Six Limbs?
In my September 2023 post, I offered that we have 6 limbs. Let’s look at this from a developmental perspective. While you are forming in utero, by week 8 after conception, you will have two arms, two legs, a head and a tail, equaling 6 limbs. Subtly at first and then more and more pronounced, you begin to move in your watery environment. Nourishment and waste removal occur through the umbilical attachment to your mother, and all of your movements are organized around this ‘navel centre’. In Body-Mind Centering ® we call this movement pattern ‘navel radiation’. As you move, each of your equally important limbs is receiving information about body position and relationship to other body parts (proprioception) as well as the sense of motion (kinesthesia) whilst moving around your body centre. For about another 7 months, you are developing key relationships of each limb to body centre, as well as over 20 more combinations of limbs in relation to each other and to body centre. So in navel radiation we are both differentiating AND integrating our limbs to our body centre. This provides a foundation for subsequent vertebral patterns that develop after birth.
How can you nurture this in your adult body? EXPLORE this 30 min experiential: Heat up a wheat bag as this will help you with your proprioception. Lay comfortably on your back, placing the warm wheat bag on your belly. Bring your consciousness to your belly area and breathe into this area. Be gentle, inviting the breath to manifest more clearly over time. (Adding a gentle hum can assist in sensing this more deeply.) When you feel your connection into centre, move the wheat bag (better yet, have a friend do this for you) to your hand. Then breathe into the pathway from your body centre <- -> hand. Take your time to really sense this bi-directional connection. Then continue with each of your 6 limbs: hand, head, other hand, foot, tailbone, other foot.Now begin to move gently with this enhanced navel radiation connectivity. What do you notice? Do some limbs feel more easeful? Others that may feel blocked? What is the quality of your mind? Rest and absorb the experience.
