Your Body Is A Vessel Quotes

But let's not be casual about this body, okay?" She nuzzled him back. "It may be your soul that I love, but I'm pretty keen on its vessel, too." Her voice had dropped lower as she spoke, and his response was low and husky in kind. "I can't say I'm sorry to hear that," he said, and brushed his face past hers to kiss a place beneath her ear, sending instant, electric frissons coursing through her body.

Odd to think that the piece of you I know best is already dead. The cells on the surface of your skin are thin and flat without the blood vessels or nerve endings. Dead cells, thickest on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.

Sometimes it's exhausting for me to simply walk into the house. I try and calm myself, remember that I've lived alone before. Sleeping by myself didn't kill me then and will not kill me now. But this what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn't simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it's gone, nothing is whole again.

Living things are restrained by chains. The laws of nature, the flow of time, the vessel known as your “body”, and the existence called your mind. The one chain that people can wield, words.

Your body is a vessel for your experience, and you will be trapped until you realize that what the vessel looks like is not as important as what it can do.

Vampires on TV give us an unhealthy body image stereotype too. Do you know how hard you have to work to get a body like those actors on True Blood or The Vampire Diaries? Try doing that when your blood vessels don’t work anymore and your muscles are slowly starting to waste away.

When I put my hands on your body on your flesh I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching iself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency leaving a gleaming skeleton gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight, the way your flesh occupies momentary space the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth to this present time I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures to reach up around my neck to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.

A song of despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights accumulated. From you the wings of the song birds rose. You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank! In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on. Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. There was the black solitude of the islands, and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms! How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid. Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired. And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. And the word scarcely begun on the lips. This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! From billow to billow you still called and sang. Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel. You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. Deserted like the wharves at dawn. Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

In the vessel of your body, you yourself are the world tree, deep roots in the Earth and a crown of stars. Your essence bridges dimensions.

It is a mistake to think of the body as a vessel. It is as active as any mind, as any soul. And the more you give yourself to it, the harder your life will be.

Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong. How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps, but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travellers at least have a choice. Those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home. Explorers are prepared. But for us, who travel along the blood vessels, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation. We who were fluent find life is a foreign language. Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.

You can think of your body in two ways: 1. As mechanical, like an automobile worth only so many miles or 2. As a living breathing energetic vessel manifested from spirit. Either way will greatly effect the length and quality of your life. Choose wisely.

Your body is the vessel that tethers your soul to this side of the sun. It’s what keeps you here with me. That, and that alone, is what I love it for.

When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love with my whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.

But let's not be too casual about this body, okay?" She nuzzled him back. "It may be your soul that I love, but I'm pretty keen on its vessel, too.

Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it is gone, nothing is whole again.

It's called Gelotology. (Because it gives you Gelo Belly?) Beyond a giggle, a titter, a chuckle, and way past groaning (although groaning has its profound effects as well), it shakes your very corpuscles, a good belly laugh. It releases endorphins, stimulates the body's painkillers, increases neuropeptides which boosts the immune system, expands blood vessels. What????? It relaxes tension and makes you feel happier no matter what the current conditions.

Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, dear reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary. And cultivate distrust of the colour pink. Pink is taken as the colour of innocence, the colour of childhood, but as it spills across the water in the light of the dying sun, do not fall into its pretty path. There, right underneath, lies a bottomless graveyard of children, mothers and men. I shudder to imagine all the Africans rocking in the deep. Every time I have sailed the seas, I have had the sense of gliding over the unburied. Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God's existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel? Do not be fooled by the pretty colour, and do not submit to its beckoning.

Today you're in a hospital. Or at least this morning. This hour. This minute. Where you'll be three minutes from now is anyone's guess. You've begun to notice, though, that, bit by bit the sense of being outside yourself has diminished with each passing day. A critical mass is reached, and now your soul collapses in upon itself. You're back inside the vessel of your body. Just one. Just you. Just an individual. Me.

Imagine you are Siri Keeton: You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months on standby. The body inflates in painful increments: blood vessels dilate; flesh peels apart from flesh; ribs crack in your ears with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through disuse. You're a stick-man, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae. You'd scream if you had the breath. Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right-angles hadn't done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can. They're back now, after all— raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire.

Your spirit shouldn’t be ‘fine.’ It should be effervescent.” The “spirit” in question wasn’t the soul. Nothing so abstract. It was spirit of the body—the clear fluid pumped by the second heart through its own network of vessels, subtler and more mysterious than the primary vascular system. Its function wasn’t properly understood by science. You could live even if your second heart stopped and the spirit hardened in your veins. But it did have some connection to vitality, or “passion,” as Master Hyrrokkin said, and those without it were emotionless, lethargic. Spiritless.

What is it about a hand that seems quintessentially human? The answer must, at some level, be that the hand is a visible connection between us; it is a signature for who we are and what we can attain. Our ability to grasp, to build, and to make our thoughts real lies inside this complex of bones, nerves, and vessels.

Your mind is a reservoir of potential; your heart an ocean of strength; your soul a well of talents; and your body a vessel of power.

I used to give X-ray vision a lot of thought because I couldn’t see how it could work. I mean, if you could see through people’s clothing, then surely you would also see through their skin and right into their bodies. You would see blood vessels, pulsing organs, food being digested and pushed through coils of bowel, and much else of a gross and undesirable nature. Even if you could somehow confine your X-rays to rosy epidermis, any body you gazed at wouldn’t be in an appealing natural state, but would be compressed and distorted by unseen foundation garments. The breasts, for one thing, would be oddly constrained and hefted, basketed within an unseen bra, rather than relaxed and nicely jiggly. It wouldn’t be satisfactory at all—or at least not nearly satisfactory enough. Which is why it was necessary to perfect ThunderVision™, a laserlike gaze that allowed me to strip away undergarments without damaging skin or outer clothing. That ThunderVision, stepped up a grade and focused more intensely, could also be used as a powerful weapon to vaporize irritating people was a pleasing but entirely incidental benefit.

Pain transcends through an invisible crack in your body and slithers inside you. It travels in your vessels, befriends every organ and leaves a great impression as a souvenir. A shaped scar, a burning bruise or a deep wound. This souvenir is a constant reminder of the excruciating past. The brutal wound throbs and it reminds you that the pain has not yet set you free. The tattoo still burns. The tattoo always burns.

Your lungs, smoothed out, would cover a tennis court, and the airways within them would stretch nearly from coast to coast. The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth. The most remarkable part of all is your DNA (or deoxyribonucleic acid). You have a meter of it packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto. Think of it: there is enough of you to leave the solar system. You are in the most literal sense cosmic.

Your body isn’t a thing to be looked at and judged against some standard of perfection that doesn’t even really exist. It’s the vessel that takes you through life, allowin’ you to experience all the beautiful things life has to offer. Food. Sex. Sunsets. Music. Hugs. Laughter. A healthy body is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t treat it like some cheap one-night stand. Treat it like the love of your life. Treat it with respect and tenderness, but most of all, gratitude.

All those posters and PSAs and health class presentations on body image and the way you can burst blood vessels in your face and rupture your esophagus if you can’t stop ramming those sno balls down your throat every night, knowing they’ll have to come back up again, you sad weak girl. Because of all this, Coach surely can’t tell a girl, a sensitive, body-conscious teenage girl, to get rid of the tender little tuck around her waist, can she? She can. Coach can say anything. And there’s Emily, keening over the toilet bowl after practice, begging me to kick her in the gut so she can expel the rest, all that cookie dough and cool ranch, the smell making me roil. Emily, a girl made entirely of donut sticks, cheese powder, and haribo. I kick, I do. She would do the same for me.

If you move enough, your muscles change and grow. So does your mind. The brain initiates movement. But it is, in its turn, remade by movement. New cells are born; new vessels sprout. The same process operates body-­wide. No cell in your body is unaffected by motion. Your very DNA is changed.

The Ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.” Top soul (Vicarious), and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in. Second soul (Jambi), and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. LIGHT. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons. Number three (Wings/Days) is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. The sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead. Number four (The Pot) is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba. Number five (L.C., Lost Keys, Rosetta Stoned) is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands. Number six (Instension) is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives. Number seven (Right in Two) is Sekhu, the Remains

Ladies, your body is a divine portal and the amplifier of each and every DESIRE. It is the pathway to the soul, a vessel to effect redemption.

Treat your body like the altar that it is. Provide it with nourishment, offerings, love, attentive care, worship, etc.

IMAGINE YOU ARE Siri Keeton. You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months on standby. The body inflates in painful increments: blood vessels dilate, flesh peels apart from flesh, ribs crack in your ears with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through disuse. You’re a stick man, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae. You’d scream if you had the breath.

The moon fled eastward like a frightened dove, while the stars changed their places in the heavens, like a disbanding army. 'Where are we?' asked Gil Gil. 'In France,' responded the Angel of Death. 'We have now traversed a large portion of the two bellicose nations which waged so sanguinary a war with each other at the beginning of the present century. We have seen the theater of the War of Succession. Conquered and conquerors both lie sleeping at this instant. My apprentice, Sleep, rules over the heroes who did not perish then, in battle, or afterward of sickness or of old age. I do not understand why it is that below on earth all men are not friends? The identity of your misfortunes and your weaknesses, the need you have of each other, the shortness of your life, the spectacle of the grandeur of other worlds, and the comparison between them and your littleness, all this should combine to unite you in brotherhood, like the passengers of a vessel threatened with shipwreck. There, there is neither love, nor hate, nor ambition, no one is debtor or creditor, no one is great or little, no one is handsome or ugly, no one is happy or unfortunate. The same danger surrounds all and my presence makes all equal. Well, then, what is the earth, seen from this height, but a ship which is foundering, a city delivered up to an epidemic or a conflagration?' 'What are those ignes fatui which I can see shining in certain places on the terrestrial globe, ever since the moon veiled her light?' asked the young man. 'They are cemeteries. We are now above Paris. Side by side with every city, every town, every village of the living there is always a city, a town, or a village of the dead, as the shadow is always beside the body. Geography, then, is of two kinds, although mortals only speak of the kind which is agreeable to them. A map of all the cemeteries which there are on the earth would be sufficient indication of the political geography of your world. You would miscalculate, however, in regard to the population; the dead cities are much more densely populated than the living; in the latter there are hardly three generations at one time, while, in the former, hundreds of generations are often crowded together. As for the lights you see shining, they are phosphorescent gleams from dead bodies, or rather they are the expiring gleams of thousands of vanished lives; they are the twilight glow of love, ambition, anger, genius, mercy; they are, in short, the last glow of a dying light, of the individuality which is disappearing, of the being yielding back his elements to mother earth. They are - and now it is that I have found the true word - the foam made by the river when it mingles its waters with those of the ocean.' The Angel of Death paused. ("The Friend of Death")

Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.

Well, I certainly do hope you’re never in need of a demon hunter, Mr. Bennett, because you can’t use mine! I’ll stand back and watch, debating with you whether the thing trying to crawl inside your body is actually real or not.

Unpacked, you are positively enormous. Your lungs, smoothed out, would cover a tennis court, and the airways within them would stretch nearly from coast to coast. The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth. The most remarkable part of all is your DNA (or deoxyribonucleic acid). You have a meter of it packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto.

Just before words vanish they acquire a sickening pulpy smell, like clumps of dead grass whipped by the wind into dry little spheres, and they spill from the brain and the vocal cords, down through the blood vessels and nerves to the deepest, farthest corners of your body.

Obvious variations aside, there's only one human body. 206 bones, five major organs, 60,000 miles of blood vessels. All it takes is time. Days. Months. Years, spent memorizing the finite ways there are to hurt and break a man. Preparing for all of them. I've escaped from every conceivable deathtrap. Ten times. A dozen times. I can slow my breathing and metabolism to control panic and conserve air. Straitjacket's kindergarten. Locks, too. Benchpressing a pine coffin lid through 600 pounds of loose soil that's filling your mouth, crushing your lungs flat, and shredding your dehydrated muscles? That's harder. But far from impossible.

Feeling challenged is an inherent performance steroid—your body releases more adrenaline than noradrenaline, which means the smooth muscle in your blood vessels dilate, as do your your lungs, and now you have more oxygenated blood going to the tissues that need it. Your body has more energy and your brain can think more clearly.

Firmly planted. Not fallen from on high: sprung up from below. Ochre, the color of burnt honey. The color of a sun buried a thousand years ago and dug up only yesterday. Fresh green and orange stripes running across its still-warm body. Circles, Greek frets: scattered traces of a lost alphabet? The belly of a woman heavy with child, the neck of a bird. If you cover and uncover its mouth with the palm of your hand, it answers you with a deep murmur, the sound of bubbling water welling up from its depths; if you tap its sides with your knuckles, it gives a tinkling laugh of little silver coins falling on stones. It has many tongues: it speaks of the language of clay and minerals, of air currents flowing between canyon walls, of washerwomen as they scrub, of angry skies, of rain. A vessel of baked clay: do not put it in a glass case alongside rare precious objects. It would look quite out of place. Its beauty is related to the liquid that it contains and to the thirst that it quenches. Its beauty is corporal: I see it, I touch it, I smell it, I hear it. If it is empty, It must be filled; if it is full, it must be emptied. I take it by the shaped handle as I would take a woman by the arm, I lift it up, I tip over a pitcher into which I pour milk or pulque - lunar liquids that open and close the doors of dawn and dark, waking a sleeping.

Andreevich. “Don’t be angry with me, Misha. It’s stuffy in here, and hot outside. I don’t have enough air.” “You can see the vent window on the floor is open. Forgive us for smoking. We always forget that we shouldn’t smoke in your presence. Is it my fault that it’s arranged so stupidly here? Find me another room.” “Well, so I’m leaving, Gordosha. We’ve talked enough. I thank you for caring about me, dear comrades. It’s not a whimsy on my part. It’s an illness, sclerosis of the heart’s blood vessels. The walls of the heart muscle wear out, get thin, and one fine day can tear, burst. And I’m not forty yet. I’m not a drunkard, not a profligate.” “It’s too early to be singing at your funeral. Nonsense. You’ll live a long while yet.” “In our time the frequency of microscopic forms of cardiac hemorrhages has increased greatly. Not all of them are fatal. In some cases people survive. It’s the disease of our time. I think its causes are of a moral order. A constant, systematic dissembling is required of the vast majority of us. It’s impossible, without its affecting your health, to show yourself day after day contrary to what you feel, to lay yourself out for what you don’t love, to rejoice over what brings you misfortune. Our nervous system is not an empty sound, not a fiction. It’s a physical body made up of fibers. Our soul takes up room in space and sits inside us like the teeth in our mouth. It cannot be endlessly violated with impunity.

When we are able to reframe stress in our minds, and recognize that feeling anxious can actually be a useful reaction, we lessen the harmful long-term effects of stress itself. When you understand that your “pounding heart is preparing you for action,” says McGonigal, and the fact that you’re breathing harder is a sign that oxygen is pumping into the brain in order to help you think faster, you realize that the “stress response is helpful for your performance; it’s helping you to rise to a challenge.” With that recognition, your stress response becomes far less physiologically damaging to your body. Tightened blood and heart vessels relax, the body relaxes—and yet you retain the benefits of the stress response: a heightened awareness.

Low blood pressure, on the other hand, is: blood pressure values below 140/70 are associated with excess mortality in the elderly, and this is especially noticeable when drugs push down the diastolic blood pressure too low.14 Systolic pressure is the first, higher number; it represents the force of the heart pumping against the resistance offered by the blood vessel walls.

Anything perceived as a threat trips the amygdala—the brain’s hand-wringing sentry—to set in motion the biochemical cascade known as the fight-or-flight response. Bruce Siddle, who consults in this area and sits on the board of Strategic Operations, prefers the term “survival stress response.” Whatever you wish to call it, here is a nice, concise summary, courtesy of Siddle: “You become fast, strong, and dumb.” Our hardwired survival strategy evolved back when threats took the form of man-eating mammals, when hurling a rock superhumanly hard or climbing a tree superhumanly fast gave you the edge that might keep you alive. A burst of adrenaline prompts a cortisol dump to the bloodstream. The cortisol sends the lungs into overdrive to bring in more oxygen, and the heart rate doubles or triples to deliver it more swiftly. Meanwhile the liver spews glucose, more fuel for the feats at hand. To get the goods where the body assumes they’re needed, blood vessels in the large muscles of the arms and legs dilate, while vessels serving lower-priority organs (the gut, for example, and the skin) constrict. The prefrontal cortex, a major blood guzzler, also gets rationed. Good-bye, reasoning and analysis. See you later, fine motor skills. None of that mattered much to early man. You don’t need to weigh your options in the face of a snarling predator, and you don’t have time.

Every human being has "divinity" that is the same essence as the source of the cosmos. Our bodies act as temporary bodies for the journey of our souls. We came to Earth in order to go forward and complete the journey of our soul. Although our physical bodies have their limitations they also contain the necessary tools to propel our souls toward completion of the journey. The difficulties and trials that come with the human body are actually blessings, propelling our soul's expansive growth.

Your lungs, smoothed out, would cover a tennis court, and the airways within them would stretch nearly from coast to coast. The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth. The most remarkable part of all is your DNA (or deoxyribonucleic acid). You have a meter of it packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto. Think of it: there is enough of you to leave the solar system.

The world can accommodate your situation, as it accommodates all situations. And your body will keep explaining to you how it all works, this original experiment, this lifelong gift. Your body will keep describing how, for the first time being at least, there is no escape from this particular vessel. These are your atoms. This is your consciousness. These are your experiences--your successes and mistakes. This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography. This is the existential container, the bowl of your life's soup, wherein something can be made sense of, wherein there is a cure, wherein you are.

She wondered idly just how much his hands had had to do with the broadening and flattening and changement of her body. Certainly this was not the body he’d started with. It was past saving now. Like clay which the sculptor has carelessly impregnated with water, it was impossible to shape again. In order to shape clay you warm it with your hands, evaporate the moisture with heat. But there was no more of that fine summer weather between them. There was no warmth to bake away the aging moisture that collected and made pendant now her breasts and body. When the heat is gone, it is marvelous and unsettling to see how quickly a vessel stores self-destroying water in its cells.

But even a vessel pulsates, beats and pumps in ecstasy and in rage! I wonder are the way we are because we are trying to protect ourselves from the “monsters” not realizing this fear that we are harboring inside us is turning us into goblins and ghouls ourselves? Not even a heart caged inside of ribs can be protected. Who can really be to blame for your broken heart? In-turn we find our own vices , our own ways to cope, ways that we petrify our bodies our lives in such a fashion so we can stop and notice the stars sparkling in the sky everything and everyone that embodies love YOUR LOVE… and every spec dancing in our own light, specs we failed to see because of our own faults.

I read an article about mass shootings and how when a person survives one in a movie theater perhaps they may never go to the movies again. The wide dark, the silver glow, only the narrow aisles for cover... it's all too much. Sites of trauma. And I think that school has obviously become a site of trauma for me but so has Kroger and the park and sometimes the bus even though it also a vessel of freedom. But the thing that all of these sites have in common is my body, and I wonder sometimes how you avoid a site of trauma when the site is your own self and I think the answer is you stop thinking of the body as yours and maybe that makes it easier to walk inside it.

Please approach with care these figures in black. Regard with care the weight they bear, the scars that mark their hearts. Do you think you can handle these bodies of graphite & coal dust? This color might rub off. A drop of this red liquid could stain your skin. This black powder could blow you sky high. No ordinary pigments blacken our blues. Would you mop the floor with this bucket of blood? Would you rinse your soiled laundry in this basin of tears? Would you suckle hot milk from this cracked vessel? Would you be baptized in this fountain of funky sweat? Please approach with care these bodies still waiting to be touched. We invite you to come closer. We permit you to touch & be touched. We hope you will engage with care.

The sing it together: My soul doth magnify the Lord, Laura's deep voice and Virginia's light one. The strangeness comes over Laura once again: how two different melodies can become at once single and disparate; something that overflows, as if there is too much of itself for a single note to bear. They go on to And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior; then, Laura is no longer Laura, but only a vessel for whatever overflowing thing is passing through her, and the sound is both hers and not hers, and she is and is not part of it, and Virginia's hair smells like candle wax, and Laura thinks, This, this is the sound Robert Lawrence heard; this is the thing that could shipwreck your soul, if you only let it; it is a thing her body can do.

This situation is similar to edema, a condition in which fluid leaks out of the blood vessels and accumulates elsewhere in the body (for example, in the legs), causing swelling. Despite having too much water in the body, people with edema may experience unquenchable thirst, because there’s not enough water in the blood, where it’s needed. Telling people with edema to drink less is no more effective than food restriction for weight loss, because it ignores the underlying cause. Insulin (and other influences, as we’ll discuss later) has programmed fat cells into calorie-storage overdrive. People chronically overeat because they’re trying to keep enough calories in the blood to feed the brain, compensating for those being siphoned off by overstimulated fat cells.

I feel like you're a pit I can't climb out of. The clawing and craning skyway to try and find some shred of light is so exhausting, and it's so much easier to let the ghost of your arms pull me down and down and down. If I let myself remember how you taste, my breath gets hard, my body heaves. If I let myself consider you inside me, I can't function. I don't know how I handed you this power, it makes me so insane that you have it. And I fucking know, I know it's probably just me and my own shit, that you don't have a damn thing to do with it. You're just some vessel holding all my sadness, glowing with the nuclear energy of my loneliness. If I try to imagine you letting me go, I don't feel free. I feel untethered, unbound. Like I'm nothing and nowhere. But if I imagine you holding me, I crumple. I'm running out of ways to exist.

Aerobic activity is beneficial in several ways. Exercise strengthens your cardiovascular system and improves your circulation, which means your body can deliver more blood to your brain when it’s working. Because the brain’s demand for oxygen and sugar rises when you’re concentrating hard, this can make the difference between grasping that insight or feeling like it’s just out of reach. A firing neuron uses as much energy as a leg muscle cell during a marathon. Further, sustained aerobic exercise stimulates the body to generate more small blood vessels in the brain, and a better-developed cerebral vasculature can deliver blood to the brain faster and more effectively. A 2012 study found that episodic memory improves as maximal oxygen capacity increases. (Conversely, comparative studies of adults who do and don’t exercise find that couch potatoes have lower scores on tests of executive function and processing speed and in middle age have faster rates of brain

Angina is the pain you get when there’s not enough oxygen getting to your heart muscle for the work it’s doing. That’s why it gets worse with exercise: because you’re demanding more work from the heart muscle. You might get a similar pain in your thighs after bounding up ten flights of stairs, depending on how fit you are. Treatments that help angina usually work by dilating the blood vessels to the heart, and a group of chemicals called nitrates are used for this purpose very frequently. They relax the smooth muscle in the body, which dilates the arteries so more blood can get through (they also relax other bits of smooth muscle in the body, including your anal sphincter, which is why a variant is sold as ‘liquid gold’ in sex shops). In the 1950s there was an idea that you could get blood vessels in the heart to grow back, and thicker, if you tied off an artery on the front of the chest wall that wasn’t very important, but which branched off the main heart arteries. The idea was that this would send messages back to the main branch of the artery, telling it that more artery growth was needed, so the body would be tricked. Unfortunately this idea turned out to be nonsense, but only after a fashion. In 1959 a placebo-controlled trial of the operation was performed: in some operations they did the whole thing properly, but in the ‘placebo’ operations they went through the motions but didn’t tie off any arteries. It was found that the placebo operation was just as good as the real one—people seemed to get a bit better in both cases, and there was little difference between the groups—but the most strange thing about the whole affair was that nobody made a fuss at the time: the real operation wasn’t any better than a sham operation, sure, but how could we explain the fact that people had been sensing an improvement from the operation for a very long time? Nobody thought of the power of placebo. The operation was simply binned. That’s

It isn’t the height that scares me—the height makes me feel alive with energy, every organ and vessel and muscle in my body singing at the same pitch. Then I realize what it is. It’s him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames. My hand almost misses the next rung. “Now tell me…,” he says through a bursting breath, “what do you think learning strategy has to do with…bravery?” The question reminds me that he is my instructor, and I am supposed to learn something from this. A cloud passes over the moon, and the light shifts across my hands. “It…it prepares you to act,” I say finally. “You learn strategy so you can use it.” I hear him breathing behind me, loud and fast. “Are you all right, Four?” “Are you human, Tris? Being up this high…” He gulps for air. “It doesn’t scare you at all?” I look over my shoulder at the ground. If I fall now, I will die. But I don’t think I will fall. A gust of air presses against my left side, throwing my body weight to the right. I gasp and cling to the rungs, my balance shifting. Four’s cold hand clamps around one of my hips, one of his fingers finding a strip of bare skin just under the hem of my T-shirt. He squeezes, steadying me and pushing me gently to the left, restoring my balance. Now I can’t breathe. I pause, staring at my hands, my mouth dry. I feel the ghost of where his hand was, his fingers long and narrow. “You okay?” he asks quietly. “Yes,” I say, my voice strained. I keep climbing, silently, until I reach the platform. Judging by the blunted ends of metal rods, it used to have railings, but it doesn’t anymore. I sit down and scoot to the end of it so Four has somewhere to sit. Without thinking, I put my legs over the side. Four, however, crouches and presses his back to the metal support, breathing heavily. “You’re afraid of heights,” I say. “How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?” “I ignore my fear,” he says. “When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn’t exist.” I stare at him for a second. I can’t help it. To me there’s a

Queen Ariel held the nautilus and considered thoughtfully. But the little mermaid didn't think. She acted. Before she realized fully what she was doing Ariel had smashed the nautilus on a sharply faceted rock. It didn't break like a normal shell. It shattered like a human vessel. Shards flew in all directions equally, unhampered by gravity or luck. Ariel pitched forward. She choked, no longer breathing the air of the Dry World. Her arms flailed up like a puppet's. Her torso whipped back and forth, pummeled by unseen forces. Something flew into her mouth, up her nose, and suffused her entire body with a heat that threatened to burn. It rushed into her lungs and expanded, expelling whatever breath she had left, pushing blood to her extremities, pushing everything out that wasn't it, leaving room for nothing else. Ariel collapsed. It was over. It was like the thing, whatever it was, had been absorbed by her body and had now dissipated into her blood and flesh. She took a breath. Her heart started beating again. She hadn't been aware it had stopped. She coughed. A few grains of sand came out. And then she sang.

It was certainly true that I had “no sense of humour” in that I found nothing funny. I didn’t know, and perhaps would never know, the feeling of compulsion to exhale and convulse in the very specific way that humans evolved to do. Nor did I know the specific emotion of relief that is bound to it. But it would be wrong, I think, to say that I was incapable of using humour as a tool. As I understood it, humour was a social reflex. The ancestors of humans had been ape-animals living in small groups in Africa. Groups that worked together were more likely to survive and have offspring, so certain reflexes and perceptions naturally emerged to signal between members of the group. Yawning evolved to signal wake-rest cycles. Absence of facial hair and the dilation of blood vessels in the face evolved to signal embarrassment, anger, shame and fear. And laughter evolved to signal an absence of danger. If a human is out with a friend and they are approached by a dangerous-looking stranger, having that stranger revealed as benign might trigger laughter. I saw humour as the same reflex turned inward, serving to undo the effects of stress on the body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Interestingly, it also seemed to me that humour had extended, like many things, beyond its initial evolutionary context. It must have been very quickly adopted by human ancestor social systems. If a large human picks on a small human there’s a kind of tension that emerges where the tribe wonders if a broader violence will emerge. If a bystander watches and laughs they are non-verbally signaling to the bully that there’s no need for concern, much like what had occurred minutes before with my comments about Myrodyn, albeit in a somewhat different context. But humour didn’t stop there. Just as a human might feel amusement at things which seem bad but then actually aren’t, they might feel amusement at something which merely has the possibility of being bad, but doesn’t necessarily go through the intermediate step of being consciously evaluated as such: a sudden realization. Sudden realizations that don’t incur any regret were, in my opinion, the most alien form of humour, even if I could understand how they linked back to the evolutionary mechanism. A part of me suspected that this kind of surprise-based or absurdity-based humour had been refined by sexual selection as a signal of intelligence. If your prospective mate is able to offer you regular benign surprises it would (if you were human) not only feel good, but show that they were at least in some sense smarter or wittier than you, making them a good choice for a mate. The role of surprise and non-verbal signalling explained, by my thinking, why explaining humour was so hard for humans. If one explained a joke it usually ceased to be a surprise, and in situations where the laughter served as an all-clear-no-danger signal, explaining that verbally would crush the impulse to do it non-verbally.

JO: A refrain I like throughout the book is, “Music doesn’t mean things. It is things.” RP: Yes. The struggle for composers, which Els goes through in different stages over the course of his seventy years, is precisely that battle between a music that might be a matter of life and death, as it is for Shostakovich, or a way of surviving the evils of human history, as it is for Messiaen. You align yourself to a kind of music in the service of one or another of all the different kinds of things that the human mind might want. And at the end of the day, you have this reflective feeling of saying, it’s very possible that in pursuing a kind of music that you wanted to serve a certain function, to create a certain social urgency, to solve the problems of your historical time and place, that it might also have been worthwhile to make a music that simply moves people in the most etymological sense of that word—actually just makes their bodies want to move. It’s that tension—between the music of pattern, the music of the cognitive brain; and the music of body, the music of pure spirit—that infects his life at every turn. Music is both those things! And human beings are both thinking creatures and feeling creatures. And the art that hits on all cylinders, the art that moves us intellectually and bodily and spiritually, is what we’re after. But to capture all those things in the same vessel is a very, very difficult task. And it’s a very difficult one for Els until the very end.

PLEASE COME HOME Please come home. Please come home. Find the place where your feet know where to walk And follow your own trail home. Please come home. Please come home into your own body, Your own vessel, your own earth. Please come home into each and every cell, And fully into the space that surrounds you. Please come home. Please come home to trusting yourself, And your instincts and your ways and your knowings, And even the particular quirks of your personality. Please come home. Please come home and once you are firmly there, Please stay home awhile and come to a deep rest within. Please treasure your home. Please love and embrace your home. Please get a deep, deep sense of what it's like to he truly home. Please come home. Please come home. And when you're really, really ready, And there's a detectable urge on the outbreath, then please come out. Please come home and please come forward. Please express who you are to us, and please trust us To see you and hear you and touch you And recognize you as best we can. Please come home. Please come home and let us know All the nooks and crannies that are calling to be seen. Please come home, and let us know the More That is there that wants to come out. Please come home. Please come home For you belong here now. You belong among us. Please inhabit your place fully so we can learn from you, From your voice and your ways and your presence. Please come home. Please come home. And when you feel yourself home, please welcome us too, For we too forget that we belong and are welcome, And that we are called to express fully who we are. Please come home. Please come home. You and you and you and me. Please come home. Please come home. Thank you, Earth, for welcoming us. And thank you touch of eyes and ears and skin, 'Touch of love for welcoming us. May we wake up and remember who we truly are.

In Memory of W. B. Yeats I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. II You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. III Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate; Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

He was taking his time on his way to the arena, which meant there was likely something he was waiting for. He didn’t intend to actually fight me, obviously, just as I didn’t intend to fight him. If all was going according to plan, and Yma had slipped the contents of the vial into the calming tonic he drank with his breakfast, the iceflowers were already swimming through his body. The timing would not be exact; that depended on the person. I would have to be ready for the potion to surprise me, or fail entirely. “You’re dawdling,” I said, hoping that calling him out would speed him up. “What is it you’re waiting for?” “I am waiting for the right blade,” Ryzek said, and he dropped down to the arena floor. Dust rose up in a cloud against his feet. He rolled up his left sleeve, baring his kill marks. He had run out of space on his arm, and started a second row next to the first, near his elbow. He claimed every kill that he ordered as his own, even if he himself had not brought about the death. Ryzek drew his currentblade slowly, and as he raised his arm, the crowd around us exploded into cheers. Their roar clouded my thoughts. I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t look pale and unfocused, like he had actually consumed the poison. He looked, if anything, more focused than ever. I wanted to run at him with blade extended, like an arrow released from a bow, a transport vessel breaking through the atmosphere. But I didn’t. And neither did he. We both stood in the arena, waiting. “What are you waiting for, sister?” Ryzek said. “Have you lost your nerve?” “No,” I said. “I’m waiting for the poison you swallowed this morning to settle in.” A gasp rattled through the crowd, and for once--for the first time--Ryzek’s face went slack with shock. I had finally truly surprised him. “All my life you’ve told me I have nothing to offer but the power that lives in my body,” I said. “But I am not an instrument of torture and execution; I am the only person who knows the real Ryzek Noavek.” I stepped toward him. “I know how you fear pain more than anything else in this world. I know that you gathered these people here today, not to celebrate a successful scavenge, but to witness the murder of Orieve Benesit.” I sheathed my blade. I held my hands out to my sides so the crowd could see that they were empty. “And the most important thing I know, Ryzek, is that you can’t bear to kill someone unless you drug yourself first. Which is why I poisoned your calming tonic this morning.” Ryzek touched his stomach, as if he could feel the hushflower eating away at his guts through his armor. “You made a mistake, valuing me only for my currentgift and my skill with a knife,” I said. And for once, I believed it.

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparking sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love’s happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life’s high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman’s soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father’s eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone’s unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night– You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up– go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darking trees for us, Yet where we walked the city’s street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel’s wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem” All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of the sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love's happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life's high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman's soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father's eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone's unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night-- You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up--go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darkling trees for us, Yet where we walked the city's street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel's wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

ROUND UP A lot more can be said, but finally, this is your last lesson in this epic 30 -day quest to become a successful conversationalist. For the past 29 days, you’ve been tutored about different techniques to make things happen, and today you’ll kick start a conversation with more confidence and organization, because you are now a professional in the communication world. There are takeaways that you should not forget as you go forth as a small talk professional. You have learnt and practiced many truths about the nature and composition of small talk, but there are certain ones that should be placed next to your heart: Small talk may be seen as a waste of time, but it is actually time well spent; take note of this important point, people might want to convince and confuse you. Small talk with personal meaning orientation will scratch business shop talk off any time. Small talk should now be seen as an effective tool that is available right next to you and can be a gateway to success. You still have the chance to go back to the previous chapters you struggled with, this way, you’ll review and assimilate the important points, no one is an island of knowledge, and so I don’t expect you to have everything registered in your brain already, constant practices will bring out the best in you. Identifying your weakness is just as important as acknowledging your strength. I want to assure you that you’ll definitely excel since you’ve been able to lay hands on this book, and this how you can help others who are still in the position that you were when you started in day one. You’ve been instructed about many secrets of success, as well as the things to exploit and avoid. It’s up to you to make this permanent, and this can only be achieved if you keep following these instructions. You have to make the decision now; whether you would make use of this manual or not, but I would advise that you want it again and again as this is the only way to dedicate your spirit, soul and body to constant improvement. You definitely would have noticed some changes in you, you’re not the same person any more. One important thing is that you shouldn’t give up; try to redouble your efforts and realize that you know everything you’re supposed to know. This shouldn’t end here, endeavour to spread the word to make sure that you impact at least three people per day, this means that you would have impacted about 90 people at the end of the next 30 days and close to about 120 people in just two months. Now, you see how you can make the world a better place? It’s up to you to decide what you want and how you want it to be. Don’t waste this golden opportunity of becoming a professional in communication, you’ll go a long way and definitely be surprised at the rate at which you’ve gone in such a small time. Take time to attend to things that need attention, don’t be too hard on yourself, and don’t go too soft on yourself, you’re one vessel that can’t be manipulated, so you have to be careful and sure about your status on communication skills. On the final note, I would like to congratulate you for reading this to the end, you’ve taken this course because you believe in the powers of small talks, so this shouldn’t be the last time I’m hearing from you. I would look forward to seeing your questions about any confusing aspect in the future. Till then, remain the professional that you are!

Your body is a temple, Eleanor. You should treat it like the priceless and holy vessel it is. I learned one thing and one thing only from watching my father’s wife. If you’re going to redecorate, either learn how to do it properly, or hire a professional.

Your body isn’t a thing to be looked at and judged against some standard of perfection that doesn’t even really exist. It’s the vessel that takes you through life, allowin’ you to experience all the beautiful things life has to offer. Food. Sex. Sunsets. Music. Hugs. Laughter. A healthy body is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t treat it like some cheap one-night stand. Treat it like the love of your life. Treat it with respect and tenderness, but most of all, gratitude. “And a healthy dose of awe, too.

the organism is dominated by one sector of the body: the old interior world of the viscera that are located in the abdomen, thorax, and thick of the skin, along with the attendant chemical processes. The contents of feelings that dominate our conscious mind correspond largely to the ongoing actions of viscera, for example, the degree of contraction or relaxation of the smooth muscles that form the walls of tubular organs such as the trachea, bronchi, and gut, as well as countless blood vessels in the skin and visceral cavities. Equally prominent among the contents is the state of the mucosae—think of your throat, dry, moist, or just plain sore, or of your esophagus or stomach when you eat too much or are famished. The typical content of our feelings is governed by the degree to which the operations of the viscera listed above are smooth and uncomplicated or else labored and erratic. To make matters more complex, all of these varied organ states are the result of the action of chemical molecules—circulating in the blood or arising in nerve terminals distributed throughout the viscera—for example, cortisol, serotonin, dopamine, endogenous opioids, oxytocin. Some of these potions and elixirs are so powerful that their results are instantaneous. Last, the degree of tension or relaxation of the voluntary muscles (which, as noted, are part of the newer interior world of the body frame) also contributes to the content of feelings

Here’s some of the best advice I could give anyone who’s ready to be healthy and happy. Look at your body as if it is one of your children. Be kind to it. Don’t hate it. That’s not fair. Your thoughts about your body are a reflection of the way you treat it, so stop saying negative things about it. Stop calling yourself disgusting and ugly. See your body for what it is—an incredible, capable, powerful vessel that has put up with years and years of neglect and abuse from you. Love on it. Nurture it.

Those whom we have culture in common we are meant to carry the beauty of culture into the future so others can benefit from it. To those whom we have interests-hobbies in common we are meant to exchange the love of that interest. We are meant to growing it and nurture it like a parent raises a child so our contribution to that interest can bring inspiration and happiness to all others that come across it. To those whom we have base fears love and humanity in common , we are meant to protect their humanity as if their life is ours because we would expect others to protect and respect our humanity if we are ever vulnerable and in their suffering position. Lastly, those to whom we have blood in common we are meant to come close. For the network of vessels sustaining your body carries the same energy that is in theirs. When their heart is unsteady, you steady it with yours. When their blood runs hot, you cool it with yours. When their heart is at peace you join them and protect that peace at any means necessary.

What does this have to do with exercise? McAdam’s central notion wasn’t to improve goods and services, but to improve access to goods and services. You can do the same for your brain by increasing the roads in your body, namely your blood vessels, through exercise. Exercise does not provide the oxygen and the food. It provides your body greater access to the oxygen and the food.

Many studies have consistently found that even moderate levels of physical activity such as walking fifteen miles a week substantially raises levels of HDLs and lowers levels of triglycerides in the blood—both of which lower the risk of heart disease.60 Another vital benefit of physical activity is to lower levels of inflammation in arteries, which as we have seen is the real culprit for atherosclerosis.61 In general, the duration of activity appears to have more beneficial effects on these risk factors than the intensity of activity. Vigorous physical activity also lowers your blood pressure by stimulating the growth of new vessels, and it strengthens muscles in your heart and the walls of your arteries. Adults who exercise regularly nearly halve their chances of a heart attack or stroke (after correcting for other risk factors), and the more intense the exercise the greater the reduction in risk.62

These guidelines will help put you in the right frame of mind to begin practicing relaxation techniques: 1. Give yourself permission to relax. You must nurture yourself. Even if it has been difficult for you to relax in the past, now is a new beginning. It may not be easy at first, but in time, and with practice, relaxation is possible for everyone. 2. Create the right environment. This means no distractions: no TV, no telephone, no music, no food. This is a time for you to be at peace with yourself. Wear comfortable clothing and allow yourself to focus only on the present. Allow yourself to let go, to relax emotionally as well as physically. Be careful not to think of letting go as losing control. The opposite—holding on—is what causes heightened anxiety. To really control anxiety, you have to let go of it, become familiar with it, and then find a new way to lessen its intensity. The process of letting go and achieving relaxation can sometimes feel uncomfortable. But it is this uncomfortable feeling that has to be worked through to achieve success. 3. Learn diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing is the basis of all relaxation and internal self-regulation. Often, breathing exercises of this type are in and of themselves a good means of stress management. Start breathing deeply to slow your body and mind down in preparation for relaxation. Conscious breathing is an essential part of this exercise. Inhale through nose, draw slowly into stomach (diaphragmatic region) and exhale through your mouth. This process should be done slowly and rhythmically. 4. Learn muscle relaxation. This is fairly easy to learn. The first step is to become aware of the difference between tense muscles and relaxed muscles. Then, learn to make your muscles feel limp and heavy. 5. Cultivate warm, dry hands. As you relax, your blood vessels dilate and the peripheral blood flow (at the skin’s surface) increases, resulting in warm hands. Anxiety is related to the fight-or-flight response. When confronted with stress, the body naturally sends blood away from extremities toward the torso in preparation for escape. While normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees, hand temperature is slightly cooler, and varies considerably depending on the degree of stress or relaxation. Don’t confuse the two—extremities are always cooler. Remember the mood rings of the 1970s? True, they were a gimmick, but they relied on stress-related surface temperature changes to create the desired effect. Bio-dots and stress cards available today work the same way, and can be a useful tool in learning to bring yourself down from an anxiety state. Still, you may not need a machine or other equipment to tell you how cold your hands are. If your hands feel cold to you, they are responding to stress. If your hands are warm and dry, you’ve achieved relaxation.

Glucose molecules are driven into cells in the presence of insulin. This is independent of the carbohydrate source (simple or complex, table sugar or broccoli). As dictated by the metabolic demands of the body at that instant, glucose is either utilized for ATP production or stored as glycogen or converted to fat. Eat an ice cream sundae and lay on the couch, for example. There is no immediate demand for the consumed glucose and all the surplus is therefore converted to fatty acids and stored as fat. This is why I am an advocate of short walks after a meal; just the opposite occurs. Create a demand and the body will utilize the consumed glucose for energy production, fueling your leg muscles! This equates to less circulating glucose and less AGE formation, in essence conferring protection to the endothelial lining of the blood vessels.

Anxiety is a fact of life! Everyone experiences it. It began in our cave-dweller days as a fight-or-flight response. Think of it this way: If you were walking through the woods and you ran into a bear, it would be normal for your body to activate the fight-or-flight response. Your heart would race, your muscles would tense up, your pupils would dilate, you would breathe more rapidly. The same thing would happen today if you were walking down the street and ran into a mugger. There is a simple, scientific explanation of this response: Your mind and body are preparing to protect you—whether you can feel it happening or not. Let us briefly examine this process. Your nervous system is divided into two basic parts: The voluntary nervous system controls actions that require thought, such as using the different parts of your body to drive a car; the autonomic nervous system, among its many functions, suspends all nonessential activity of the body and increases the physiological activity needed to confront the situation—either by fighting or by fleeing the external threat. Here is what it is responsible for: -increase muscle tension -accelerated heartbeat -rapid breathing -constriction of peripheral blood vessels (this is what causes cold hands) -dilation of the pupils -suspension of the digestive process -dry mouth -a voiding of bladder and bowels In addition, the fight-or-flight response causes a marked increase in the flow of adrenaline through the bloodstream and therefore added strength.

The junior executives recommended a variety of different techniques to foster cross-group dialogue and afterward seemed proud of their own ingenuity. Then Jeff Bezos, his face red and the blood vessel in his forehead pulsing, spoke up. “I understand what you’re saying, but you are completely wrong,” he said. “Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out a way for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.” That confrontation was widely remembered. “Jeff has these aha moments,” says David Risher. “All the blood in his entire body goes to his face. He’s incredibly passionate. If he was a table pounder, he would be pounding the table.

HT-1 This point is difficult to access, as it is well protected by the structure of the human body. HT-1is a bilateral Vital Point that is located in the armpit at the junction of the inner arm with the torso. It is associated with the Heart Meridian and is the point that the internal aspects of that meridian leaves the inner torso and emerges close to the surface of the skin. It does not have a direct connection to any Extraordinary Vessels, but is highly sensitive to attack. Traditional Chinese Medicine state that this is a no-needle point in many related textbooks. On the surface, this point would appear to be a difficult one to access during an altercation, but it is accessible. HT-1 becomes easily accessible if the opponent’s arm is raised, which occurs in the short instances that they are throwing a punch. A quick finger thrust or one-knuckle fist strike can easily activate it, but it requires a fair amount of precision to land. Combat science teaches us that precision generally diminishes during an altercation, but I add the above variant for those that would be willing to put in the training time for achieve such a strike. Just remember that the likelihood of landing such a technique during an actual altercation is remote, even with copious amounts of practice. A more realistic attack to HT-1 is when you have used your opponent’s arm to take them to the ground. Once established, as a generally rule of thumb, it is advised that if you have established control over an opponent’s arm that you should maintain that control until you deliver a blow that ends the fight. So, with that in mind, one of my favorite attacks to HT-1 after driving an opponent to ground while having established and maintained arm control, that you jerk the arm towards yourself as you throw a kick into this Vital Point. The type of kick will be dependent on the positioning of your opponent. If he is bladed on the ground (laying on one side with the arm you control in the air) a hard side kick or stomp works well. If the opponent starts turning, or squaring his shoulders towards you as he hits the ground in an attempt to regain his feet, then a forceful forward, or straight kick, can work. I would suggest working with a training partner to determine the various configurations that a downed opponent would react when you maintain control of one of their arms. Notice that I did not advise that you kick your training partner in HT-1, which is ill advised since it theoretically can cause disruptions to the heart and according to Traditional Chinese Medicine theory even death. Again, this technique is not for demonstration or sport-oriented martial arts, but mature and thoughtful training practice can provide a wealth of knowledge on how best to attack a Vital Point, even if it is not actually struck.

Breathe deep. Especially when faced with an angry situation, you need to breathe—not just to calm down emotionally, but to keep your lymph moving. Holding your breath impairs flow. The largest lymph vessels and main lymph channels in your body are located in your chest. Whenever you take a deep breath, it moves the lymph fluid along, and the one-way valves in these tubes keep lymph from going backward.

ST-9 This point is a bilateral point that is found on both sides of the neck and is located about 1.5 inches to the outside of the edge of the Adam’s apple of the throat. The fact that the point lays directly over the carotid artery allows strikes to have an immediate reaction to the flow of blood to the brain and head in general. It has a cryptic name in Chinese, Ren Ying,9 which means “Man’s Prognosis” and provides no clues to its location or use from a martial standpoint. Its proximity to the carotid artery allows this point to be one of the weakest points on the human body and regardless of the size and muscular strength of an opponent it is extremely sensitive. The superior thyroid artery, the anterior jugular vein, the internal jugular vein, the carotid artery, the cutaneous cervical nerve, the cervical branch of the facial nerve, the sympathetic trunk, and the ascending branch of the hypoglossal and vagus nerves are all present. Just the structurally aspects of all these sensitive and vital nerves, arteries and veins should place it high on the list of potential targets. I personally consider it as one of the most important Vital Points because of this alone. Additionally, ST-9 is an intersection point for the Stomach Meridian, Gall Bladder Meridian and the Yin Heel Vessel. Strikes to this point can kill due to the overall structural weakness of the area. Strikes should be aimed toward the center of the spine on a 90-degree angle. A variety of empty hand weapons can be employed in striking this point. Forearms, edge of hand strikes, punches, kicks, and elbow strikes are all effective. The same defensive tactics outlined under the SI-16 should be employed against attacks to this extremely vital point. CV-22 This is one of the two most important acupuncture points to the martial arts that is concerned with the hostile actions of life-or-death combatives. It sets in the horseshoe notch located at the extreme upper part of the chest structure and at the centerline of the front of the neck. Resting under it is the trachea, or commonly known as the “windpipe,” and a hard and vicious strike to this point can cause the surrounding tissue to swell, which can shut off the body’s ability to pull oxygen into the lungs. A hard strike to this point can be deadly. Attacking this point should only be done in the most extreme life-or-death situations. Energetically, the Conception Vessel and the Yin Linking Vessel intersect at this point. The implications of that, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, is included in this book. Additionally, the structure of the suprasternal notch is an excellent “touch point” for situations when sight is reduced and you find yourself at extremely close range with your opponent. This allows for utilization of this point in a self-defense situation that is not as extreme as full force strikes, as only a finger or two are inserted and rolled to the backside of the notch causing pain for the opponent.

...And looking back, at least we got to state our love...before our world in Orleans ended in a symphony of broken glass. Earlier that evening, I had sat on the porch with Matthieu-Michele, as Cross and Christy watched over their Grandpa Timothy's comatose body in the back bedroom. I looked down into Timothy's face and wept. Timmy already looked dead. He was deathly pale, and his hair was heavily streaked with grey. "Don't cry, Uncle Obadiah," Matthieu-Michele said tenderly. "Just have faith, and love Him. Believe in Him, and keep preaching His Word." "And here I thought that you were a man of science, like your Daddy Matt." "I cannot be both?" he smiled gently, as he took my hand and led me out on the back porch. He lowered me into a chair, and seated himself beside me. "Look at the stars," he said softly. "However could I believe in the vastness and the great wonder of the universe itself, and not in He who created it? Science and Theology go hand-in-hand; they are not polar opposites. We must remember, the Holy Bible is only a guide. God isn't just a quick-fix solution for all of our problems. He isn't a pill that we pop to make everything go away. Instead, He is a shepherd, looking out for us...loving us from a great distance and calling out to us constantly...and sometimes, things get lost in the translation. We, for example, as men, will try to weave our own selfish desires and prejudices in with His. That is the greatest sin of all, the great sin of mankind. It frightens people away from His Word and His Grace. They believe that He hates them, that it’s the voice of God condemning them, rather than the blackened hearts of the misguided men who twist His words to suit their doctrine of anger and misunderstanding. Their words are straight from the evil core of mankind, who, in their foolishness, try to take on the guise of God." I leaned upon him heavily, the tears wet upon my cheeks. "And to think that there were times when I wondered if I did any good at all," I sighed, "But His Word lives in your heart." Matthieu-Michele embraced me in his wings. "Uncle, you are a wonder!" he smiled. "Never doubt it. My father couldn't ask for a better vessel for His Word." "I love you, Boy," I whispered. "You and Croccifixio and Christophe...we will always be family, and nothing will ever part us--" ~*~*~*~ ...And it was over, just like that. It happened so quickly. The window in the front room exploded in a rain of glass, and two soldiers seized Arik. Two came for me as well, and I surrendered. Arik struggled, and was silenced with a blow to the back of the head. Matthieu-Michele--who had been behind me--was mysteriously absent, and Cross, Christy, Morgan and Simone were nowhere in sight. Matthieu-Michele must have thrown up a psychic bubble around them, and around Timothy's body, as Arik and I were manacled and taken out into the street. A barred wagon awaited us there, and we were roughly forced into it...

GB-3 This vital point is located near the lower aspects of the temple area of skull, along the Zygomatic Arch, and is directly forward of the ear. It is bilateral, meaning it is found on both sides of the head, which is unlike any of the centerline points that only occur once. It is not directly associated with any of the Extraordinary Vessels, but is an Intersection Point for the Gall Bladder Meridian, Triple Warmer Meridian, and the Stomach Meridian. This makes it valuable to martial artists, since Intersection Points provide the ability to disrupt multiple meridians with a single strike. It makes attacking them economic from a time and motion standpoint. In a standard defense of being grabbed at the waist, with your arms free, slapping the ears forcefully will allow activation of this point with the meaty part of your hand. It is one of several points in this region of the skull and other would likely be activated while striking it given their proximity and size of the surface you are striking with. EYES If you asked a non-martial artist what are vital points on the human body, most of them would include the eyes. This is just basic common sense, as the eyes allow us to see our environment and determine any possible threats. If you happen to be struck in the eye it would inhibit your ability to effectively defend yourself. This is as true today as it was at the time that the author(s) were putting together what became the Bubishi. Though the eyes are not pressure point per se, these organs are extremely sensitive to attack. Flicking, poking, or thrusting into the eyes directly will greatly inhibit your opponent’s ability to see you in a combative situation. In fact, many of the old school Western hand-to-hand instructors of the World War II area were adamant in attacking the eyes. Likewise, it is common place in many martial arts systems, especially the ones that are truly combative and not sport oriented. Quick flicks of the wrist, with the fingertips striking the eyes, is a method that most opponents aren’t expecting. Thrusting your fingers into the eyes, either all or singularly, is another effective technique. More extreme is thrusting one finger into the inner corner of the opponent’s eye and then jerking forward and to the outside. This technique will dislodge the eye from its socket and should only be used in extreme circumstances. Defending against eye attacks is built into each of us, as we instinctually know their importance. If you recognize an eye attack from your opponent, dropping, raising and/or turning the head will many times save you from eye injury.

GB-27 Chinese Point name: Wu Shu;7 English translation: “Fifth Pivot;” Special Attributes: The point is an intersection point for the Gall Bladder Meridian and the Girdle Vessel. It is also bilateral; Location: About three inches below GB-26 on the inside of the hipbone; Western Anatomy: The superficial and deep circumflex iliac arteries and veins, and the iliohypogastric nerve are present; Comments: This point is an exception to the rule of striking to the energy core of the body. You still need to strike at a 45-degree downward angle, but your aim should be directed towards the outside of the body. This point is located on the hipbone and strikes to the outside will cause the hip to collapse backward. It works to either side, as the point is bilateral (that means it is found on both sides of the body). A strike here will cause the hip to fall back and to the outside, the legs to bend and an energetic fluctuation in the Gall Bladder Meridian. This may be important in follow-up strikes to finish the opponent.

ST-12 Chinese Point name: Que Pen;7 English translation: “Empty Basin;” Special Attributes: It is an intersection point of the Stomach Meridian and the Yin Heel Vessel. It is bilateral and is one of the 36 Vital Points listed in the Bubishi; Location: At the midpoint of the collarbone, which is about four inches lateral from the centerline of the body; and bilateral. Western Anatomy: The transverse cervical artery, intermediate supraclavicular nerve and the supraclavicular portion of the brachial plexus are present; Comments: This point is an excellent target when your opponent is at close range. By gripping the collarbone you can dig your fingers down behind the natural curve of the bone and towards the centerline of the body. It is most active when your opponent has their arms raised, given the structural weakness of the body at this location, will drop the majority of attackers. A sharp thrust down into this point will cause your opponents knees to bend. ST-9 Chinese Point name: Ren Ying;8 English translation: “Man’s Prognosis;” Special Attributes: ST-9 is an intersection point for the Stomach Meridian, Gall Bladder Meridian and the Yin Heel Vessel. It is a bilateral point that sets over the carotid artery. It is one of the 36 Vital Points listed in the Bubishi; Location: About 1.5 inches to the outside of the Adam’s apple on the throat; Western Anatomy: The superior thyroid artery, the anterior jugular vein, the internal jugular vein, the carotid artery, the cutaneous cervical nerve, the cervical branch of the facial nerve, the sympathetic trunk, and the ascending branch of the hypoglossal and vagus nerves are all present; Comments: This is one of the weakest points on the human body and regardless of the size and muscular strength of an opponent it is extremely sensitive. Strikes to this point can kill due to the structural weakness of the area. Strikes should be aimed toward the center of the spine on a 90-degree angle. A variety of empty hand weapons can be employed in striking this point. Forearms, edge of hand strikes, punches, kicks, and elbow strikes are all effective. BL-1 Chinese Point name: Jing Ming;9 English translation: “Bright Eyes;” Special Attributes: It is an intersection point of the Small Intestine Meridian, Bladder Meridian, Stomach Meridian, Yin Heel Vessel and the Yang Heel Vessel. It is also bilateral; Location: About .25 of an inch from the inner corner of the eye; Western Anatomy: The angular artery and vein and branches of the oculomotor and ophthalmic nerve are present; Comments: Strike this point slightly upward and towards the centerline of the head. This point is fairly difficult to strike in a combative situation due to the location. Forceful strikes to the eye socket area can activate this point, as well as traumatize the eye and possible breaking the bone structure in the general area.

The Governing Vessel is the sea of the yang channels.” Su When The Governing Vessel is the Yang aspect of the “Human Battery.” It starts at the intersection of CV-1 and runs posteriorly to Governing Vessel 1 (GV-1) at the tip of the coccyx bone at the end of the spine. From GV-1 the Governing Vessel ascends the centerline of the body running over the spine to GV-15, which is the point that the head and the spine connect. From GV-15 the Governing Vessel follows the centerline of the head up and over onto the face. It then descends down the centerline of the face until it connects with Conception Vessel at GV-28. Given the yang characteristics of the Governing Vessel it is harder and more resilient to strikes than the softer Conception Vessel. Consider how the body is designed according to Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Science. The Yang surfaces of the body are the natural shock absorbers of the body. Let us say that someone is going to strike you with a whip. Will you just stand there and take the strike across the front of your body? I doubt it. Your natural defenses will cause you to turn your back to the strike. The strike would fall on the Yang surfaces of the body. Thus allowing you to protect the more vulnerable yin surfaces. This description illustrates the difference between a Yang surface and a Yin surface. The Yang surfaces of the body can take more physical abuse than the Yin surfaces. This should be a major clue to the martial artist. The fact that the body is designed to protect the Yin over the Yang illustrates that attacks to Yin are more traumatic to the body.

Governing Vessel Point Descriptions GV-1 Chinese Point name: Chang Qiang;4 English translation: “Long Strong;” Special Attributes: the intersection point for the Kidney Meridian, Gall Bladder Meridian, and Governing Vessel. It is also listed as one of the 36 Vital Points of the Bubishi; Location: Just below the coccyx bone on the end of the spine; Western Anatomy: branches of the inferior hemorrhoid artery and vein are present. Also, the posterior ramus of the coccygeal nerve, and the hemorrhoid nerve are found; Comments: Remember that strikes to intersection points have greater energetic effect on the body. Strikes to this point should be upward at a 45-degree angle. This places the force of the blow as being aimed at the energy center of the body. From a martial perspective, this point is generally difficult to hit, but situations when you move to the back of your opponent open the possibility of knee strikes aimed in the coccyx bone. These types of strikes are extremely effective in dropping an opponent. Hard knee strikes to this region not only shock the energy core of the body, but also shock the entire nervous system with the connection of the coccyx bone to the spine.

When you examine the effect of causing you to bend forward, think of the martial implications of striking an opponent and getting that effect. Their stance will be disrupted and their ability to attack will be greatly hindered. They will fold at the waist and their hips will move backward. This will present their head to you for follow-up strikes. This minor adjustment in understanding how to attack the centerline of the body, and the “Human Battery,” will increase your effectiveness as a martial artist. Another curious observation concerning the Governing and Conception Vessels is that according to the point numbering system used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, both vessels appear to flow towards the head. The point numbers start with the low numbers in the pelvic region and become larger as the vessels ascends to the head. After intense study of the Extraordinary Vessel subsystem, it appears that the numbering system for these two vessels are for reference purposes only and are not indicative of the direction of flow of energy.

CV-17 Chinese Point name: Shan Zhong;20 English translation: “Chest Center;” Special Attributes: Intersection Point of the Spleen, Small Intestine, Triple Warmer and the Conception Vessel. Additionally, it is the alarm point for the Pericardium Meridian; Location: On the centerline of the body on the same level as the nipples; Western Anatomy: Branches of the internal mammary artery and vein are found with the anterior cutaneous branch of the fourth intercostal nerve; Comments: This is a major point of interest to combative martial artists. A blow to CV-17 can affect the electrical pattern of the heart resulting in arrhythmia. Western science refers to this as Commotio cordis and it is documented with strikes to the chest as in a baseball striking the chest of a child. While interviewing a former infantry point man who served in Vietnam confirmation was added to the lethality of a strike to CV-17. According to this individual, a life-long karate practitioner, while he was walking point one night he actually bumped into an enemy soldier who was traveling down the same trail from the opposite direction. The American struck the Viet Cong with a strong punch to CV-17 killing him instantly. His small frame combined with the larger stature of the American allowed for a perfect 45-degree strike (strikes to CV-17 should be downward at a 45-degree angle). These strikes will generally be open palm or hammer fist type strikes given the height of an average sized opponent and the location of the point. Additional energetic disruption can be added by rotating your striking hand outward on contact.

CV-22 Chinese Point name: Tian Tu;25 English translation: “Celestial Chimney;” Special Attributes: this is an Intersection Point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. It is listed as a Vital Point in the Bubishi; Location: On the centerline of the body at the center of the suprasternal notch. That structure is the commonly referred to the “horseshoe notch” at the base of the throat; Western Anatomy: the jugular arch and a branch of the inferior thyroid artery are superficially represented. The trachea, or windpipe, is found deeper and the posterior aspect of the sternum, the innominate vein and aortic arch are also present; Comments: This point is of particular importance the martial artist as it is the intersection point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. The interrelationship between these two vessels will be covered in detail later in the book. Additionally, the structure of the suprasternal notch is an excellent “touch point” for situations when sight is reduced and you find yourself at extremely close range with your opponent. CV-23 Chinese Point name: Lian Quan;26 English translation: “Ridge Spring;” Special Attributes: Some Traditional Chinese Medicine textbooks state that this location is an intersection point for the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel; Location: On the centerline of the throat just above the Adam’s apple; Western Anatomy: the anterior jugular vein, a branch of cutaneous cervical nerve, the hypoglossal nerve, and branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve are present; Comments: Strikes to this point should directly inward, or slightly upward, to bust the structure of the Adam’s apple and disrupt the energy flow to the head. Generally, any strike to the throat area will activate a number of sensitive acupuncture points and attacks the structural weakness of this part of the human body. CV-24 Chinese Point name: Cheng Jiang;27 English translation: “Sauce Receptacle;” Special Attributes: It is the intersection point of the Stomach and Large Intestine Meridians. Some sources state that the Governing and Conception Vessels intersect at this location. It is one of the 36 Vital Points listed in the Bubishi; Location: On the centerline of the head at the slight depression on the upper aspect of the chin; Western Anatomy: Branches of the inferior labial artery and vein are found with a branch of the facial nerve. Comments: The translation of the Chinese term for the point, “Sauce Receptacle,” is illustrative in that if one were to drip sauce from their mouth while eating it would accumulate at this point of their chin. This point is another interesting point for the martial artist. Strikes to this point are generally most effective when aimed downward at a 45-degree angle. A hammerfist strike to this point, with enough force, will not only cause an instant knockout, but can dislocate the jaw.

The health of your body has a direct impact on the health of your brain. In fact, there are only three degrees of separation between sitting too much and dementia. You sit for long periods of time. Your body goes into hibernation mode, depressing your metabolism and increasing your blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight.7 Your high blood pressure damages your heart and its vessels. The small vessels that feed your brain get blocked, putting you at risk of small vessel disease. Without adequate blood supply, the brain’s white matter starves to death.8 White matter acts like a telephone wire that connects brain regions so they can talk to each other. When your white matter is damaged, the communication between those brain regions breaks down just like it did in that telephone game we played as kids; in the end, the message is all mixed up and everyone is confused. It was funny back then, but it’s not funny now. The white matter damage shows up like bright lights on your brain scan called white matter hyperintensities. The scary part is that your brain could be lit up like a Christmas tree but clinically silent, meaning that you may have no noticeable symptoms until it’s too

Brain Rule #4 Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. •​Your body’s defense system—the release of adrenaline and cortisol—is built for an immediate response to a serious but passing danger, such as a saber-toothed tiger. Chronic stress, such as hostility at home, dangerously deregulates a system built only to deal with short-term responses. •​Under chronic stress, adrenaline creates scars in your blood vessels that can cause a heart attack or stroke, and cortisol damages the cells of the hippocampus, crippling your ability to learn and remember. •​Individually, the worst kind of stress is the feeling that you have no control over the problem—you are helpless. •​Emotional stress has huge impacts across society, on children’s ability to learn in school and on employees’ productivity at work.

Your body isn’t a thing to be looked at and judged against some standard of perfection that doesn’t even really exist. It’s the vessel that takes you through life, allowin’ you to experience all the beautiful things life has to offer. Food. Sex. Sunsets. Music. Hugs. Laughter. A healthy body is a gift. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t treat it like some cheap one-night stand. Treat it like the love of your life. Treat it with respect and tenderness, but most of all, gratitude. And a healthy dose of awe, too. Your body is made of remnants of stars and massive explosions in the galaxies. Every few years, the bulk of your body is newly created by the regeneration of your cells, but you have things in you that are as old as the universe. We’re literally stardust. Every one of us is a little miracle. You’re a miracle, Joellen. Think about that the next time you’re standin’ naked in front of the mirror and want to focus on some stray dimple you don’t like.

Is Alzheimer’s a Vascular Disorder? In 1901, a woman named Auguste was taken to an insane asylum in Frankfurt, Germany, by her husband. She was described as a delusional, forgetful, disoriented woman who “could not carry out her homemaking duties.”66 She was seen by a Dr. Alzheimer and was to become the subject of the case that made Alzheimer a household name. On autopsy, Alzheimer described the plaques and tangles in her brain that would go on to characterize the disease. But lost in the excitement of discovering a new disease, a clue may have been overlooked. He wrote, “Die größeren Hirngefäße sind arteriosklerotisch verändert,” which translates to “The larger cerebral vessels show arteriosclerotic change.” He was describing the hardening of arteries inside his patient’s brain.67 We generally think of atherosclerosis as a condition of the heart, but it’s been described as “an omnipresent pathology that involves virtually the entire human organism.”68 You have blood vessels in every one of your organs, including your brain. The concept of “cardiogenic dementia,” first proposed in the 1970s, suggested that because the aging brain is highly sensitive to a lack of oxygen, lack of adequate blood flow may lead to cognitive decline.69 Today, we have a substantial body of evidence strongly associating atherosclerotic arteries with Alzheimer’s disease.70 Autopsies have shown repeatedly that Alzheimer’s patients tend to have significantly more atherosclerotic plaque buildup and narrowing of the arteries within the brain.71,72,73 Normal resting cerebral blood flow—the amount of blood circulating to the brain—is typically about a quart per minute. Starting in adulthood, people appear to naturally lose about half a percent of blood flow per year. By age sixty-five, this circulating capacity could be down by as much as 20 percent.74 While such a drop alone may not be sufficient to impair brain function, it can put you close to the edge. The clogging of the arteries inside, and leading to, the brain with cholesterol-filled plaque can drastically reduce the amount of blood—and therefore oxygen—your brain receives. Supporting this theory, autopsies have demonstrated that Alzheimer’s patients had particularly significant arterial blockage in the arteries leading to the memory centers of their brains.75 In light of such findings, some experts have even suggested that Alzheimer’s be reclassified as a vascular disorder.76

How frightening to know that your brain can betray you this way, that the vessel for our sense of self is often faulty and prone to error. How awful to know that death may come for us over and over, snatching pieces of us little by little until all that is left to take is our body.

The lymphatic system is a network of vessels, nodes, and organs that removes waste products and toxins from our bodies, and it is part of your immune system, which protects you against infection and disease. This system relies on passive circulation. In other words, unlike the blood vessels (which require a heart to pump the blood around the body), there is no pump for the lymph system. The lymph system relies on your muscles tightening and relaxing around the lymph vessels to move the lymph, a process called lymph drainage. To keep this system working well, it is important to be using your muscles regularly—another benefit of WBV!

Magnesium is the natural element your body uses to prevent excess calcium from entering these cells and to maintain normal blood pressure. Magnesium is indeed our natural calcium blocker. Dr. Sherry Rogers, a leading proponent of integrative medicine, has written extensively about magnesium’s benefits for disorders caused by abnormal muscle constriction. “In order for a muscle to contract, it needs calcium. In order to relax it needs magnesium.”11 Hypertension is one of the conditions for which Dr. Rogers uses magnesium. Magnesium is also necessary for the health of the endothelium, the tiny cells that form the thin inner lining of the blood vessels. Endothelial cells play an active role in prompting the smooth muscle cells to constrict or relax by producing substances such as prostacycline, thromboxane, and endothelin. Magnesium increases the endothelium’s production of prostacycline, which induces artery relaxation, and it inhibits the production of thromboxane and endothelin, which promotes artery constriction.12 Magnesium also directly influences the ability of cells to use potassium, which also induces artery relaxation. Dr. Mildred Seelig, one of the first pioneers of magnesium research, states, “Low potassium, by itself, can bring on high blood pressure. But even adequate potassium intake cannot normalize high blood pressure if magnesium is too low. Without enough magnesium (and potassium) in our bodies, we cannot expect normal blood pressure.”13 THE PROBLEM WITH THE STANDARD MEDICAL TREATMENT OF HYPERTENSION With the exception of the common cold, hypertension accounts for more visits to doctors in the United States than any other condition. Most often, the treatment recommended is some type of prescription drug. Sometimes these drugs are necessary, and there is no doubt their ability to lower blood pressure can prevent many of the severe complications of hypertension.

Scientists have been exploring the medical mysteries of the human heart for almost as long as poets have been probing its metaphorical depths. It is a wondrous organ, a tireless muscle that pumps blood around the body every moment of our lives. It pounds hard when we are exercising, slows down when we sleep, and even microadjusts its rate between beats, a hugely important phenomenon called heart rate variability. And when it stops, we stop. Our vascular network is equally miraculous, a web of veins, arteries, and capillaries that, if stretched out and laid end to end, would wrap around the earth more than twice (about sixty thousand miles, if you’re keeping score). Each individual blood vessel is a marvel of material science and engineering, capable of expanding and contracting dozens of times per minute, allowing vital substances to pass through its membranes, and accommodating huge swings in fluid pressure, with minimal fatigue. No material created by man can even come close to matching this.

My all-time favorite mantra: “My body is for living, not looking.” It’s for cuddling my cat, flooding me with pleasure, enjoying a favorite book, traveling to places that fill me with awe, laughing with my friends until my stomach hurts. My body is the vessel through which I experience life, not the lens through which people experience me. It was not made to serve as eye candy for other people, particularly when that comes at the detriment of my own experience. It was made to allow me to live. WANT TO DIVE DEEPER?

To admit this—a hopelessly unfashionable addiction to the appearance of my body—is a crime in some circles. It's much more becoming to "embrace your flaws" or—even better—to not see your body's flaws at all, to firmly believe that your physical appearance is immaterial and unimportant, that your body is simply a vessel for your soul and your personality. Personally, I've found the undoing of generations of social conditioning to be slow going.