Sequencing describes the quality of how subsequent moments are strung
together. Imagine a bike chain: The shape and qualities of each link in
the chain will determine what it feels like when you ride the bike. The
loop can be broken down into stages. You can move in close and look at
each link on its own, or you can pan out and see the links strung together
as a whole chain, as a loop. The fluidity with which the sequence loops
is important. If you’ve ever ridden a bike with a well-oiled
chain, you’ve experienced the seamlessness of the ride: smooth. If your bike chain is
rusted, or if one of the links is missing a screw, you feel it in your ride
as a rough spot each time that segment of the chain comes through. All
sequences have unique characteristics in which one phase may be different
from another.
Tree growth has a sequence, brushing your teeth is a sequence, and
long-term projects, like growing a business or forming a relationship,
are sequences. Imagine that expansion–contraction
of your first cell has a sequence, as do your first heartbeat and your first movement in the
womb. From where do the influences that shape your sequences arise?
Your mother? Your father? Your genes? The human genome? Your environment?
When you think about it, the number of possibilities is immense.
Clusters of cells come together, and their combined sequencing will
shape the sequence of an organ. The organ will pulse, react, and disperse
enzymes and hormones as dictated by the composite sequencing of its
cells. Gradually, a whole person will move, respond, and live as an orchestra
of sequences. Even personality is a mosaic of sequences.
Click to send a Tweetable: Does how you were born influence how your brush your teeth? Yes, your history’s in your sequence!
I never knew why I used to get crushing head pain and a feeling like I was going to die just before big events like talks, presentations, and exams until I realized, “wait a minute” isn’t this just a little fishy? The feelings don’t match the reality.
You see although a common experience among babies born in the 70’s, the OB at my birth used forceps to pull me out with a little hit of a demerol derivative, likely to help my mom stand the pain of the forceps let alone childbirth. Now that I’ve had a chance to do some therapy around my birth, I think I’ve seen a camera angle that said, “you know, all my mom probably needed was a little more support, more pressure on her back, and she and I might have figured out how to get me unstuck in my “sunny-side up” or posterior position (when a baby is facing up towards the front of her mother’s body rather than the easier to maneuver back towards her spine position.)
But until that time, on the eve of big events, I would get “stuck”, feel like I want someone to come and “pull me out of it” combined with a deep sense of doom (the drug imprint). It was like getting vertigo and with a shot of amnesia juice. I’d just go with it and figure there was something inadequate about my capacities (and in a way, there was, I hadn’t learned how to birth myself without those interruptions). After touching into how my body still wanted to get born and tracing through those trajectories, I hardly get the forceps/drug sequence now. Maybe there’s still a little nervousness about three days before my events where I seem to forget everything I’ve done to prepare. But hey, I can work with that.
I wonder what your sequence has to tell you?
Next session will look at the third of three Sahius episodes and conclude with Recapitulation…the most strange and surprising way our beings try to bring us to wholeness.