Archiv für den Monat Februar 2012
Connecting with the Earth
A transcription of a PDF-Article found here:
http://www.somatic.com/articles/connect_w_earth.pdf
Ralph Strauch, Ph.D.
Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner
®
P.O. Box 194
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
(310)454-8322
rstrauch@somatic.com
www.somatic.com
Human beings and our hominid ancestors have walked upright for over three million years — mostly barefoot on natural terrain, in a continuing and intimate relationship with the Earth beneath their feet. That relationship fostered the balance and physical agility — rare in contemporary urban society — that allowed them to walk easily across a log over a stream with things balanced on their heads. It also fostered a deep enduring sense of self, and an accompanying deep sense of psychological and even spiritual security. Comparatively recently, that relationship began to change. We smoothed out the surfaces we walked on —
the floors, courtyards, and streets. We began to encase our feet, probably in soft animal skins at first, then in increasingly rigid and confining footwear. We moved from the countryside into towns and cities, further
reducing our contact with the natural surface. People now live their entire lives without ever stepping on a natural surface, or doing so only in stiff rigid-soled shoes. Today, the close intimate contact with the Earth that
our ancestors took for granted has largely disappeared, and with it, much of our natural grace and agility. Few people can comfortably cross a stream on a log; fewer still can do so with something on their head. More
importantly, perhaps, the deeper sense of self and the emotional and spiritual security that contact provided are also gone. Anxiety is rampant and expresses itself in many forms — from the macho aggressiveness with which some men mask their insecurity, through the chronic low-level angst that many people feel, to the barely repressed terror with which some share their lives. I’m not arguing that these losses are caused by walking on flat floors and paved surfaces; the cause-and-effect links at work here are not that simple. Flat floors and paved surfaces are but one of the many ways in which contemporary life styles violate our inbuilt biological expectations, restricting development of our full potential and diminishing our human experience. The function of support, of maintaining ourselves upright in gravity, is a fundamental ongoing base on which most of our other activities depend. Yet we take little notice of gravity or of how we respond to it, so all-pervasive is its presence. This is as it should be. Basic activities like support (and breathing, digestion, and circulating the blood) should not require conscious attention, and we have evolved low-level reflexes to maintain these activities automatically. Yet our civilized life style somehow disorganizes and disrupts these natural reflexes, leading to stiff chests which restrict natural breathing, ulcers and other digestive problems, and hypertension in the walls of our blood vessels, as well as the problems with support that concern us here. Three systems in the body contribute to the function of support — the skeleton, the musculature, and the nervous system. The skeleton is a system of rigid bones, hinged together at articulating joints, that gives the body its basic shape and structure. Muscles attach to the bones; their contractions (in various combinations) provide movement, stabilize joints, and produce action. The nervous system senses the state of the world (both within and without the body) and controls the musculature in order to (sometimes) accomplish what we want.
The skeleton and the musculature share the mechanical task of supporting the body in gravity. Ideally, the weight of the body should be balanced through the skeleton. The musculature should configure the skeleton to bear that weight, but should bear very little weight directly. Supported in this way you feel light and fluid, so that “a fly alighting on your body would set it in motion,” as Chinese T’ai Chi masters put it. You experience the pressure of the ground through your skeleton as a secure connection with the Earth.
Few of us, though, experience this sort of ease and fluidity. Instead, we carry our bodies slightly out of balance, then use muscular effort to support our off-balance weight. Thus chronically contracted for weight-bearing, our muscles cannot deliver easy fluid movement. We feel heavy and stiff; movement requires power and effort. The upward pressure from the ground cannot pass cleanly through the skeleton, but gets dissipated in the efforting musculature. Our secure connection with the Earth is lost. We feel a sense of insecurity, which we project onto our work, relationships, and other aspects of our lives.
Read the whole article here -> http://www.somatic.com/articles/connect_w_earth.pdf
Find out who is tracking you Online : Collusion Add On for Firefox
Mozilla Foundation (along with Ford Foundation) has launched an add-on for Firefox web browser named – Collusion which will allow you to discover the sites which is tracking your online activity and not only that – it will also provide you some options to control it i.e you can turn off their tracking if you want. So we are moving towards a more transparent web, now take a look at how you are going to visualize the data (of trackers and how they’re linked) – Here is a snapshot taken on my browser. Using Collusion you can visualize the tracking data/activity in real time – right from your browser – in one click.
via Find out who is tracking you Online : Collusion Add On for Firefox.
Letzte Chance: Google Webprotokoll jetzt löschen – News – CHIP Online
Wissen Sie eigentlich, was Google über Sie weiß? Jede einzelne Ihrer Suchanfragen wird gespeichert. Daraus zieht die Suchmaschine, wenn Sie angemeldet sind, Rückschlüsse auf Ihre Vorlieben und passt zukünftige Suchergebnisse daran an. Wenn am 1. März Googles neue Datenschutzbestimmungen in Kraft treten, werden Ihre gesammelten Suchanfragen und besuchten Webseiten auch für andere Google-Dienste wie YouTube und Google+ verwendet. Wenn Sie das nicht wollen, müssen Sie jetzt handeln.
via Letzte Chance: Google Webprotokoll jetzt löschen – News – CHIP Online.
