Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (40 page)

A combination of the Energy Wash and Sipping Qi is a good refresher sequence, removing what you don’t need and filling with new energy. Always remember to be loose and relaxed while doing any of the series. Enjoy!

Core Wave

You may recognize this as a basic tai chi movement. It also can be done by itself for relaxation.

Start in the Standing Home posture. Remember to create the inner smile. Your arms are at your sides.

In a wavelike, easy movement, raise your arms slowly in front of you, about shoulder-width apart, wrists relaxed. Move your arms in wavelike rounded motions. Bring your hands and arms no higher than your
chest. Your wrists stay soft, elbows are dropped and relaxed, and palms face downward.

Now lower your arms with palms facing down.

Allow your whole body to get into this movement, not simply your arms. You may feel as if you are pumping energy up your back and from your feet as you raise your arms. Experience yourself as flowing waves of water, fluid as the waters within you. Remember to breathe.

Heart Thymus Wave

This is a good tensegrity movement that stretches you and helps strengthen the thymus, one of the major immune organs and birthplace of our T cells. When you are done with this sequence, you can gently tap your chest with your fingertips above your sternum. You can also hum to your thymus. The thymus tap and hum is said to be a good preventive strategy during cold and flu season.

Continuing from the core wave, when your arms and hands reach chest height, extend them out to the sides with palms facing forward. Turn your head to one side and flex your wrists back.

Bring your palms toward each other in a soft, flowing wave, and then extend again, turning your head to the other side, once more flexing your wrists.

Bring your palms toward each other and lower your arms, palms down. Repeat two more times.

Integration: Balancing Yin and Yang, Right and Left Hemispheres

This is another tensegrity movement. It also balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain and is equivalent to alternate nostril breathing in yoga.

Beginning in the same Standing Home posture as all the other poses, bring your right hand in front of your belly, palm down. Your elbow is
gently bent. Your left hand is hanging straight, not rigid, at your side, palm down.

Raise both your arms simultaneously. Extend the left arm out to your side while the right rises along the midline of your body. Continue until they both reach above your head, fully extended, palms facing one another. Pause.

Turn both palms down, with your left palm now going down the midline and the right arm extended out to the side. Slowly lower both arms.

Now reverse the sequence. When your arms reach the level of your belly, raise your left arm up the center while your right arm rises to the side. Repeat this three times on each side or until you get the rhythm of the movement.

This sequence took me
weeks
to learn, so be easy on yourself. When I recently taught this series, most in the class got it on the first try while one person never got it.

Tip:
This is an exercise you have to let your body learn without your mind trying to figure it out.

Gathering and Storing the Qi: Closing the Circuits

When you are finished practicing qigong, you always gather in the qi and “close the circuits.”

Take the Standing Home pose and cup your hands in front of your lower dan tien, your belly. Now widen your stance and reach behind and around you, gathering the qi in a circular embrace. Embrace this qi in front of your belly and then press your palms close to your body, forming an upside down V with your hands. Remain in this position for a few moments. This is another position in which you can simply stand, relaxed, with gently bent knees and inner smile. Close your eyes and let the qi move you, fill you, and replenish your cells. This can be another form of a standing meditation.

If you’ve never practiced tai chi or qigong, it’s always useful to work with an experienced teacher. You may also find it worthwhile to keep
a journal and occasionally map your energy and watch what happens. When Shirley Dockstader and I were developing this series for classes we were teaching at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, her energy mapping showed a relatively steady and high energy level, whereas mine showed extreme peaks and valleys that balanced out somewhat the more regularly I did this practice. Shirley was a longtime practitioner of qigong, whereas I was a beginner at that time, almost twenty years ago.

To track your own energy level, make about a dozen copies of the template of the energy graph in appendix 1. Map your energy daily, noting if there’s a consistent pattern of highs and lows. For a first go at this, I recommend paying attention to your qualities of energy for at least a week, until a pattern emerges or you observe a consistent low time of the day. Then you can take one of two approaches with the qigong practice. The first is to choose a time to practice the sequence daily for at least ten minutes. Map your energy to see if your pattern has changed or your energy has been raised after the qigong. The second approach is even simpler. Use an energy graph to evaluate your energy level both before and after your qigong practice. Mark the graph with your energy level before the exercises, practice the qigong series, and then assess your energy and mark the graph again. You can use one page simply for marking energy, mood, and tension before and after practice. It becomes very convincing if you “cultivate energy” at a low point of your day.

Notes

Chapter 1 Sanctuary–Embrace

1.
 Lauterwasser,
Water Sound Images,
12, 38–42.

2.
 Hart and Stevens,
Drumming at the Edge of Magic,
11.

3.
 Teilhard de Chardin,
The Phenomenon of Man,
113.

Chapter 2 I AM–Recognize

1.
 Vincent and Revillard, “Characterization of Molecules Bearing HLA.”

2.
 American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, “The Cost Burden of Autoimmune Disease.”

3.
 Rose, “Mechanisms of Autoimmunity.”

4.
 Weinshenker, “Natural History of Multiple Sclerosis.”

5.
 Macfarlane, “Olfaction in the Development of Social.”

6.
 Wedekind, “MHC-Dependent Mate Preferences in Humans.”

7.
 Laurance, “Why Women Can’t Sniff.”

8.
 German et al., “Olfaction, Where Nutrition, Memory.”

9.
 Demarquay, Ryvlin, and Royet, “Olfaction and Neurological Diseases.”

10.
 Lafreniere and Mann, “Anosmia: Loss of Smell.”

11.
 Cheney, “Chronic Fatigue, Mycotoxins, Abnormal”; and Cheney, “New Insights into the Pathophysiology.”

12.
 Reichlin, “Neuroendocrine-Immune Interactions.”

13.
 Haffner, “The Metabolic Syndrome: Inflammation.”

14.
 Stoll and Bendszus, “Inflammation and Atherosclerosis.”

15.
 Rood et al., “The Effects of Stress and Relaxation.”

16.
 Bartrop et al., “Depressed Lymphocyte Function.”

17.
 Mahlberg, “Therapeutic Healing with Sound.”

18.
 Dr. Angeles Arrien, personal communication in a course taught by Dr. Arrien.

Chapter 3 Receptivity–Listen

1.
de Duve,
Vital Dust.

2.
Siegel et al.,
Basic Neurochemistry.

3.
Stapleton, “Sir James Black and Propranolol.”

4.
Hassett, “The Sweat Gland.”

5.
Sapolsky,
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

6.
Kabat-Zinn,
Wherever You Go, There You Are.

7.
Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, and Glaser, “Disclosure of Traumas and Immune Function.”

8.
Smyth et al., “Effects of Writing About Stressful.”

9.
Berkman and Syme, “Social Networks, Host Resistance and Mortality.”

10.
Bruhn, “An Epidemiological Study of Myocardial Infarctions.”

11.
Astin et al., “Mind-Body Medicine.”

12.
Cohen, Tyrell, and Smith, “Psychological Stress and Susceptibility.”

13.
Heinrichs et al., “Social Support and Oxytocin Interact.”

14.
Taylor,
The Tending Instinct.

15.
Kroeger, “Oxytocin: Key Hormone.”

16.
Naber et al., “Intranasal Oxytocin Increases Fathers’.”

17.
Byrd, “Positive Therapeutic Effects.”

18.
Harris et al., “A Randomized, Controlled Trial.”

19.
Dossey, “The Return of Prayer.”

Chapter 4 The Fabric of Life–Choose

1.
Ingber, “The Architecture of Life.”

2.
Caspar, “Movement and Self-Control.”

3.
Ingber, “Cellular Tensegrity.”

4.
Fuller, “Tensegrity.”

5.
Castaneda, “Magical Passes.”

6.
Horgan, “Consciousness, Microtubules, and the Quantum.”

7.
Desai and Mitchison, “Microtubule Polymerization Dynamics.”

8.
Ron Nadeau, personal communication, Fort Bragg, CA.

9.
Ainsworth, “Stretching the Imagination.”

10.
Paszek et al., “Tensional Homeostasis and the Malignant Phenotype.”

11.
Evans, “Substrate Stiffness Affects Early Differentiation.”

12.
Winkelman,
Shamanism.

13.
Castaneda, “Magical Passes.”

14.
Albrecht-Buehler, “Autonomous Movements of Cytoplasmic Fragments.”

15.
Albrecht-Buehler, “A Rudimentary Form of Cellular ‘Vision.’”

16.
Albrecht-Buehler, “Does the Geometric Design of Centrioles.”

17.
Penrose,
The Emperor’s New Mind.

Chapter 5 Energy–Sustain

1.
Einstein, “Ist die Trägheit.”

2.
Cohen,
The Way of Qigong.

3.
Margulis and Sagan,
Microcosmos,
31, 33, 128–136.

4.
Palomaki et al., “Ubiquinone Supplementation During Lovastatin Treatment.”

5.
Moons, Eisenberger, and Taylor, “Anger and Fear Responses to Stress,” 24, 215–19.

6.
Thayer, “Energy, Tiredness, and Tension,” 119.

7.
Barrett,
Molecular Messages of the Heart.

8.
Wolf et al., “Reducing Frailty and Falls in Older Persons.”

9.
Sheldrake,
The Rebirth of Nature.

Chapter 6 Purpose–Create

1.
Barrett, “Induction of Differentiation Markers.”

2.
The GDB Human Genome Database Hosted by RTI International [online], North Carolina,
gdbreports/CountGeneByChromosome.html
,

3.
Elgar and Vavouri, “Tuning in to the Signals.”

4.
“Genes and Chromosomes,” Centre for Genetics Education. Internet:
genetics.edu.au
.

5.
If you are intrigued by numerology, see Angeles Arrien,
The Tarot Handbook: Practial Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols
(New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1997.)

6.
Misteli and Spector, eds.,
The Nucleus.

7.
Crick, “The Genetic Code.”

8.
Watters, “DNA Is Not Destiny.”

9.
Waterland and Jirtle, “Transposable Elements.”

10.
Lipton,
The Biology of Belief.

11.
Li and Ho, “p53-Dependent DNA Repair and Apoptosis.”

12.
Hardy, “Apoptosis in the Human Embryo.”