the magic of science...1-25-21
I’m totally indifferent to any debate about science validity. For me, it’s a given. Neil Tyson said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe it.” Totally resonate. Given the fact that science just is, what intrigues me is it’s intersection with the sacred. The co-mingle of science and magic. The marriage of science and art.
Perhaps this possibility, this mysterious sense of magic, paved the way for politically-motivated individuals to cast this recent science-doubt-spell. In this time of critical national need, when the very best public health can offer is desperately required, so alarming to feel the practice of medicine compromised. It was heartening this week to hear Dr. Fauci, longtime head of NIH, address the dangerous partisan games played at the upper levels of CDC. Shocking.
Religion is a culture of faith.
Science is a culture of doubt.
Richard Feyman, physicist
Science is born of a fertile imagination, from the depths of mystery. Curiosity hypothesizes. Comfort with the unknown is the first step to evidence-based research and treatment. I grew up steeped in this fusion of the known and the unknown, literally dancing my way through childhood in the home of a scientist father. Who also loved to dance, by the way. My fluid body in motion has always been my preferred artistic way of being in the mystery. But science knocked on my little girl door via the written word and I fell headlong into the medicine world of Clara Barton, nurse.
The life sciences and healing took hold of my mystic moving body and disciplined me. Kept asking me to meld matter and spirit. Find ways to negotiate between reason and intuition. Look for common ground between logic and wonder, determination and destiny. I’m still at it.
Medicine is a fusion field. Many patients expect or would like it to be pure science-based. Some practitioners pretend that it is. Case in point: this week I treated a patient in Chicago with recent onset heel pain. Yes, I’m still working on Zoom, vaccination end of this week! It was science that taught me the route of the sciatic nerve, how to stress it, how to hypothesize heel pain originating in spine. But it was artistic intuition guiding me to create ways to release the hold this neural tension had on her body and spirit. Science teaches me about the inner workings of body. It is the ground my work rests upon. But facts and data will never be enough to shape the warm fertile field in which healing happens.
Inviting you to be in that warm fertile field 10:00am this week: Thursday, Friday or Saturday. What’s the diff ‘tween Thursday’s Basic and Friday’s Deep Essentials? We always roll and release, power tone and stretch. They’re interchangeable. Deep is 15 extra minutes, time for a bit more classic yoga asana. Saturday’s Essential Recharge is two hours, once a month for students who want to deepen and new students who want introduction. This week the science guides us through the organ body, the vital biological structures that keep us ticking. And the magic happens when we feel the energetic space between heart basket and pelvic bowl, stay present with our breath and welcome insights that percolate through our soul and enliven our spirit.
Closing with Albert Einstein, wizard of magical science, who said: Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
Loving being in the mystery with you….bella