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Crossing the Dark Threshold . . . . . . into the Light of Day

“Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth . . . .”    (W.H. Auden, September 1,1939)

Plato described the transition from the old self to the authentic Self as moving from out of “the cave” of isolation, where life is observed as confused reflections on the walls of the cave, into the light of day where one is fully engaged as a liver of life rather than an observer only.

Crossing the Threshold                                                    

This passage of the soul from out of the dark cave and into the light of day is made much easier with the assistance of a “spiritual midwife,” or mentor.  One need not go it alone these days with the many spiritual guides and personal transformation facilitators available. 

 One such spiritual midwife, and “guru” to many, is Dr. Joan Borysenko, clinical psychologist and medical scientist, who has done much work in body-mind healing and spiritual transformation.  She offers some professional insight into this process of transformation in a tape series entitled, “The Power of the Mind to Heal.” With her permission, I would like to share with you now an excerpt from these tapes, primarily for the grounding in the work-a-day world her words provide, but also for the profound gift she brings into the healing field through her expression and her deep and compassionate understanding of humanity’s state of amnesia, out of which many today are awakening and struggling to make sense out of the events of a dawning new age which we are all seeing and experiencing in a new way.

From Dr. Borysenko’s tapes:

   “The events that call us forth from Plato’s ‘Cave’ are different for each of us, and perhaps the best prayer in times of trouble is not to pray for the troubles to cease but to pray that our hearts and minds stay open to change so that we’ll emerge from our crisis transformed, wiser and more loving.

   “Unfortunately we’ve lost our cultural understanding of the value of darkness. Suffering and pain are downright unpopular in a culture that’s addicted to ‘positive thinking.’  But a lot of what passes as ‘positive thinking’ isn’t positive at all . . . .  A lot of us slap on a veneer of positivity and phony faith to hide a heart full of pain and fear.

   “The psychologist Carl Jung put it very clearly when he said that we can’t find the light by imagining good things.  The only way to the light is to go back out through the darkness.  Then we can emerge transformed with truly changed minds. 

   “The mythologist, Joseph Campbell, said, ‘one thing that comes out in myths is at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.’”

This has certainly been true in my own experience of dark times.  Another way this has been expressed is “The darkest hour is the one before the dawn.”  Some of my best days have been after two or three days of internal void and mental cloudiness, passing through layers in the veil. We may be fortunate to have had someone represent the light of Being to us so vividly and powerfully that we are able to forge a path all the way to the most sacred and holy place within us and perhaps even fuse in rapturous union with the Beloved, losing ourselves to the world and entirely into the arms of Love.  Sometimes, in such ecstatic experiences “in the light,” the path we forged with the help of another’s light closes up behind us and we lose our way back out into the world.  We leave the world to ascend the mountain of spiritual attainment and enlightenment, where we stay for a season knowing that we must return to the world we left behind.

Often we have to find our way back out on our own through a heart cluttered with fears and doubts and a mind rigidly structured with beliefs and prejudices of sorts we never even imagined were there.  This time, however, we have only our own light, which by now we have learned to shine, to light up the path leading out into the world of hard facts and experiences. For me, finding my way back out into the light of day where I could be of real value and service to others has been the greatest test of my spiritual awakening and transformation.  The most difficult of tasks has been to learn how to reach out and to touch people where they are.  I could not have done it without help, without someone to at least provide a sounding board for clarifying issues and validating my own gut perceptions and new-found sense of true self-worth.  One way and the other, both in going in to find oneself and in coming out to reveal the wonderful one I discovered my Self to be, one has to traverse the darkness of the cave where the false, isolated self spent its entire life wandering around in a solitary way.

Dr. Borysenko describes this transitional period from her professional point of view as represented quite often by physical, mental and emotional symptoms of so-called “dysfunction.”

   “Not only have we lost our appreciation of the value of darkness as an authentic path to the light, we’ve also lost the priesthood whose function it was to bring us through the transitions.  All too often our religious priesthood is as out of touch with sources of wisdom as is our secular priesthood—therapists and psychiatrists [and I would include here health care physicians] who think more in terms of pathology than they do of growth and potential.

   “We can learn a great deal about approaching these times of transition by observing how the priesthood of more primitive societies treats people in transition—whether the transition comes unbidden or whether it is set into motion by a special ritual or rite of passage.

   “The anthropologist, Victor Turner, is well known for his study of the ritual process in different cultures.  He defines a ritual as a ‘rite of passage,’ a transition between two distinct states of being, or stations in society.  The traditional rite of passageway in primitive cultures consists of three distinct stages: the separation from one’s previous state of being; the liminal period during which you dwell between two worlds, not here and not there; and the reincorporation afterwards into some new role or status in the society.

   “The ambiguous intermediate state of liminality is a kind of dwelling at the threshold of a new life.  It’s often compared to being in the womb, in a state of darkness and invisibility, or ‘wandering in the wilderness.’ The Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years when they left bondage in Egypt, a time of dwelling at the threshold before they were re-born to a new life in Palestine. Jesus, too, wandered for forty days in the wilderness when he died to his old self, the carpenter, and was reborn to his God Self.

   “Each of us, in that very same movement from our separate ego to our God Self, has to do some wandering in exile and in this period we may feel confused, unhappy and like we have nothing left to hold onto.  If our culture hadn’t gotten so out of touch with the meaning of ritual and myth, we would know that this ‘no-man’s land’, the ‘dark night of the soul’ between the death of our old self and the birth of our new Self was grace, not ‘mental illness’ or ‘PMS’.”

What a wonderful and empowering attitude to hold toward a health crisis, or a life crisis, that might come our way seemingly just about the time we thought everything was going so well in our lives. I know for a fact, just from my own personal experience with physical illness, that unresolved inner issues come up to be addressed when the physical body is undergoing a viral cleansing, for example. One is compelled to be thankful for such interruptions sent by life perhaps to get one’s attention. It is believed by some psychologists that our own sub-conscious minds create the symptoms of dis-ease in order to alert us to the need to address important issues in our lives.   We can rest in assurance that all is well during times of crisis rather than tense up in fear of the unknown.  Healing can come quickly as we listen to our inner voice for the very specific message that will open the door to us for transformation. It is there if we are quiet enough, and honest enough, to hear it. Joan continues:

“The collective hypnosis—our unconscious adherence to the familiar beliefs that guide our lives—is broken in the liminal period, in that time of exile, in exactly the same way our own uncelebrated life crises strip us of what we know, delivering us to the threshold of the unknown. In times of transition we awaken from the familiar terrain of life and find ourselves in alien territory.  If we know that this frightening, unknown period was a necessary transition, like the transition period of labor, we could more easily ask for whatever help was needed, and more patiently hold on and wait for the birth.  We could take comfort that the process was natural, not pathological.    Each dark night and each little death peals away a layer of conditioning, restoring our sight so that we can see more clearly.  What a difference it would make if a person in the throes of a life crisis were called an ‘initiate’ and then skillfully led to a rebirth. Instead, our psychological initiates are often labeled neurotic, psychotic, addictive or character disordered, labels that create helplessness and low self-esteem. These labels reinforce the fearful story that we are damaged and less than whole.    Some of the power of the ‘Twelve-Step Recovery Program’ comes from the context in which addiction in placed. In anonymous programs, addictions are transitions between a life where the person was out of touch with a higher power and one in which the reality of that power becomes not only the force for recovery but also a renewal of the meaning of life. Addiction as a liminal experience, for those who are willing to see it in that light, creates excitement, empowerment and even gratitude for the addiction as a guide to a new, more self-aware and fulfilling life.”

It is one thing to admit that one’s physical body is addicted to a drug, such as alcohol, and to take the necessary steps toward sobriety and non-dependency.  It is another thing entirely to take on the label of “alcoholic” as one’s identity.  The statements “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a drug addict” can serve to dispel patterns of denial, but it isn’t the truth of who one is.  Such firmly held fixations in consciousness could come to hide awareness of one’s real identity.  This can set up a circular codependent relationship between condition and treatment in which one must continue being an “alcoholic” in order to participate in the process of treatment, and vice versa.  Further, one might be prone to think that, without that identity, one would become as nothing.

In the health field, similar situations arise where one becomes identified with the “disease” for which one is being treated.  To continue saying, for example, “I am a diabetic” fixes the condition of diabetes even more firmly in consciousness, which in turn creates the vibrational terrain that determines health and dis-ease in the body-mind continuum.  What if one were to say instead, for example, “I am fine.  My body, however, is having some difficulty handling sugar at this time, so I will withhold sugar from my diet until such time as I have corrected the reason(s) for the difficulty?” This, in my view, would be more accurate as well as the intelligent and cooperative first step to take toward a holistic approach to healing while engaging orthodox, traditional disciplines and therapeutic methodologies.   (Excerpted from Sacred Anatomy)

I will continue with this theme in my next post.  Thank you for sharing my meditations. I would love to share any thoughts you may have. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

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Addictions, Angelic Identity, Body Temple, Conscious Evolution, Consciousness, Divine identity, Dr. Palombo's blog, Endocrine system, Energy anatomy, Finding your Self, Healing Tones Blog, Holistic Healing, Purification, Sacred Anatomy, Thymus Gland, Transformation

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The Thyroid’s Role in the Spoken Word

“The Christ Love that shines through thee is like unto the brightness of the sun, and all things in thy body-self which are not rooted in thy nature and watered with thy Truth shall quickly be disintegrated by the brightness of thy Presence, for thou art the I AM of thy body-self.” —Uranda

Continuing in the series “The Spiritual Significance of the Thyroid Gland,” this excerpt from SACRED ANATOMY speaks to the role this sacred energy center plays in our vocal expression. This is the control and regulating center for the Spirit of Life. Here heart and mind meet to provide animation for the realization and manifestation of ideas conceived in the mind by the Spirit of Truth working through the Pituitary gland and in partnership with the Spirit of Love radiantly focused in the Pineal. Illumination is the radiant gift of the Spirit of Life. 

The Creative Word Organizes  

John of Revelation writes about this One’s voice as though it were the voice of a collective rather than that of an individual: “And his voice as the sound of many waters”—conveying the creative word into the field of creation.  Words that uplift are like water flowing forth from a fountain and down a river bringing fresh water to the earth and all living things.  That river is the River of Life, and the creative word gives life to our bodies and to our worlds, just as the destructive word destroys life in our bodies creating nothing but voids in them and in our worlds.

The voice box, situated by design between these two lobes of the thyroid, sets the tone that carries the Word articulated and released into our creative field.  The words that come out of our mouths create to the extent they are spoken with feeling and are thus charged with spirit, whatever spirit is moving in the heart.  If they are spoken without feeling and without spirit, they are then of little consequence as far as creation is concerned.  Whatever the nature of the spirit with which they are charged, so will be the nature of the creation.  Just as love and truth bring forth life in the body, so does love for the truth bring forth words that increase life in our worlds.  By the same token, words charged with ill spirits bring forth illness and discord.

Words of life flow out from a person who loves the truth and has a passion for the real and the genuine in living.   Such words flow like many waters clarifying issues and dissolving patterns of resistance in us when we hear them.  Such words create life whereunto they are sent.

There are many such people on Earth today and when I hear them speak, or read their writings, it’s like cool, clear water being poured out over hot and confusing issues in the forefront of human consciousness today,  clarifying understanding in such a refreshing way.  My heart pours out currents of love and appreciation toward them, as well as verbal and written response when appropriate that lets them know they are heard, cherished and protected in my heart.  They are about the business of creating a new world.  Their words find their mark in the hearts of people where response gives rise to deep resonance.  In turn, deep resonance sets up changes in the molecular patterns of physical substance.  New configurations based on tones that are harmonious and resonant with life appear in flesh.  Thus are our bodies and our worlds transformed and created new by the Spirit of Life conveyed by the spoken word.

This speaking of the creative word and response to it generates the connecting substance that joins us all together in true community, as it provides the returning cycle that is essential to the effectiveness of the radiation of love into the world through the spoken and written word.  It also establishes, to the extent that we follow our heart’s response, the patterns of spiritual governance through harmonic focalization.  Based solely on the principle of resonance, we are irresistibly drawn to those who focus specific qualities of Spirit with which we naturally resonate.  We draw others to ourselves in the exact same manner.  This is the essence of the saying, “Not by might or by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”  In this government no man lords it over another but only the Spirit of God is Lord over all in heaven and on earth.  Spirit, not form, provides the focalization.  Government by Spirit is organic and works through organisms.  Government by form is synthetic and works through organizations.

The Spirit of Life charges our words that they may carry the Tone which creates all things new.   From here the current of the Word goes forth from out of the mouth of God on Earth, which we each and altogether are, to accomplish that whereunto it is sent.  John wrote: “. . . and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.”  In lesson forty-four of “Steps to Mastership,” Uranda, with all the assurance of his own mastery, writes: 

Out of thy mouth now goes the sharp “two edged sword” of Truth, even as it goes forth from the mouth of our great Master, dividing asunder the “bone” of unresponsiveness, that it may be separated from the “marrow” of Life.  Thus it is that the Truth which thou art now sending forth into thy body-self is causing thy body-self to be free from all the limitations of the flesh, even as thou art now free to express fully the glorious liberties of the Children of God.  As soon as thy body-self is convinced that it is only through thy Truth that it can be FREE, it will respond to thee and enter into thy Life through the transforming power of the Christ Love that is in thee.

The Christ Love that shines through thee is like unto the brightness of the sun, and all things in thy body-self which are not rooted in thy nature and watered with thy Truth shall quickly be disintegrated by the brightness of thy Presence, for thou art the I AM of thy body-self.

The first impression of this image might be one of the sword representing cutting words of rebuke, which words of truth do indeed provide.  That rebuke is given only by the angel to his or her own human capacities.   It is not to be used to set others straight or to rebuke them.

Another meaning, perhaps more subtle,  is contained in the design of the two-edged sword, which cuts both ways if the one who is applying words of truth and rebuke is not himself being true to his own words, “walking his talk” as it is put.  If one takes a two-edged sword, for example, by the blade in order to cut something into pieces, he is likely to cut his own hand as well.  But if he takes the sword by the handle and gently but consistently applies pressure while he moves the blade back and forth, he can easily and safely cut through the bonds that hold one captive, literally or figuratively, without cutting either himself or the one or thing being freed. With words backed by the authority of experience, one can easily cut through entangling issues to the kernel of truth behind them and find healing and freeing resolutions based in love.

One who is living the words he speaks is careful not to impose, for one thing, and is gentle but sure in the way he speaks and words things. He seeks to clarify issues rather than confuse them with words lacking the knowledge of experience.  His words shine light on the path rather than into the eyes of those who would walk the path with him.  Words of truth offer freedom from confusing and binding concepts and beliefs.  It is not our beliefs about the truth but our experience of truth that makes us free— initially from our beliefs about it.  Words are creative vessels and therefore sacred. Words can also be used to divide and destroy and are thereby defiled and thwarted from their original meaning and purpose, often rendered useless unless they can be cleaned up and reclaimed for sacred purpose.

I will complete this series on the spiritual significance of the thyroid in my next post in two weeks after we return from a visit with family in Ashland, Oregon. Until then, 

Be love. Be loved

Anthony

 

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Body Temple, Books on spirituality, Dr. Palombo's blog, Energy anatomy, Handling Sacred Energy, Healing Tones, Healing Tones Blog, Inspiration and Imagination, Sacred Anatomy, The Imaginal Realm, Thyroid gland, Truth

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The Spiritual Significance of the Pituitary Gland

“If you continue in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (Jesus)

I love it when someone says or writes something that moves me to re-think my beliefs — my belief about “the Truth” for instance, and how it makes us free. The word “truth” has acquired a rather dogmatic connotation.  I have adopted a more philosophical meaning that’s free of parochial baggage:

Truth is simply design and control.

Truth is what makes things and events what they are — shapes them and gives them purposeful function and freedom of movement. For example, the truth of a hand is its shape and flexibility, its main purpose being to hold things. “Hands are the servants of the body,” someone once said. If it were to lose its characteristics, we could say the hand has lost its truth — along with its freedom of movement. 

In the case of events, the truth is what’s behind the facts that shapes them and gives them their meaning and purpose.  Someone recently said that in order to find the truth you have to know the facts. Facts may lead to the truth, but facts are not truth. Facts are the surface play of events behind which lies their truth. Altering the facts with “fake news” does not change the truth. As the saying goes, the truth will out — and free us from deception. 

All things have their truth, and when their truth is compromised, things break down and fail to function. If one uses one’s hand as a hammer, for example, it will get damaged and eventually break down. Thankfully, we have pain to stop such abuse. When one goes to the doctor with a broken hand, the doctor will put it in a cast to stabilize it so that it can heal. Healing occurs as the truth of the hand returns to it — from within — freeing it from its limitations.

The truth of a human being is not the collection of concepts and beliefs acquired by the mind. The truth of a human being is the Spirit that informs our flesh, gives it design, control and freedom of movement; that enlightens our minds so we can see clearly what is true and what is false, freeing us from the limitations of preconceived concepts and beliefs. That spirit has been called “The Spirit of Truth.”  

This brings me to this new series of considerations on the spiritual significance of the Pituitary gland with excerpts from my book SACRED ANATOMY.  

THE PITUITARY GLAND & THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

   Underneath the brain is a saddle-shaped depression in the sphenoid bone called the Sella Tursica.  The sphenoid is a large bone appearing in shape like a bat in flight forming the floor of the skull and connecting all the bones of the cranium together.  Here the Pituitary gland (hypophysis) rests protected in her bony saddle, much as a queen upon her throne exercising loving but firm dominion over her queendom. In size and shape similar to that of a green pea, the Pituitary’s domain is the entire endocrine system and the overall production of hormones throughout the body.  It accomplishes all of this with the coordinating assistance of the Hypothalamus. For this reason it has earned the distinguished title of the “Master Gland” or “Mother Gland.”

    The Pituitary encompasses both masculine and feminine functions. Comprised of two lobes, anterior and posterior, this gland is suspended by a stalk attached to the Hypothalamus at the base of the brain, from which it receives decision-making commands regarding its own hormonal secretions.  These commands are the positive creative emanations of the Spirit of Love. They are based in part on information about the surrounding circumstances received through the eyes by way of light, as well as through the other physical, mental and emotional senses. They bring the patterns of design and control for the manifestation of life in and through the body temple.

   Pituitary gland seated in the  Sella Tursica

    The anterior lobe of the Pituitary (adenohypophysis) secretes most of the Pituitary hormones which stimulate growth, egg and sperm development, milk secretion, as well as determining the hormonal secretions of the thyroid, adrenal and gonadal glands and affects the growth of long bones, muscles and internal organs, all functions of the achieving masculine. 

   The posterior lobe of the Pituitary (neurohypophysis) stores and releases hormones from the hypothalamus that control Pituitary function, uterine contraction and milk release and blood pressure.  It is concerned more with the mammary glands, stimulating the production of milk through the hormone prolactin, for example, and the kidneys by regulating the secretion of urine and body fluid levels in general, all functions of the nurturing feminine. 

   There are many functions in the body temple which this tiny but pivotal gland services. One of its most important ones is the production of growth hormones that regulate the cellular absorption of nutrients to control their development. Growth hormones also work with insulin in controlling blood sugar.  Another function influenced by the Pituitary gland is the metabolism, the building up and tearing down of tissues and the burning of food for energy. This is likely its most important of services to the body, one which it carries out in partnership with the thyroid and adrenal glands by stimulating them to release thyroxine and glucocorticoid hormones. In fact, most of the production of pituitary hormones is for the purpose of stimulating other hormonal glands. Such hormones are called precursors because they are literally forerunners to the hormones that are produced by their facilitation.  

   An interesting function of the Pituitary, relating to its motherly role, is the production of oxytocin, a hormone secreted by the pituitary glands of both mother and baby triggered by the pressure on the top of the infant’s head exerted by the hyper-extended surrounding tissues of the womb.  This somehow gives a signal to the child to initiate the series of contractions in the uterus that push it out at the time of birth.  At the same time it starts up the production of milk, the first food it will need after the umbilical cord is cut. One doesn’t commonly think of the baby initiating its own birthing process.  Nevertheless, here is a living example of the child of Love obeying the wise direction of its Mother, the Spirit of Truth working through the Pituitary gland, while exercising its freedom, based simply in how things work in the natural order and design, to set its own cycles in motion and therein assume full responsibility for all that follows this first step that initiates life in the conscious world. 

THE SEAT OF WISDOM    

   In partnership with the Pineal gland, the Pituitary gland provides a focus in the body temple for the nurturing Spirit of the Womb, another name for the Spirit of Truth. These names aptly describe the function of this gland in the growth and maturation processes in the body, much as a mother wisely oversees the care and nurturing of her offspring. Here is the seat of wisdom where the impeccable design and absolute control bring the firm dominion of spiritual and corporeal governance into the affairs of the temple and beyond.

   The essences of the Spirit of the Womb may begin to be perceived as we meditate more deeply upon the furnishings of the temple, represented in their metaphorical details in the story of the Ark of the Covenant.  In front of the ark an altar was placed and on the altar a golden candlestick.  This candlestick was unusual in that it held seven candles.  It was so fashioned that out from the one central candlestick branched six other candles so as to form a candelabrum which held seven candles. The description of this candelabrum is remarkably detailed in Exodus (25:31-40).   

    And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knobs, and his flowers, shall be of the same….Three bowls made like unto almonds, with a knob and a flower in one branch; and three bowls made like almonds in the other branch, with a knob and a flower: so in the six branches that come out of the candlestick.  

The Menorah

First of all, the candlestick is made of pure gold, symbolizing the spirit and golden substance of love out of which the seven endocrine glands, along with the entire body temple, are made.  It was a “beaten work” which means it was all made out of one solid piece of gold.  As portrayed in this picture of the Menorah, the shaft, branches, bowls, knobs and flowers of this candlestick symbolize the endocrine system with its masculine and feminine hormonal glands, many of them almond-like in shape. They are blended together in this candelabrum just as both the man and the woman have masculine and feminine energies working within them.   

     A profound sense of awe comes over me each time I read this passage, arousing in my innermost core a sense of the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine together in rapturous embrace — Father God received into the womb of Mother God.   It is clearly apparent to me that present within our own body temples is the reality which this prophetic candelabrum symbolizes — the seven endocrine glands powered by the Spirit of Love focused in the Pineal and carefully coordinated by the Spirit of the Womb via the Pituitary, to make the Spirit of Life manifest in the body temple with all its majesty and glory in a continual ceremony of ascension. Here, indeed, is where divine Man was created and placed by the LORD God on the sixth day of creation.  Not the mortal man we know today but divine Man, a state of Immortal Being which we have long forgotten but are beginning to re-member, not only in theory but in actual experience.

     The first divine man . . . was created on the sixth day; that is, on the sixth plane of world being, where union takes place and the change from negative to positive is consummated. Divine man was to have dominion over all the earth, and everything on the earth.  (Uranda, The Triune Ray)

   Here is the positive radiation of love coming to focus in the masculine energy which gives its release potency and penetration. This description of “his shaft, his branches, his bowls, his knobs and his flowers” portrays the Divine Masculine in his positive, vertical presence in harmonious partnership with the Divine Feminine, drawing forth the creativity inherent in her responsive juiciness and elegant, nurturing reception and embrace of his seminal expressions of love at the sixth level of being where they were placed together in the Garden planted Eastward in Eden to dress and to keep it.  She never tires in her role of preparing a fertile womb for their gestation, protection and maturation.

The Spirit of the Womb contains the very essences of the Creative Process at the sixth plane of being, a principle that is solely concerned with bringing forth the seeds of love through the cycles of conception, gestation, growth and development, and eventual harvest and birth.  It is the role of Mother God, played so majestically and meticulously, looking after every last detail with as much care as she will show for the baby itself once it is born through her womb. It is the role of Father God empowering her and supporting her in every large and small way needed for their labor of love. Man, Masculine and Feminine, is the Mother of God.

   This was not just an ordinary candelabrum for holding candles to illumine an otherwise dark temple.  It was a ceremonial candle depicting the profoundly sacred and erotogenic anatomy of Man which is designed to facilitate creation, which itself was designed to facilitate the ceremony of ascension of substance before the throne of God in heaven as well as on earth. —-(Excerpted from SACRED ANATOMY)

To be continued….

Credits: Graphic art by David Stefaniak

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Dr. Palombo's blog, Endocrine system, Energy anatomy, Healing Tones, Healing Tones Blog, Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis, Hypothalamus, Love, Masculine & Feminine Energy, Pineal Gland, Pituitary Gland, Resonance, Sacred Anatomy, The Divine Feminine, The Divine Masculine, True Identity, Truth

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Sacred Anatomy: The Hypothalamus, Our Stress Response Center

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HOMEOSTASIS AT ALL COSTS

As spiritual beings, our incarnation is not accomplished without a great deal of stress being placed upon these flesh bodies. They embody, after all, the Spirit of the Living God.  Angels, such as we are, incarnate to live and create at the lowest level of being, the physical plane, where we are met by challenging and often stressful conditions and events that require a clear and accurate line of communication with and feedback from our environment. 

The first means of communicating with the physical plane is the brain and central nervous system, the first organized system to develop in the embryo. Among its many roles, this system provides feedback information about the external terrain in the world around us—the earth.  The endocrine system provides a means for conveying creative commands and directives from the inner realm of spirit in the internal terrain—the heaven. The hypothalamus, together with the thalamus and the amygdala, play roles of mediation between these two communication systems and thereby between these two conjoined worlds, the inner world of spirit and the outer world of form.  It connects the endocrine system with the nervous system, mediating the ongoing management of stress, the process of maintaining homeostasis in the material world, a state of equilibrium between boundless creative power and extremely limiting physical boundaries.  The body is built, nonetheless, in a state of homeostasis.

(Note how the brain stem in this diagram is funnel-shaped as it inserts itself into the hypothalamus, where it downloads information gathered by way of the outer senses and sent up the spinal chord via nerve fibers and spinal fluid.)

Few medical writers have captured both the spirit and function of the endocrine system as a sacred vessel for the administration of life’s fierce and volatile creativity as has Dr. Robert Becker. In fascinating research published in his book, The Body Electric, Dr. Becker speaks of this area of the floor of the brain with high regard, reflecting Dr. Hans Selye’s research into the stress response mechanism in the physical body:

The hypothalamus, a nexus of fibers linking the emotional centers, the pituitary gland, the pleasure center, and the autonomic nervous system, is the single most important part of the brain for homeostasis and is a crucial link in the stress response.

Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, Clinical Professor of Surgery at Yale University, where he also teaches medical history and “bioethics,” writes about the relationship between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. His books—the acclaimed best-selling How We Die and, more recently, The Wisdom of the Body—are an inspiring search within the interior life of our bodies for the biologically elusive quality of life that defines us and a journey through the body’s magical “tumultuous” terrain of chemistry-driven physiology that constantly seeks homeostasis at all costs.  Ironically, such dynamic balance is achieved by means of the “turbulence of chemistry, the seeming chaos of tissue, the volatile responsiveness of cells” upon which tempests the stability of health rides. 

Almost poetically and certainly with profound depth of understanding, Dr. Nuland elaborates on how our bodies care for themselves and “how we have transcended mere survival . . . and . . . made use of our unique biology to travel the long road from the creature Homo to the human being.” He speaks here about the action of “signaling molecules” in the brain, ordinary neurons (neurosecretory cells) that function like endocrine cells and produce “neurohormones” called “neuropeptides.” Some sixty of them are to be found in the human brain, including endorphins that work like morphine for pain and calm us even to a state of euphoria.  He writes:

Not uncommonly, a neurohormone’s action is to make an endocrine gland secrete. Accordingly, the neurosecretory cell allows direct communication between the endocrine and nervous systems.  A stimulus reaching a neuron can thus be converted into an action caused by a hormone.

The relationship between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland is particularly important in this regard, especially because the hypothalamus is involved with autonomic regulation and the states of the emotions, and it does contain certain neurons that secrete neurohormones.   The interaction of the two structures is facilitated by their anatomic one-on-top-of-the-other juxtaposition at the base of the brain.  So closely integrated is their functioning that they have together been called the neuroendocrine control center….

The relationship among the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal has been formalized in the writings of medical researchers by calling it the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or HPA. Reciprocal relationships among these three structures have been shown to influence the body’s response to stress and the secretion of certain neurohormones that affect the immune system. This is one of the fields of research under the general heading of psychoneuro-immunology, and it has shed considerable light on possible ways in which the brain and even conscious thought may play a role in immune response . . . .

The back, or posterior, part of the pituitary is actually composed not of endocrine cells, but largely of glial tissue and nerve fibers coming down from neurosecretory cells in the hypothalamus.  The axons of these cells extend down into the posterior pituitary, carrying the neurohormones oxytocin [a lactation and uterus-contraction hormone produced in the hypothalamus and stored in the posterior pituitary gland, as well as a disengaging hormone for the fight or flight reflex returning the body to a state of calm and coordination] and vasopresin [the hormone that sets off the fight or flight reflex and acts as an antidiuretic]…. A great deal of the behavior and response of the body’s 75 trillion cells is determined by signaling molecules, whether carried afar by the bloodstream or active locally.  In complex and complementary ways, such chemical substances work in coordination with the wondrous array of responses within the nervous system, all with the aim of maintaining that dynamism of constancy, that exuberance of seeking, which is the substance of human life…. The result of the interactions of electrical and chemical messages is that every part of the body is able to know what every other part needs and is doing.” (p. 347)  

A vibrant community is to be found within these temples on the microcosmic level of cellular activity, a community that is reflected in the macrocosm of the natural world we inhabit where all things are connected by vibrational cords.  Dr. Jacob Liberman, in his book  Light Medicine of the Future, summarizes the essential nature and function of the Pineal Body as a powerful and focal hormonal gland along with the coordinating function of the hypothalamus:

In Oriental medicine, the daily patterns of individuals are associated with the level of health they maintain.  Imbalanced responses to specific rhythms, seasons, and their associated cycles are related to specific kinds of physical and emotional problems.  Harmony within our life processes is related to the level of communion between our bodies and the environment. Can we experience fluid integration of our own minds/bodies/emotions without creating that same level of harmony in our relationships with nature, or vice versa?  Isn’t our internal integration a mirror of our integration with all life (people, animals, nature, work, etc.)?  Perhaps, literally and symbolically, our longevity may be related to our ability to integrate and synchronize ourselves with the planetary and solar-stellar energies that surround us.  The pineal gland and its interdependence with the rest of the body hold the key to the mysteries of our aging as well as our agelessness.

In summary, light enters the eyes not only to serve vision, but to go directly to the body’s biological clock within the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus controls the nervous and endocrine systems whose combined effects regulate all biological functions in humans.  In addition, the hypothalamus controls most of the body’s regulatory functions by monitoring light-related information and sending it to the pineal, which then uses this information to cue other organs about light conditions in the environment.  In other words, the hypothalamus acts as a puppet master who, quietly and out of sight, controls most of the functions that keep the body in balance.

All the body’s systems relate to each other in a constant state of flux, with the hypothalamus at the center.  The hypothalamus interfaces between mind and body, coordinating our constant state affecting our consciousness, and thereby controlling our constant state of preparedness. This critical maintenance of body harmony is effected by synchronizing the body’s vital functions with the environmental conditions, or, as some people say, “becoming one with the universe.” (p. 34)

Thus is life in the body maintained by internal combustion of powerful hormonal and chemical interactions, fiercely but accurately conveying spirit through flesh. Our house of being is a burning bush, much like the one Moses experienced when he rose in his spirit to meet his destiny, stressful as it no doubt was. This is the only way to meet the stress of life, even in the face of certain death.  He did not just see a burning bush. He was himself the burning bush that was not consumed.  

 I am reminded of that powerful scene from Philadelphia where Andrew Becket (Tom Hanks) and Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) are listening to an exhilarating aria sung by Maria Callas as Madelena in Umberto Giardano’s opera, Andrea Chanier, as she watches the family home burning after her mother had died saving her.  It’s a climatic piece in the film where the two are preparing for their final day in court when Andy will testify on his own behalf against his former employer who he contends terminated his association with the firm when it was learned he was an active homosexual with AIDS. Andy pours his heart out, filled as it is with deep love for life amid bitter sorrow for what is transpiring in his defenseless body,  translating with tearful anguish as Maria Callas sings with the fullness of her enormous voice from the depth of her passionate soul: “Look!” he utters through his tears, “The place that cradled me is burning!  . . . I bring sorrow to those who love me . . . It is during this sorrow that love came to me as a voice filled with ardor . . . It said: ‘Live still!  I am life! ….I am divine!  I am oblivion!  I am the God that comes down from the heavens to the earth and makes of the earth a heaven.  I am love!  I am love!’”  

This scene always splits my heart open to its core longing to fully and freely reveal my Self to my world, to let love manifest in all of its beauty and unconditional generosity, all of its non-judgmental acceptance, without consuming this flesh.  As things are now, it will be consumed in the end, even though all that is in me says it could be otherwise — and one day shall be.       

Hormonal chemistry brings the fire of love into the body-temple. Thus is it cleansed, made new and lifted to its true vibratory level as the Cathedral of our Milky Way Galaxy is reordered by cosmic forces.  These forces are at work within Gaia, with whom we share an inseparable bond.  What happens within Gaia happens within us, and what happens within us happens within Gaia.  We are one with our Earth Mother, and through her with the Cosmos.  We breathe the same breath of life. We are one with our Father, the Great Spirit Creator Gaia embodies, along with the entire solar entity. We may well honor this Father and this Mother that our days may be long upon the land which the LORD our God has given us, recalling the promise of Moses’s seventh commandment. 🔯

(Excerpted from SACRED ANATOMY— where Spirit and flesh dance in the fires of creation, and adapted for this blog post.)

I will continue sharing excerpts from SACRED ANATOMY in this blog series.  Until then,

Be Love. Be Loved

Anthony

For information about my books, see my website. 

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Body Temple, Books on spirituality, Dr. Palombo's blog, Educational, Endocrine system, Energy anatomy, Healing Tones, Healing Tones Blog, Holistic Healing, Homeostasis, Hypothalamus, Incarnation, Pineal Gland, Sacred Anatomy, Stress Response

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