Reflection

Both water and the spine have the capacity to mirror. The tone and tension of the spine reflects the tone and tension of how someone is living their life. A tense spine reveals bound energy, which is often the precursor to dis-ease. Like flowing water sustains the earth, a spine that is free to move - to transmit information and energy that organizes and heals - can nourish the body.

The fascial covering of the brain is called the meninges. The outer layer is called the tough mother (dura mater). The meninges protect, contain, and guide fluid within and around the brain. The places where the dura folds are called reflections. These areas create anatomic regions, “separating” the right and left hemispheres and the cerebrum from the cerebellum. I say “separating” because everything in the body is connected and any division we recognize is one imposed by the mind, not one that exists in the continuity of the living body.

The dura covers the brain and the spinal cord, creating a sleeve around tail of the brain as it exits the skull. The dura anchors into the tailbone (coccyx). When we talk about tension in the spine, we are talking about tension in the dural sleeve. This tension can be seen, palpated, and measured in chiropractic analysis. The tension on the spinal cord is transmitted to the dura. The muscles, joints, and posture of the spinal system reflect this deeper tension on the tissues of the central nervous system.

Adverse tension in the spine alters nerve signal and blood flow. Our ability to express health, maintain balance, and adapt to challenge requires clear and effective communication between the brain and the body. Chiropractic looks to identify where communication is being impeded and adjust the local conditions so that information, energy, and ease can flow into and through the body.

Nostalgia

The holiday season trades heavily in the currency of nostalgia. From music to movies, to the decorations and traditions, there is a strong reference to a sentimental version of the past. While this can facilitate cheer and goodwill, unless we deliberately pause to center and orient ourselves, we can be swept up in the frenzied commercialism that has come to define our current culture.

In Greek, nostos means “homecoming.” Many of the chapters in The Odyssey are referred to as the Nostoi since they recount the trials and tribulations of Odysseus and his fellow Greeks on their return from the Trojan War. The suffix -algia means pain. If you have ever revisited your home after time away, especially if years have elapsed and/or you have journeyed, what you remember and what you see in present time are no longer the same.

In the current usage of nostalgia we tend to focus on the sweet, warm remembrance of the past, conveniently omitting the grit in our desire to return to something known and unchanging. In times of uncertainty and upheaval, it is natural to yearn for something simpler and safer. The overwhelming possibilities of the present can incline our attention toward a sentimental but ultimately incomplete version of the past. I contend that what we are actually yearning for are the qualities and values of connection that seem so much more difficult to find in present time. It requires less vulnerability to see them in the past, to know how the story unfolds, than to confront the many and increasing challenges of today.

To choose to turn toward connection is to author a new chapter in what will one day be the past. From Ebenezer Scrooge to George Bailey, we are given the impression that a single night of reckoning will yield illumination and course-correction from the brink of catastrophe. Yet the invitation to reframe how we see points to a practice, not a singular experience. The essence of the holiday spirit is calling ourselves, the pieces of our past, and each other back home. This is how we unwrap the gift of the present, no matter what time of year it is.

For more on how chiropractic supports our ability to connect, I recommend this post.

Life to Years, Years to Life

The signs of life are evidence of the intelligence of life. All living things grow, repair, excrete, replicate/reproduce, and adapt. This is true on the macro scale of organisms and the micro scale of individual cells. In 2009, the Noble prize in medicine was awarded for the discovery and description of telomerase, the enzyme that maintains the length and integrity of chromosomes as they divide. This is a critical, though probably not the only, mechanism that regulates aging.

Aging is a potent reminder of the passage of time. Our bodies change over time and one of the ways these changes manifest is the shortening of our telomeres. Like everything, I think there are both quantitative and qualitative aspects to this. There is an innate desire to add years to life, to postpone biological aging, to keep our telomeres long. Yet this desire is incomplete without its complement, of adding life to years. The epigenetic influences that regulate how genes are expressed, which enzymes get activated, and which proteins our cells build reflect quality and tone more than amounts. These qualities are related to choices we make about how we spend our time, our energy, and our attention.

There is a principle in chiropractic - “there is no process that does not require time.” Sometimes we forget that biology unfolds at its own pace. An acorn does not become an oak overnight. Tissues heal at different speeds in response to injury, unraveling long-standing patterns of stress does not happen immediately, and the invitation to step just beyond ourselves is a step in the long walk of our lives. The instant perception changes, a new pattern becomes available, but the process of cultivating it requires both time and tending.

When we give ourselves the opportunity to look into, get to know, and practice new ways to be in our bodies, we find more space in which to respond and open up to life. This is the goal and the scope of chiropractic. Supporting the natural function of all of the body’s systems, without drugs, jabs, or surgery, we see miracles happen and the quality of life improve. To be clear, medical modalities have a time and a place. My point is that chiropractic offers something qualitatively different in both the principle and practice of helping people grow, age, and be well.

In the grand scheme, any time we have is bonus time. Here, heading into winter, I am again reminded of “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?