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The Wise Brain Bulletin News and Tools for Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Volume 3, 3 (3/31/09)

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The Wise Brain Bulletin News and Tools for Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Volume 3, 3 (3/31/09) The Wise Brain Bulletin News and Tools for Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Volume 3, 3 (3/31/09) Featured Article: Spinning On Uncertain Ground (Or, some thoughts around creative connectedness amidst our uncertain economic climate) © by Sophia Isajiw and Lisa Kaftori “Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world.” ~ Rollo May young girl spins happily in the sand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, her little being Atransformed into a joy energy vortex. On the other side of the world, a Sufi dervish whirls passionately into the velvet darkness of night, white skirt twirling, one hand reaching gracefully toward heaven, the other pointing confidently toward touchstone earth. The dervish spins as if compelling the universe to continue turning; his ritual dance, a powerful prayer of praise and gratitude, seems bent simultaneously on transcendence and equilibrium. Young Girl Spinning Video stills from Spinning On Uncertain Ground © Isajiw & Kaftori Why do children spin and dervishes whirl? Why does a perfect pirouette take our breath away? continued on page 2... Also in this issue: Words of Wisdom: Power of Intention Modern Science & by Rick Hanson, PhD. Ancient Wisdom p. 6 p. 11 Wise Brain Bulletin (3.3) • 3/09 • page 1 continued from page 1... Like a dervish, the child spinning on the beach may Why do we feel an irresistible urge to spin when whirl because she experiences fully open awareness we’re joyful? Is there a neurological connection to of our limitless connection to everything in the this physical activity that somehow approaches the universe, or an ‘absolute unity of being’ to use an sublime? older term from philosophy. Children, in their inherent wisdom, love to The term “dervish” itself literally means somersault and swing, or to spin and twirl “doorway” and is thought to be an entrance from on merry-go-rounds. Studies show that there the material world into the spiritual world. The are many significant connections between the Sufi spinning ceremony is a progression: from cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for self-transformation as a union with God, to the motor development, and the upper regions of death of the ego, and a return to life as a servant the brain that control attention, focus, reason and of all creation. The right hand of the dervish logic – in other words, the regions that produce opens to the skies in prayer, ready to receive divine significant thinking. According to Joan Lessen- beneficence, and the left hand is turned towards Firestone1, physical activities like spinning around, the earth in a gesture of bestowal, the dervish playing on carousels, teeter-totters and swings becoming a point of contact through which divine encourage important early brain development blessings can flow to earth.2 via the inner ear and its vestibular system—the sensory mechanism in the inner ear that detects David O’Reilly, in his article The Bliss Machine3 movement of the head and helps to control explains the neurological studies of such religious balance. Children growing up without this regular rituals as follows: movement experience weaker connections and their thinking processes and ability to focus suffer. According to D’Aquili and Newberg, religious rituals and practices stimulate the two major Spinning into Connection subsystems of the autonomic systems. The ergotropic system is the body’s fight-or- Because spinning relies on vestibular stimulation, flight nervous system. In moments of stress, our neurological responses allow us to experience it raises the heart rate, blood pressure and a feeling of limitless connection both within and respiration, and hastens endocrine to the without the self as a result. muscles, among other activities. The other system, the trophotropic, can be understood as the system of calm. It reduces the heart rate, Greetings slows respiration, and regulates cell growth, digestion, relaxation and sleep. The Wise Brain Bulletin offers skillful means from brain science and contemplative practice—to nurture D’Aquili and Newberg propose that certain your brain for the benefit of yourself and everyone religious practices can so stimulate the body’s you touch. calm system or its flight system that activity in the related brain circuit starts to ‘reverberate,’ The Bulletin is offered freely, and you are welcome to while simultaneously shutting down ever more share it with others. Past issues are archived at of the other system. Depending on whether www.WiseBrain.org. the ritual is fast (as in the spinning dance of Sufi whirling dervishes) or slow, as in Zen Rick Hanson, PhD and Richard Mendius, MD edit meditation, different parts of the brain are the Bulletin, and it’s designed and laid out by activated, perceived by the mind as a higher Brad Reynolds at [email protected]. state of consciousness. To subscribe, please contact Rick at [email protected]. In states of very high activity around one circuit, they say, there can be a ‘spillover,’ such continued on next page... Wise Brain Bulletin (3.3) • 3/09 • page 2 that the dormant system activates and goes ‘on energy in our bodies that connect us physically, line’ simultaneously with the other. Although emotionally, and spiritually to a universal field rare, this dual state can lead to a sense of of energy. The speed of the chakra spin is a key ‘tremendous release of energy’ that may to vibrant health according to the Five Tibetan feel like ‘oceanic bliss’ or absorption into the Rites of Rejuvenation.4 The Five Rites speed up object of contemplation. And extreme cases the spinning of the chakras, coordinate their spin of both systems being activated can induce so they are in complete harmony, distribute pure brain activities perceived by the mind as the prana energy to the endocrine system and to all ‘Absolute Unity of Being.’ organs and processes in the body. And he goes on to state that a mystic in this state We know from science that all things in the will experience either a divine being (God) or universe are in a constant state of spinning: a cosmic void (nirvana). Dervishes believe and subatomic particles, solar systems, and even the acknowledge that everything in the universe is Milky Way galaxy. The particles in our bodies, and spinning in this energy. those around them, spin. The universe manifests energy in a spiral, and so as we spin, we harmonize In Sanskrit, the word “chakra” translates to with the core of this universal energy. Spinning mean “wheel of spinning light.” The seven body can thus change one’s mood on the mental, chakras are believed to be spinning vortices of physical, psychological and spiritual levels. Spinning On Uncertain Ground, site-specific, multimedia installation © Isajiw & Kaftori Installation details: trough of earth with 12 footprints, lachrymatories, cloth panel embroidered with text: gather your tears into my bottle, viewer sitting on milking stool, listening to audio, video projection of woman spinning on beach, poetic fortune “leaves”… Spinning Creatively ight years ago, we collaborated to create seemingly unbalanced activity that requires great a multimedia art installation entitled: balance to maintain. Among elements in the larger ESpinning On Uncertain Ground, which whole of this installation were two videos. The was very much about how opposites can be held first, a video projection of a little girl in a white together on their continuums through spinning, a dress spinning on a beach, in front of ocean waves. continued on next page... Wise Brain Bulletin (3.3) • 3/09 • page 2 Wise Brain Bulletin (3.3) • 3/09 • page 3 The video is bleached slightly of its color and The innocent joyful spinning of a young girl, the the timing is slowed. Viewers watch her spinning hyperconscious state of dervish dancers whirling gracefully, then losing balance, then finding her around their physical access, and the compassion center again. The other was of a mature woman and spaciousness of individuals and communities spinning slowly and gracefully, over and over, a who transcend differences by coming together dancer on a beach. This video is also bleached of to witness one another’s cultural narratives, all its colors and slowed, so that the woman seems experience spinning as an active meditation that like she may be from another time, another world, centers the mind and the body and heightens another space, perhaps a divinity or a daemon. Her conscious awareness. spins are more controlled, more consciously aware. In terms of neurology, the movement embodied Central to Spinning On Uncertain Ground was by physical, psychological and metaphoric acts of an exploration of the journey to individual spinning and other forms of meditation reward and collective joy, especially during times of us emotionally, physiologically, and spiritually. uncertainty. The exhibition focused on our innate Neuroscientists such as Mark Waldman and Dr. ability to spin away burdens, doctrines, and Andrew Newberg have shown that meditation, circumstances that separate us from each other prayer and spiritual practices alter the brain to and from nature, in order to find spiritual and improve memory and reduce anxiety, depression emotional middle paths, to fully connect. Spinning and anger.5 On Uncertain Ground used the metaphor of spinning to posit the idea that coming together to To spin well you have to become very centered and spin the significant narratives of our historic and connected. Thus chaos and control are united – by contemporary burdens creates the understanding grounding, by centering, by being in the present and the expansiveness necessary for shifts of moment, by consciousness. Spinning is a form of awareness and new perceptions of self and the active meditation that, within a few short minutes, world to form. In Spinning On Uncertain Ground helps center the body and mind and creates a individuals and communities were encouraged to connection between inner self and outer world.
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