LISTEN TO THE AUDIO RECORDING BELOW
To find out more about these “Bedtime Stories” read this article.
Remember, you are connected by relationship. That’s how you grew.
You are merging and emerging, supported by fluid space.
THE YOLK SAC
Very early on, you were three layers - front (endoderm) back (ectoderm) and middle (mesoderm). Never flat, we are three dimensional!
At some point, you folded. Your forebrain was drawn downward by your heart.
Your front layer gives rise to the yolk sac. From the horizontal folding of your front layer, the yolk sac is drawn into your body, both upward and downward. It becomes your digestive tract.
Your front body is where you receive nourishment.
Your back layer and your front layer come together in two spots. You grow a vertical axis. This becomes your mouth and your anus.
Within the boundaries of your mother or carrier, we twist, spiral and curve. We make space for ourselves.
YOU BUD INTO FORM
Your digestive and respiratory system develop from your gut tube. The respiratory tube forms as an outgrowth of your digestive tube. From your gut tube, your lung buds. This means that your digestive system and your respiratory system arise from the same place.
Organs continue to bud, like your liver, gall bladder and pancreas. Your esophagus starts out short and elongates as your gut unfurls at a quick pace.
Your intestines arise from the back of the foregut, the midgut and the hindgut. Expanding and returning, your intestinal loops begin to form. Your intestines follow a spirallic pathway.
Swiftly, your stomach, spleen and pancreas do an enthusiastic rotating dance! They rotate right to left, where they find their place, underneath your left ribs, snuggling up against each other.
Your liver and gallbladder get into the swooping dance of their fellow budding organs. They move to the place they are now in your body - to the right under your ribs.
Touch your belly, and those intestinal loops. Sense your breath.
As you grew, the intestinal growth includes a lot of returning, growing and looping. They are suspended by mesentery, an organ that connects much of your intestines to the back of your abdominal wall.
Imagine for a moment our four-legged friends. What must it be like having our organs situated in the front of ourselves and close to the earth.
Soft belly. Close to the earth. Bringing in nourishment, as we do, from the plants and the trees.
A PRACTICE
Connect to your front body and how you bring in nourishment. Sense the long pathway of your digestive tract from your mouth, down your throat, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, and anus.
Lie your soft belly on the earth. If you can’t do this, imagine and sense it while you touch your belly.
Try some rotating movements while connecting to your digestive tract.
Cultural problems can create physical problems. How has the collective influenced how you experience your digestive tract?
What is the consciousness of your digestive tract?
How do you take in life? How do you digest it? How do you let it go?
May we create a culture that slows down to digest. Where we all have enough. Where we only take in what we need and share the resources we have. Where we focus on becoming fertile ancestors for future generations.
I hope you enjoyed my story, which may or may not be true, about the ways your digestive system grew. How you rotated into budding flowers of unfurling organs that is your quirky body.
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