The Sun and the Moon and Meditation and Astrology
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:43 am
Nature runs her course in cycles. An ever evolving revolution, Nature stands as a dynamic process of communication and bonding of unseen forces. We see a daily reminder of this in the Rising, and the setting of the Sun. That which is planted in the Spring is harvested in the Autumn. The Moon which shines so brightly this night will be completely swallowed by the night sky Fourteen Days hence; Only to reemerge, as the gradual cycle of poetry. The cyclical nature of the Seasons; The Carnal nature of Birth, Life, Sex, and Death. These cycles have been observed as Holy since before recorded history, and stand as the backbone to countless Rituals which echo through the Timeless Domain of Nature. Not just the rituals of Ceremony, but the rituals of Life~ The aseemingly unscripted ones. The Blink of an Eye, and the passing of a cloud, the Tide of the Oceans, and the Treasures of Nations, The beat of the Heart, and the flow of breath. All things which ebb and flow are dissonant or harmonic melodies plucked on the Harp of The Priestess of the Silver Star.
Almost Three centuries ago, Jean-Jacque de Mairan first established the endogenous source of daily Solar (or Circadian) rhythms in plants for Chronobiology, a precursor to modern Genetics. A similar development was taking place in the field of psychology. Called, Mesmerism, this theory stated that the source of human behavior, health and illness was the influence of magnetic forces emanating from the heavenly bodies; particularly the moon. This field has been refuted, and then later was strip-mined to for the discipline of hypnosis, and the fields of depth psychology and psychosomatic medicine. Here it being discovered that the sources of health, stress and psychopathology could be traced to more psychosocial sources acting within the person, which could have factors originating with the rhythms of the sun and the moon, and other celestial bodies..
After some comments I made in the thread on Free Will, Deeje brought up a question that I have really identified as one of the factors dividing many conventional and unconventional theories:
Is the source of a behavior to be found in endogenous, built-in genetic factors or is it better understood as an adaptive process to outer environmental circumstances?
In this primitive, polarized form the †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™¢¢¬‚¦‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦¢‚¬Å“nature of self-nurture of others†™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬? controversy misses what is most exciting at the leading edge of research today: it is the interaction between nature and nurture at the molecular-genetic level that is most informative in the emerging fields of psychobiology. In particular, it is our currently evolving knowledge of the molecular pathways of information transduction between environmental signals and the expression of certain constitutive ("housekeeping") genes that is throwing a new light on the dynamics of biology and behavior at all levels.
Ultradian rhythms may be explored as the parameters of information transduction in the cybernetic process of adaptive homeostasis. Adaptive homeostasis may be defined as the communication process whereby the genetic informational matrix of life, as expressed in endogenous epigenetic oscillations at the molecular-genetic level, are entrained and adaptively integrated with environmental signals. The signals from the environment include the availability of water and nutrients, temperature, light, toxins, physical stress, performance demands and that general class of behavioral stimuli generally called "psychosocial variables" which must be examined within context of the cyble of information transduction as detailed by a concise understanding of the nature of sentience.
An evolutionary view of the cybernetic loop of information transduction between the epigenetic level and environmental signals in sentient beings may be surveyed by tracing three interacting levels of adaptive homeostasis in health and illness.
1. The Cellular-Genetic Level: The epigenetic cycle is hypothesized as the source of life rhythms - the basic biological clock. In more technical terms it is the "thermodynamic rate limiting factor;" the time required for genes to express themselves in the basic processes of cell metabolism, division, growth and.
2. The Brain-Body Level: All the major systems of mind-body communication such as the CNS, autonomic, endocrine and immune systems have evolved ultradian and circadian rhythms that apparently integrate the molecular-epigenetic cycles within cells with the organisms external and internal environments for "adaptive homeostasis". These include:
- The pontine reticular activating system of the CNS that is associated with the 90-120 minute ultradian rhythm of dreaming. The neurophysiologist, Jouvet (1962, 1973) believed that the function of dreams was to exercise genetic patterns of behavior associated with adaptation, emotion and cognition in humans as well as animals. It is noteworthy in our context that the periods of rapid eye movement sleep (REM state) that are associated with dreaming range from 15 to 40 minutes with an average of 20-30 minutes. Evidence prove that these alternating phases of sleep and dreaming correspond to 90-120 minute Basic Rest Activity Cycle (BRAC) in the daytime that are of essence for genetically based processes of adaptive homeostasis such as food intake and sexuality.
- The neuroendocrine system is now well recognized as having prominent ultradian and circadian components related to a variety of psychobiological behaviors associated with mental and physical activity, nutrition, metabolism and reproduction. There are experimentally verifiable 20 minute couplings between peaks of associated hormones that are released in approximately 90-120 minute ultradian rhythms: luteinizing hormone peaks lead prolactin and testosterone peaks by 10 to 20 minutes; Glucose leads insulin by 15 to 20 minutes; cortisol leads B-endorphin by 20-30 minutes. These associations that extend from the molecular-genetic generation of these hormones at the cellular level to their expression at the neuroendocrinal level and their interaction with the mind-brain processes of memory, learning and behavior described below can hardly be accidental. They must play a significant role in the cybrenetic process of information transduction between gene and adaptive behavior in health and illness. They are the most vivid illustration of the conjecture of an evolutionary relationship between the 20 minute, 90-120 minute and 24 hour rhythms of adaptive homeostasis at all levels.
3. The Mind-Brain Level: Ultradian relationships whereby short term memory is converted to long term memory over a 90 minute cycle, with a 20 minute latency period capable of aborting the process.
Genes have two regions: a regulatory region and a coding region. The regulatory region usually lies upstream of the coding region and consists of two types of DNA elements. One type of DNA element is called the promoter. This is the site where the enzyme RNA polymerase binds before it reads and transcribes the gene into messenger RNA. The second type of DNA region is called the enhancer region. It recognizes protein signals that determine in which cells, and when, the coding region will be transcribed by the polymerase. Whether the RNA polymerase binds and transcribes the gene and how often it does so in any given period of time is determined by a small number of proteins, transcriptional regulators, that bind to different segments of the upstream enhancer region. Development, hormones, stress, and learning are all factors that can alter the binding of the transcriptional regulator proteins to the regulatory regions of genes. I suggest that at least certain neurotic illnesses (or components of them) represent a reversible defect in gene regulation, which is produced by learning and which may be due to altered binding of specific proteins to certain upstream regions that control the expression of certain genes.
According to this view, schizophrenia and depression would be due primarily to heritable genetic changes in neuronal and synaptic function in a population carrying one or more mutations. By contrast, neurotic illnesses might represent alterations in neuronal and synaptic function produced by environmentally induced modulation of gene expression. Insofar as psychotherapy works and produces long-term learned changes in behavior, it may do so by producing alterations in gene expression. Needless to say, psychotic illness, although primarily caused by inherited alterations in gene structure, may also involve a secondary disturbance in environmentally acquired gene expression.
Clinical-experimental data that is consistent with this view has led to the hypothesis that chronic disruptions of ultradian rhythms of activity and rest may lead to the breakdown of adaptive homeostasis between environmental stimuli, the neuroendocrine axis and the epigenetic level that are manifest as stress and psychosomatic illness. It has been hypothesized that many forms of psychological and holistic healing utilizing hypnosis, the relaxation response, psychotherapy and meditation can facilitate stress reduction and healing right down to the molecular-genetic level by simply providing a therapeutic context for rest and recovery that can optimize ultradian rhythms.
One of the most intriguing areas of recent research exploring the ultradian interface between the mind-brain level, stress, psychosomatics and personality is the so-called nasal rhythm which is crucial practice to most esoteric forms of meditation or ceremony.
The German rhinologist, Kayser (1895) is credited with recognizing and measuring the widely varying ultradian shifts in "nasal dominance" in humans whereby the left and right chambers of the nose alternate in their size and shape to change the degree of air flow through each every few hours. Table one outlines some of the major studies in a century of research in this still highly controversial area. The most significant of these studies for understanding mind-body communication are those of Debra Werntz (1981) who reported a contralateral relationship between cerebral hemispheric activity (EEG) and the ultradian rhythm of the nasal cycle. They found that relatively greater integrated EEG values in the right hemisphere are positively correlated with a predominant airflow in the left nostril and visa versa.
Endogenous ultradian rhythms with periods of one or a few hours affect not only on physiological and behavioural functions but also perception and cognition. In particular, lateralized ultradian rhythms which seem to operate separately in the right and left hemispheres of the brain can be monitored by testing the tactile discrimination of the contralateral hand. The present paper is based on two subsequent studies: First, ultradian rhythms in tactile discrimination of either hand were examined in German subjects under laboratory conditions. Considerably different ultradian periods of right and left-handed tactile error rate were found in men but not in women. In a second study, a group of Kenyan Masai shepherds were tested while the subjects were leading herds on daily feeding routes through a savanna habitat. They showed ultradian periods of about 2 hours in tactile discrimination of either hand. Since the right hemisphere is specialized for visuospatial, the left for verbal processing lateralized ultradian rhythms may serve for a long-scale timing of neural processes underlying spatial and semantic mapping of the environment.
The resolution according to this information is †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™¢¢¬‚¦‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦¢‚¬Å“There is some unquantifiable factor in the equation of human awareness and it is only represented by the presence of the Celestial Bodies. We know it is present here in this biosphere, as evidenced by the results of the observations of Arnio Penzias that led to his earning the Nobel Prize for the strongest cause of evidence for the Big Bang. This does not support the argument that we have correctly determined this effect upon our psychosocial constitution, or compiled it into a coherent knowledge system. I do believe, however, the strongest evidences for determining the value of this factor is in examining religious texts as close to the source of the origin of human writing. The modern astrologer is less a philosopher than the astrologer of old. The bible, as being the first book to enjoy worldwide reknown or automatic distribution is a necessary step to address in this endeavor to find the origin of human language. One of the crucial means to understanding the Bible is to see the influence of the Mazloth, which is the Hebrew name for the Zodiac.
vertical,
raum
Almost Three centuries ago, Jean-Jacque de Mairan first established the endogenous source of daily Solar (or Circadian) rhythms in plants for Chronobiology, a precursor to modern Genetics. A similar development was taking place in the field of psychology. Called, Mesmerism, this theory stated that the source of human behavior, health and illness was the influence of magnetic forces emanating from the heavenly bodies; particularly the moon. This field has been refuted, and then later was strip-mined to for the discipline of hypnosis, and the fields of depth psychology and psychosomatic medicine. Here it being discovered that the sources of health, stress and psychopathology could be traced to more psychosocial sources acting within the person, which could have factors originating with the rhythms of the sun and the moon, and other celestial bodies..
After some comments I made in the thread on Free Will, Deeje brought up a question that I have really identified as one of the factors dividing many conventional and unconventional theories:
Is the source of a behavior to be found in endogenous, built-in genetic factors or is it better understood as an adaptive process to outer environmental circumstances?
In this primitive, polarized form the †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™¢¢¬‚¦‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦¢‚¬Å“nature of self-nurture of others†™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬? controversy misses what is most exciting at the leading edge of research today: it is the interaction between nature and nurture at the molecular-genetic level that is most informative in the emerging fields of psychobiology. In particular, it is our currently evolving knowledge of the molecular pathways of information transduction between environmental signals and the expression of certain constitutive ("housekeeping") genes that is throwing a new light on the dynamics of biology and behavior at all levels.
Ultradian rhythms may be explored as the parameters of information transduction in the cybernetic process of adaptive homeostasis. Adaptive homeostasis may be defined as the communication process whereby the genetic informational matrix of life, as expressed in endogenous epigenetic oscillations at the molecular-genetic level, are entrained and adaptively integrated with environmental signals. The signals from the environment include the availability of water and nutrients, temperature, light, toxins, physical stress, performance demands and that general class of behavioral stimuli generally called "psychosocial variables" which must be examined within context of the cyble of information transduction as detailed by a concise understanding of the nature of sentience.
An evolutionary view of the cybernetic loop of information transduction between the epigenetic level and environmental signals in sentient beings may be surveyed by tracing three interacting levels of adaptive homeostasis in health and illness.
1. The Cellular-Genetic Level: The epigenetic cycle is hypothesized as the source of life rhythms - the basic biological clock. In more technical terms it is the "thermodynamic rate limiting factor;" the time required for genes to express themselves in the basic processes of cell metabolism, division, growth and.
2. The Brain-Body Level: All the major systems of mind-body communication such as the CNS, autonomic, endocrine and immune systems have evolved ultradian and circadian rhythms that apparently integrate the molecular-epigenetic cycles within cells with the organisms external and internal environments for "adaptive homeostasis". These include:
- The pontine reticular activating system of the CNS that is associated with the 90-120 minute ultradian rhythm of dreaming. The neurophysiologist, Jouvet (1962, 1973) believed that the function of dreams was to exercise genetic patterns of behavior associated with adaptation, emotion and cognition in humans as well as animals. It is noteworthy in our context that the periods of rapid eye movement sleep (REM state) that are associated with dreaming range from 15 to 40 minutes with an average of 20-30 minutes. Evidence prove that these alternating phases of sleep and dreaming correspond to 90-120 minute Basic Rest Activity Cycle (BRAC) in the daytime that are of essence for genetically based processes of adaptive homeostasis such as food intake and sexuality.
- The neuroendocrine system is now well recognized as having prominent ultradian and circadian components related to a variety of psychobiological behaviors associated with mental and physical activity, nutrition, metabolism and reproduction. There are experimentally verifiable 20 minute couplings between peaks of associated hormones that are released in approximately 90-120 minute ultradian rhythms: luteinizing hormone peaks lead prolactin and testosterone peaks by 10 to 20 minutes; Glucose leads insulin by 15 to 20 minutes; cortisol leads B-endorphin by 20-30 minutes. These associations that extend from the molecular-genetic generation of these hormones at the cellular level to their expression at the neuroendocrinal level and their interaction with the mind-brain processes of memory, learning and behavior described below can hardly be accidental. They must play a significant role in the cybrenetic process of information transduction between gene and adaptive behavior in health and illness. They are the most vivid illustration of the conjecture of an evolutionary relationship between the 20 minute, 90-120 minute and 24 hour rhythms of adaptive homeostasis at all levels.
3. The Mind-Brain Level: Ultradian relationships whereby short term memory is converted to long term memory over a 90 minute cycle, with a 20 minute latency period capable of aborting the process.
Genes have two regions: a regulatory region and a coding region. The regulatory region usually lies upstream of the coding region and consists of two types of DNA elements. One type of DNA element is called the promoter. This is the site where the enzyme RNA polymerase binds before it reads and transcribes the gene into messenger RNA. The second type of DNA region is called the enhancer region. It recognizes protein signals that determine in which cells, and when, the coding region will be transcribed by the polymerase. Whether the RNA polymerase binds and transcribes the gene and how often it does so in any given period of time is determined by a small number of proteins, transcriptional regulators, that bind to different segments of the upstream enhancer region. Development, hormones, stress, and learning are all factors that can alter the binding of the transcriptional regulator proteins to the regulatory regions of genes. I suggest that at least certain neurotic illnesses (or components of them) represent a reversible defect in gene regulation, which is produced by learning and which may be due to altered binding of specific proteins to certain upstream regions that control the expression of certain genes.
According to this view, schizophrenia and depression would be due primarily to heritable genetic changes in neuronal and synaptic function in a population carrying one or more mutations. By contrast, neurotic illnesses might represent alterations in neuronal and synaptic function produced by environmentally induced modulation of gene expression. Insofar as psychotherapy works and produces long-term learned changes in behavior, it may do so by producing alterations in gene expression. Needless to say, psychotic illness, although primarily caused by inherited alterations in gene structure, may also involve a secondary disturbance in environmentally acquired gene expression.
Clinical-experimental data that is consistent with this view has led to the hypothesis that chronic disruptions of ultradian rhythms of activity and rest may lead to the breakdown of adaptive homeostasis between environmental stimuli, the neuroendocrine axis and the epigenetic level that are manifest as stress and psychosomatic illness. It has been hypothesized that many forms of psychological and holistic healing utilizing hypnosis, the relaxation response, psychotherapy and meditation can facilitate stress reduction and healing right down to the molecular-genetic level by simply providing a therapeutic context for rest and recovery that can optimize ultradian rhythms.
One of the most intriguing areas of recent research exploring the ultradian interface between the mind-brain level, stress, psychosomatics and personality is the so-called nasal rhythm which is crucial practice to most esoteric forms of meditation or ceremony.
The German rhinologist, Kayser (1895) is credited with recognizing and measuring the widely varying ultradian shifts in "nasal dominance" in humans whereby the left and right chambers of the nose alternate in their size and shape to change the degree of air flow through each every few hours. Table one outlines some of the major studies in a century of research in this still highly controversial area. The most significant of these studies for understanding mind-body communication are those of Debra Werntz (1981) who reported a contralateral relationship between cerebral hemispheric activity (EEG) and the ultradian rhythm of the nasal cycle. They found that relatively greater integrated EEG values in the right hemisphere are positively correlated with a predominant airflow in the left nostril and visa versa.
Endogenous ultradian rhythms with periods of one or a few hours affect not only on physiological and behavioural functions but also perception and cognition. In particular, lateralized ultradian rhythms which seem to operate separately in the right and left hemispheres of the brain can be monitored by testing the tactile discrimination of the contralateral hand. The present paper is based on two subsequent studies: First, ultradian rhythms in tactile discrimination of either hand were examined in German subjects under laboratory conditions. Considerably different ultradian periods of right and left-handed tactile error rate were found in men but not in women. In a second study, a group of Kenyan Masai shepherds were tested while the subjects were leading herds on daily feeding routes through a savanna habitat. They showed ultradian periods of about 2 hours in tactile discrimination of either hand. Since the right hemisphere is specialized for visuospatial, the left for verbal processing lateralized ultradian rhythms may serve for a long-scale timing of neural processes underlying spatial and semantic mapping of the environment.
The resolution according to this information is †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™¢¢¬‚¦‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦¢‚¬Å“There is some unquantifiable factor in the equation of human awareness and it is only represented by the presence of the Celestial Bodies. We know it is present here in this biosphere, as evidenced by the results of the observations of Arnio Penzias that led to his earning the Nobel Prize for the strongest cause of evidence for the Big Bang. This does not support the argument that we have correctly determined this effect upon our psychosocial constitution, or compiled it into a coherent knowledge system. I do believe, however, the strongest evidences for determining the value of this factor is in examining religious texts as close to the source of the origin of human writing. The modern astrologer is less a philosopher than the astrologer of old. The bible, as being the first book to enjoy worldwide reknown or automatic distribution is a necessary step to address in this endeavor to find the origin of human language. One of the crucial means to understanding the Bible is to see the influence of the Mazloth, which is the Hebrew name for the Zodiac.
vertical,
raum