Dear Everyone,
Hello neighbor! How are you in this moment? I hope well.
Thank you for sharing your time with me. I’ve truly enjoyed your writing to me.
There have been requests that I say more about my experience of this slow pericardial and brain wave.
After writing my last letter to you, I remembered that on March 5th, I heard about this slow brain wave on the radio in an interview with a man who had just published a book on caffeine. He happened to mention that caffeine can interfere with the slow brain wave encountered during deep sleep.
My experience with caffeine – not being a coffee or tea drinker – is sometimes a little chocolate. Therefore, I was only peripherally interested in the caffeine part of the talk. However, I had no memory of having heard of a slow brain wave before, and that was instantly of great personal interest to me. So, my research of it only began three weeks ago.
When I first began to feel this slow brain wave, as I said in my previous letter, I felt it initiate in my pericardium a moment before my brain. Rather like a pause before we take a breath.
A metaphor I can offer you is during low tide, the gentle waves washing up onto the shore spreading and sinking little by little into the thirsty sand. This is how this wave felt from my pericardium on the left side of my body flowing toward the right side of my body and down into my belly and legs and into my chest, neck, and arms. It took maybe a week or more before I felt it spread everywhere in my body. It has been a slow gradual process.
Meanwhile, the flow of the slow wave from the left side of my brain toward the right side was synchronized with the flow from my pericardium. Perhaps, the regions in my body were registering directly in my brain (cell to brain on the same side).
Underneath these two processes, arose two more. Deep breathing in the pit of my belly felt necessary to support the pericardial wave. By this I mean the deep pit in my belly breathing me – not the frontal lobe of my brain directing the breathing in my belly.
The other one that arose was that the slow brain wave filled my brainstem first – as watering the deep roots of a tree. The tree then carries the water to the branches, leaves, and blossoms. As my brainstem has gained vitality, fluidity, and strength, my cerebellum and cortex have become lighter and more buoyant. Actually, my whole body feels more vital, calm, and resilient!
Some days ago (I am really experiencing suspended time!) when a friend asked me, over the phone, to describe my feeling of this slow wave, I realized that my feltsense had changed to a different metaphor.
Now a better image is the peak of high tide. The ocean has filled my whole body. The waves from my pericardium and from my brain are no longer completely separate. There is less space between them, but they are not yet one. However, the overall sense of stillness, fluid-weightedness, and calm is growing.
When I lose the clarity of this state (continually) I can release the tension in my membranes,
pause………………….…. relax……………….….… yield……….…………….return…………..…….
lose it again………………………………………………………………………………………….…..…
pause……………..…..… release………..……….… yield…………..……..… return…………..…….
Here is a somatization on the pericardial and brain slow wave for you:
Pericardial and Brain Slow Wave Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (To download, click on the link then right click on the audio player that opens and choose Save Audio As.)
What is your experience?
Sending you much love and prayers
to carry you safely through
the chaotic winds of the coronavirus
And the challenges you must face each day.
Be well and comfortable being you,
Bonnie