Sensing and Feeling in the Mesentery
In our human vertebral and esoteric yogaic anatomy Manipura Chakra is the fire center. The central manipura is just behind the belly button and relates to the digestive tract and the layers of consciousness concerned with thinking, making sense of life as it is, digesting our experiences and assimilating them – or not. We have always considered the small intestinal tract to be a key in the inquiry into the expression of manipura chakra – who we perceive ourselves to be in the world.
Our mesenteries are soft tissue fascial structures woven through with vessels, fat, blood and lymph vessels, and of course, the enteric nervous system. They are complex hubs of developmental and structural support, and provide a home to intricacies of gut-intelligence. They are alive within, waving in their fluid world of the abdomen like glorious sea creatures. They explore and communicate our gut feelings with the body-mind as a whole.
This tree fungus resembles our mesentery in its shape. The thick folds of tissue are attached to the tree as their as their waving tissues search outward into the environment.
The fascial and fluid nature of the mesentery makes it an especially important structure in relationship organizing movement around our navels in yoga.
Starfish Eating
I feel the mesentery holds a deep understanding of who we are within our navel cores. In embodiment it opens a window into the weave of our fluid underpinnings and our human experience of “gut” reality—safety, comfort, and nurturance at its most primal level. Or many times, the opposite—fear, discomfort, confusion, and misperception.
Embodying the mesentery and exploring its form and consciousness can be real window into the integration of body and mind at the navel. Very primal. If we choose, we can learn to accept ourselves as we are. These deeply fluid navel folds can provide soothing comfort when learn to release the grip and fear that we may hold in our guts. When acknowledged and allowed, we can experience our mesentery’s true fluid and undulating self. We can find them as perceptive and relational partners to the whole of our structure and consciousness. We can journey inward and assist this process through gentle, movement, breathing…and of course, self-acceptance.
Explore the mesentery in movement, breathing, and embodied anatomy in my video library.
https://www.embodyoga.com/videos
Let me know what you feel.
Embodyoga® 
I have explored navel radiation and realize that it is a great starting point for pranayama practice.Just like in Asana practice, the yield is important and I feel that navel radiation is just that. It is a yielding. And one needs to yield before attempting to move breath and energy through pranayama.thank you for this wonderful tool to all the teachers of embody practice.
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Yes. We yield to the navel and there can be an almost simultaneous yielding to the "navel" of every cell. This is important in pranayama because the basis of pranayama is cellular breathing. The pranayama techniques and the lung respiration take us to the movement of prana in the fluid body – and in the cell. When we become familiar with this level of the breath it becomes easier to start with it and then use the traditional pranayama techniques to play with enhancing prana flow from the perspective of where the prana actually is, rather than pushing the prana from the "technique". This requires a very soft touch and a deep inner inquiry into sensing and feelingInteresting that the prana-maya kosa – the sheath of prana – is found with the water element. Prana flows in our form through the fluids.
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Thank you for commenting, Nikhil!!
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Reblogged this on Embodyoga® and commented:
Revised from a 2011 post. (Patty Townsend)
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