Posted on 17 Mar, 2011 -
Sing the Body Electric
Some fascinating ideas for you from Lyall Watson’s amazing book, Supernature
Including: Why we (and celery) feel uneasy in certain places… how sun spots can cause social change… and how the human body is made up almost entirely of electricity…
Dear Reader,
On a day-to-day basis I normally equate ‘electricity’ with things like televisions, hoovers, video games and mobile phones. All things, I suppose, that I think of as man-made, inferior to the glories of nature and true art and culture… and a source of potential physical harm to my body and to the moral and educational advancement of my children.
I also connect electricity to our huge and world-damaging consumption of the fossil fuels that we use to generate vast amounts of it.
What I forget, of course, is that there is electricity and electromagnetic forces everywhere.
We normally think of ourselves, for example, as being made of solid matter. But like all solid matter, however, we are made up of atoms which have only the tiniest amount of mass in them known as the ‘nucleus’ along with clouds of electricity and almost endless amounts of space.
As Lyall Watson says in his fabulous book, Supernature:
“If the atom were to be inflated until if filled an Olympic stadium, this nucleus would be the size of a pea lying alone in the center of the track. There is proportionately as much empty space inside the atom at there is in the universe.”
If you were to take a man and squeeze him out like a sponge, he goes on to say, you would be left with a small pile of solid substance no larger than a flyspeck.
Electromagnetic travels through us as they traverse the universe
And then, of course, there are the electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves that we are familiar with include the light all around us, radio and television waves and x-rays. But there are waves that we know nothing about that travel round the universe and even through us all the time.
Some waves are so short that “a billion strung together would barely cover a fingernail”. At the other end of the scale, waves have been detected that could be several million miles long and traverse whole galaxies with little effort.
Everything around us - the land, the sun, your desk and your telly… have an effect on our being and perception
Sat eating your breakfast on a Thursday morning, it is easy to forget that we actually live on a planet that is hurtling through space at about 18 1/2 miles per second. If you can imagine the earth as a plum, says Lyall Watson, then life on earth is like a delicate bloom upon that plum.
We are so delicate it would seem, that we are sensitive to many more forces around us than we might imagine as we spoon in the cereal or take another bite out of our toast.
The American Institute of Medical Climatology, for example, showed that the effects of a full moon really does have an effect on humans - and that crimes involving a strong psychotic motive really do reach a peak at these times.
Some scientists have also done research into the effects of sunspots (which create intense magnetic activity) on human behaviour. Years of intense sunspot activity would appear to affect not only illness and disease but also social behaviour. One Russian scientist even pointed out that in the century 1830 to 1930, there were Liberal governments in power in England during sunspot peaks and Conservatives were elected only in quieter years!
How your own life field changes over the course of time
Each of us also has their own life field around them that can be detected by special machinery and has been seen to change throughout the course of our lives according to such factors as ovulation, illness and our own natural rhythms. The life field appears to show signs of change, for example, before the symptoms of disease become manifest.
“Measured over a long period, the rise and fall of voltage can be plotted in steady cycles that indicate the time when an individual is at his best and the times when his vitality is diminished and his efficiency is likely to suffer.”
If we were able to keep a track of our own life field cycles it would enable us to know when might be a good day for us to attend an interview or sit an exam - and when might be a good day for us just to stay in bed!
Why certain places can make us feel good - or uneasy
Another interesting idea that Lyall Watson looks into in Supernature is the way in which different places or rooms can have a marked effect upon us. There are certain islands, for example, where human beings feel intensely uncomfortable and never want to linger. And we are all aware of places where it feels so good just to be.
There are particular areas (known as ‘dowsing fields’ because dowsers get a strong response there) where mice refuse to sleep, cucumbers, celery and ash trees refuse to grow - but which ants favour for building nests on. These areas are also believed to have a negative effect on human health.
One story that I found particularly fascinating was about a French engineer who almost gave up his job because he always felt ill at work. He realised, however, that he only felt ill when he was in his office at the top of the building. He finally worked out one day - by leaning against a wall - that the whole room was vibrating at a very low frequency.
“The source of this energy turned out to be an air-conditioning plant on the roof of a building across the way, and his office was the right shape and the right distance from the machine to resonate in sympathy with it. It was this rhythm, at seven cycles per second, that made him sick.”
A connected idea I picked up from the pages of a woman’s magazine!
There are so many things in our lives that have an impact on us that we can never even hope to detect a half of it.
One useful idea that I did pick up while flicking through a woman’s magazine, however, is that it is good to make a list of things that you KNOW make you feel better.
It is particularly useful, the article said, if you’re going through a minor low patch to remind yourself of the things that have helped lift you out of such periods in the past.
For myself I know that making a visit to an art gallery or spending time in my allotment have a great effect on me. But I don’t always remember that when I most need to.
I also found myself making a list of other things that make me feel better which included drinking green tea… blueberries… broccoli… and thinking about such thoughts as of myself as a speck of dust travelling through the universe on a plum…
Oh, and I also added being in Venice. (Not yet available on prescription through the NHS unfortunately but there’s just something about certain places that must have something to do with the right vibrations of energy or shapes or something...)
It can also be useful to know and understand how certain things make you feel bad
It is also, I believe, a very useful exercise to make a list of things that can make you feel bad. By doing so you may detect certain foods or places, for example, that for some reason react with you in a negative way.
It is also good to know what kind of circumstances, events, happenings or people etc. can have a negative effect on your mood. I know for myself, for example, that certain happenings can have the power to cast a shadow over my life for months. Being aware of the effects that these things have can help us both to deal with and understand them better. It can also allow us to lessen or avoid the effects they might have on us in the future.
Avoid the things that cause you pain and do more of the things that make you happy.
It’s a very simple formula but one that actually works.
Best wishes
