Self Experiment in Anatomy: A Personal Tour of A Human Body

Posted on December 17, 2010 by randomyriad

Introduction

The body you tour will be your own, and therefore may or may not contain the same parts. Each body is unique. Though produced by the same process initially, each will go through its own lifetime of actions, reactions and incidents that produce its present form. Each experience will be unique and have different results. Each individual will come to this exploration with his or her own predispositions, life experience, and emotional state. Each experience will be affected by the timing and events surrounding the life of the person inhabits during execution. It is all together. There is no separating the physical and sensual from the mental and emotional. Maybe that is why I wanted to try this, to touch and move each part of the physical shell, moving that concrete information to a place where it can relate to more abstract aspects of me. Maybe the more the abstract me knows the physical me the more I will be able to inhabit my life in a more complete way.

Each human body is a miraculous organic conglomeration of tissues, structures, and processes that we cannot hope to understand completely how it came to be and how it works, but we each have one to explore. It is the one physical thing that belongs to us  from the beginning to the end of our lives. The body you have is unique to this world and yours alone to discover in this personal way, the explored and the explorer inhabiting the same moment of experience.

Part 1

The Head and Neck

Run fingers over the top of the head, noticing the underlying dome of bone very near the surface. Note the color, density, and location of hair and the skin of the scalp.

Move a hand to the back of the head, proceeding down over the knobby protuberance at the base of the skull.

Walk fingers along the ridge at the base of the skull, noticing where the muscles of neck attach to the skull.

Grasp the back of the neck between fingers and thumb and rotate the head, note the amount and change in tension in the muscles.

Now, feel the swelling of bone on either side behind the ears, continuing forward to the base of outer ear around the lumpy bone surface covered thinly by skin.

Grasp the shell-like part of the external ear, tracing the outer rim to the lobe hanging on the lower part.

Feel the stiff projection just in front of the ear hole, pressing it firmly causing the cartilage to shift under the skin.

Push these projections back over the ears to cover the ear holes and hum, sing or recite a short poem to hear the voice that travels in vibrations through bone.

Next place two fingers on temple in front of the top of the shell of the ear, feel the pulsations of the artery that ascends in between the skin and bone to supply blood to the scalp.

Press the fingers firmly in the space between ear and cheek to feel the hinge of the jaw in motion through the muscles and skin.

Move fingers onto the bony arch of the cheek feel the skin of the face bunch and stretch as the muscles underneath contract and relax as expressions change.

Place the hands over the eyes feel the lashes against the palms as the eyes blink.

Squeeze the eyes shut tight and open them wide, and feel the movement of the eyebrows against the hand.

Trace a finger around the entire margin of the bony socket noting the spongy duct just beside the nose.

Place the pointer finger and thumb of one hand on the outside of the eyebrows on either side of the face and slide them together coming into a pinch at the uppermost part of the nose.

Slide them down the nose over the bridge to the fleshy tip.

Next pinch the middle between the nostrils gently and spread the finger and thumb out noting the flexibility of the structure.

Pull and twist and fondle the bulb of the nose.

Then slide one finger down into the groove above the center of the upper lip and down, continuing around the lips to the lower lip noting the border between lips and skin and the difference in sensitivity.

Move your tongue over the surfaces on the inside of the mouth noting and counting teeth, exploring the spongy floor and hard ridged ceiling and as far back in the throat as possible.

Use lips and tongue to create popping, clicking sounds changing the sound and resonance by changing the shape of lips and cheeks.

Place foods of different textures, shapes and flavors. Chew and swallow paying attention to function of each part of the mouth and throat.

Drink both with and without a straw, swishing the liquid around and swallow again paying attention to the role of muscles and structures as well as the sounds and sensations produced.

Purse the lips together into a small hole and blow air through to produce a whistling sound try to control the pitch by changing the size of the opening.

Move fingers down the fleshy part of the cheeks under the eyes, pressing to feel the hardness of teeth and gums underneath.

At the bottom, grasp the lower jaw from underneath with fingers on the outside and thumb under pushing up into the soft space in back of the chin.

Move fingers up and down the jaw line from the chin to below the ear, tracing the lower jaw.

Place fingers around the side of the neck to the back where the small bumps of the upper spine join the skull and move down to where the vertebrae begin to bulge out at the top of the shoulder blades.

Move fingers around the base of the neck noting the cable-like structure in the of muscles and tendons.

Grasp the chin between index finger and thumb,  while stretching the mouth into a wide grimace, puckering the lips and frowning  feeling the change of shape at each contortion.

Pinch down along the lose flesh under the chin moving down to where it curves into the neck.

Place a finger and thumb gently on either side of the voice box and speak, sing, cough, swallow and laugh feeling the vibrations and shifting of the whole structure.

Whisper, talk, sing a song, shout and scream.

Listen to the voice that comes out, noting its range of pitch and  loudness as well subtler textures and timbres produced by slight adjustments in the positioning of oral structures, air pressure, and loosening and tightening of the larynx .

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My Life Since July:The Cover of Another Finished Journal

Posted on December 15, 2010 by randomyriad

Just a small journal with a couple of poems, a few doodles, some dreams. I was so busy during this one I hardly had time to write more than a few lines a day, but I like the cover and this doodle I did in September. I don’t doodle as much because I don’t work for Head Start, not so many long only slightly helpful trainings to keep myself engaged in.

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A Strange Introduction to a Truly Odd Tale

Posted on December 10, 2010 by randomyriad

Promantia

And they also tell the story

of Papadiabolous the Devil and his company, and of two of the hidden lives of Finnegan;  and how it is not always serious to die, the first time it happens.

Here is one man who was buried twice and now lies still (but uneasy of mind) in his two separate graves. Here is another man who died twice—not at all the same thing. And here are several who are disinclined to stay dead: they don’t like it, they won’t accept it.

Given here, for the first time anywhere, are the bearings and correct location of the Terrestrial Paradise down to the last second of longitude. You may follow them. You may go there.

Here also will be found the full account of where the Devil himself is buried, and the surprising name that is on his tombstone boldly spelled out. And much else.

We will not lie to you. This is a do-it –yourself thriller or nightmare. Its present order is only the way it comes in the box. Arrange it as you will.

Set off the devils and the monsters, the wonderful beauties and the foul murderers, the ships and the oceans of middle space, the corpses and the revenants, set them off in whatever apposition you wish. Glance quickly to discover whether you have not the mark on your own left wrist, barely under the skin. Build with these colored blocks your own dramas of love and death and degradation. Learn the true topography: the monstrous and wonderful archetypes are not inside you, not in your own unconsciousness; you are inside them, trapped and howling to get out.

Build things with this as with an old structo set. Here is the Devil Himself with his several faces. Here is an ogress, and a mermaid, both of them passing as ordinary women to the sightless. Here is a body which you yourself may bury in the sand. Here is the mark of the false octopus that has either seven or nine tentacles. Here is the shock when the very dead man that you helped bury continues on his way as a very live man, and looks at you as though he knows something that you do not. Here is a suitcase with 36,000 pieces of very special paper in it. Here is Mr. X, and a left-footed killer who follows and follows. Here are those of a different flesh; and may you yourself not be of that different flesh?

Put the nightmare together. If you do not wake up screaming, you have not put it together well.

Old Burton urged his subscribers to keep their copies of the Nights under lock and key. There are such precipices here! Take it in full health and do not look down as you go. If you look down you will fall and be lost forever.

Is that not an odd introduction? I don’t understand it at all.

This is the introduction to R. A. Lafferty‘s The Devil is Dead, and it just gets stranger as it goes along.

I read this when I was in high school. I am appreciating his high flying prose even more now that I have read Pynchon and Barth. Lafferty’s love of language and oral and common storytelling traditions shines throughout this odd little novel. It is like he is sitting across a campfire telling you a wild tale of the night.

Posted in Check this out, Fiction, mindworks, my museum of inspiration, Mythical and mysterious, Other peoples words, Word play | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Two Worlds Touch Here: The End of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy

Posted on December 6, 2010 by randomyriad
Cover of

Cover via Amazon

“Two worlds touch here. You think men have power to call forth what they will? Evoke a world, awake or sleeping? Make it breathe and then set out upon it figures which a glass gives back or which the sun acknowledges? Quicken those figures with one’s own joy and despair? Can a man be so hid from himself?

You call forth the world God has formed and that world only. Nor is this life of yours by which you set such store your doing. However you may choose to tell it.

Our decisions do not have some alternative. We may contemplate a choice, but we pursue one path only.”

Cormac McCarthy speaking through the Mexican drifter at the end of “Cities of the Plain“

He is speaking of dreams, but also about the creative process behind writing fiction, or is he talking about being a fictional character. Or are we all just a minor players in God’s great novel. It is a well written book, but the story of the dream as told by the Mexican drifter to the aging main character at the end of the book was difficult to follow, and I am sure meant as a commentary on the connection between fiction and life, dreams and life, all human endeavor. I will have to go back and read it again, maybe in a month or two to see if I can pull more out of it. It is quite packed with juicy ideas.

Of the three books in the border trilogy I liked the second, “The Crossing“, the best. It  was consistently compelling throughout.  I felt as if I was well within the skin the main character, and at the end I sat alone in the rain and cried. At the end of this one I was left with a big question mark. I think something important was there, but I am still not sure.

As always McCarthy’s crisp and literate prose is a joy to read. Whenever I read one of his books, I feel like I know more about the English language and how to use it to it’s best advantage.

Posted in Check this out, Dreamtime, Fiction, mindworks, Other peoples words, Questions and riddles, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Three Quotes: Art, Music, and Modern Culture

Posted on December 5, 2010 by randomyriad

“The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”
– Frida Kahlo

This is what I aspire to in art and music, my ideal. She lived her life like a work of art. Her art is so visceral, a naked wire connecting her to the world and whoever views her work back to her life. She is the epitome of a truly artistic soul.

 

 

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.” – Miles Davis

A true pioneer thinks about what could exist, and what is in the world that is waiting to be found. He was a difficult and often contentious person, but his music was always and still is a step in a direction nobody else has taken. I listen to Live/Evil and Bitches Brew now and it still seems fresh and raw that it could bleed. His 50’s and early 6o’s work with Coltrane, Monk and Hancock are amazingly fresh. Someone said that what made Louis Armstrong great was the notes he didn’t play, his choice of notes along with the power and passion he put into the notes he did play, but Miles took it into a new place so cool. Louis Armstrong made jazz a path; Miles followed that path into a cool new country where all directions are possible. Jazz is still there.

 

 

“Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world”– Carlyle

This quote seems more true today than at any other time in human history. I am not sure which Carlyle said or wrote this (there are several to choose from) but it was too good to pass up on account of that. If anybody knows or finds out, please leave a comment.

Posted in Check this out, make your own world, music, my museum of inspiration, Other peoples words, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment