process, we return to the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, who has articulated the patterns and their implications in our lives. Condensing and expanding are considered basic cellular movements in the human body: condensing establishes ground, connection to earth; expanding establishes spatial integrity, connection
