CEREBROSPINAL FLUID: hidden currents and holy places
If you long for the solitude of a mountain retreat where you can breathe clean air and allow your gaze to rest on a timeless horizon, then a journey along the cerebrospinal fluid flow is for you.
There’s a lot to discover in this system not least an axis of space, and within that space the sense of a cool, circulating fluid that bathes, protects and nourishes the precious structures of your central nervous system.
1. WHAT AND WHERE
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a clear, watery fluid that is produced by the specialised secretory tissue of the choroid plexuses which are located in each of the four ventricles of the brain. The ventricles are hollow cavities found deep in the brain, three are located in the cerebrum and the fourth between the cerebellum and brain stem.
The fluid moves from the ventricles through various passageways and circulates around the brain and the spinal cord playing an essential role in sustaining the homeostasis of the central nervous system by transporting nutrients and waste. There is about 150ml of fluid circulating at any one time and it finds its own current supported by wave like action of cilliary linings, arterial pulsation, the movements of respiration, and general body movement.
When CSF flows through the space between the inner and middle meninges of the brain (the subarachnoid space), it is absorbed into the blood stream via small outpouchings called arachnoid granulations (and also villi). These tiny buds are located profusely across the membrane-like arachnoid mater (the middle of the three meninges).
In addition to its role as a transport medium, it is the CSF that provides protection and buoyancy to the delicate neural tissues and renders a levity at the core of the body.
2. VISUALISATION
One way to find your way to the CSF is to think about your nervous system as a whole and work you way from an awareness of your skin to the fine branches of your nerves and keep tracking your way back to the peripheral nerve roots between your vertebrae. Then, move your attention inward still more to a sense of the tube-like space created by your spine: the canal, and then the vault created by your skull bones: the cranium.
Once you have found the architectural spaces created by your bones, allow it to be occupied by a sense of fluid and within that fluid the floating structure of your spinal cord and brain. (I find an idea of fronds of seaweed shifting in a calm current helps me here).
If you have found your way to an awareness of the organ of your brain, floating, then let you attention move to a space at the centre of the brain as a way of bringing the ventricular structures into your somatisation. Sit your attention here as if you sit at the entrance of a cool mountain cave with a vast horizon before you. Reside in a sense of timeless, boundless clarity.
You potentially have at least FOUR very different experiences to explore: the spaces created by the bones, the presence of fluid and its currents, the awareness of neural structures floating weightlessly, and the spaces inside the brain itself.
(Paying subscribers I’ve recorded a visualisation and guided movement enquiry for you in your Companion Notes).
3. LANGUAGE & IMAGES
In your journal create a mind-map of words and idioms you associate with your nervous system as well as words that are coming up for you as you consider the CSF system.
Word lists like these are ways that your body systems communicate with you and help you understand what maybe going on at a less conscious level. For example, if you find yourself feeling: jangled, jittery or edgy, or if someone or something has got on your nerves, or touched a nerve, then resting in the CSF flow could offer a soothing respite and a chance to reset your nervous system.
As for images, they will also help you find a way into a more intuitive connection with a body system or anatomical concept. On my CSF Pinterest boards, among other things, I have images of mountain views, white interiors, swans, flowers, and even some fantasy hats!
Start from the factual information about the form and function of the structures, and from typical anatomical diagrams, and then let your imagination wander around Pinterest collecting like a magpie all the images that catch your attention. You could also use words and ideas from your mind-map as another way into your image search. Later, organise your content into ‘boards’ and the Pinterest algorithm will then suggest more examples for your collections.
*Premium subscribers to my Field Notes From the Body have access to my Companion Resource Library which includes my Pinterest boards, Spotify playlists, and guided audio and video practices.
4. MOVEMENT EXPLORATIONS
a) Consider fluidity as your axis. Allow your spine to move in response to its fluid core. Remember, however, CSF does not move like blood, it has slow tidal currents. It could be helpful to seek out some ‘beatific’ music that has a fresh, wakefulness to it. Explore changing levels: from lying to sitting, sitting to kneeling, kneeling to standing etc. What is it like to flex, extend, rotate from the CSF?
b) Explore the idea of your central axis as a space. How might this change the way you initiate or find support for movement. What differs in your experience of movement when your attention moves away from fluid and into space? Again, music choices might help you here.
c) Refer back to your own list of words or collection of images and let them be a starting point for moving.
NOTE: if you feel “spacey” in an unwelcome way, ground your experience back into your bones; they are always there.
5. CAKRA & DEITY
I find the image of the white lotus flower stem rising from the river bed, budding in the light, and in time unfolding its many petals to be evocative of the sūkṣmaśarīra (energy body) where the idea of prāṇa also rises to blossom into sahasrāra cakra (crown centre, thousand petaled lotus). I find this redolent at the more gross level of the current of CSF flowing to the head and seeping through the bud-like protrusions of the arachnoid granulations, (I find the stylised hair of the Buddha representative of this too).
This leads me to wondering about how it might be possible in the quietest of meditations to somatise the circulation of CSF and its absorption through the buds, as the embodiment of the dissolution of mind stuff. Try it. When you next sit for a quiet practice, visualise your way to the ventricles, and rather than call up an image of a mountain cave consider a white alabaster chamber or temple space in which to settle your attention. Cultivate the calm of white spaces. Allow thoughts and sensations to seep into nothingness like the CSF or like the petals of a white lotus unfolding. Let me know how you get on.
Finally, before I sign off, my focus on CSF lead me to the very little I know about the goddess Sárasvatī and the holy river that bears her name (there will be more of this in the Companion Notes). I discovered that the imagery and qualities associated with this deity to be coherent with my somatic experiences of CSF: fluid, clear, purifying, and white; together with aspects I’ve only just begun to explore in terms of how CSF supports sound, language and music.
Sárasvatī also reminds me of the concept of grace which I identify as being present and active in the world with only the faintest feeling of personhood. So, as you finish reading, take a breath and inhale grace; exhale beauty.
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