However, as a biological system you are not completely shut off from your surroundings; you are permeable. This is because you need to take in certain nutrients in order to generate new material, repair or replace damaged or aged components, produce energy to do all this, and mobilize you so you can continue to find nutrition and protect yourself from things that threaten your chance of survival. You also need to get rid of waste - by-products from the metabolic processes which break down the things that you take in and render them available for use.

Your epidermis - the skin that you see when you look in the mirror or down at your limbs - is your largest organ. It allows certain things in, such as light for the conversion of vitamin D, and keeps other things out (other organisms). Likewise, it allows certain things out (via perspiration), and keeps other things in (your other organs). But your epidermis is not your only permeable interface with your external environment. Your respiratory tract is a complex set of open tubes that allow one thing from your environment in -- air -- so that you can extract one specific nutrient (oxygen) required for energy production and release waste (carbon dioxide). Your digestive tract is also open to your environment, and it much less discriminating. It allows for a wide variety of materials from your environment to enter, and be broken down into small enough pieces that you can extract all the other nutrients you need for optimal physiological function.

Physical medicine at HeartSong includes all therapies where the focus of attention is on using the physical boundaries of the body as a way to communicate information to the system that will, hopefully, optimize function, enhance self-organization and generativity, and increase your awareness of your self as a "physical being", as opposed to a "thinking being". In all cases, some external agent is being used to interact with your body: hands are used for manual therapies, including energy work such as marma therapy, breathwork (pranayama), oils and herbs (on your skin or in your colon), hands and other body parts (feet, arms, legs) are used for yoga therapy and shiatsu.

More coming soon!