Archive for February, 2021

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Cold

February 25, 2021

Fortitude is a word you rarely hear these days. Maybe we are all so mollycoddled by the wonders of our technological civilisation that we have little need to find the fortitude in us. Fortitude being ‘strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage’. This winter I’ve been without a Rayburn which is normally the background heat throughout the cottage, that wonderful warmth when you enter through the back door into the kitchen, lashings of hot water and a great way of cooking. I’ve always enjoyed real log fires to keep me warm when sitting indoors, an open fire in the front room where I conduct my therapy sessions and a wood burner in my cosy living room. This year, though, that’s all I have. The Rayburn finally bit the dust at the beginning of winter and the reconditioned one that’s being made to order will not be delivered until 11th March. Last week was exceptionally cold, with temperatures barely rising above freezing, and it’s taken considerable fortitude to live comfortably, and a good store of well seasoned logs of course.

The great thing about living with the cold is that, not only does it take a strength of mind (or spirit), but in finding the fortitude to embrace the cold you find yourself imbued with a ‘strength of spirit’. My bathroom is a poorly insulated extension and although I am managing to maintain a slight background warmth throughout the rest of the cottage, the bathroom is absolutely freezing. Stripping off to take a wash takes fortitude and yet by rising to that fortitude I find myself all puffed up against the cold, easily attaining to a wonderful stature.

One of the most interesting things I have read about diet and nutrition was Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on the subject. He pointed out that if you eat meat your body is given the blueprint for manufacturing its own meat. If, however, you eat a vegetarian diet then your body does not have the luxury of the blueprint and so has to work harder to build and maintain your own meat. The interesting part was his statement that in working harder there is more strength to be gained, although he did point out that you have to be strong in the first place to live without the blueprint. Was he talking about gaining physical strength or a strength of spirit. Maybe the two are intrinsically connected, but either way I can draw parallels with living with the cold. It takes strength to live with the cold and if you can find that strength then you also find there is strength to be gained.

I grew up with central heating and never cared much for it, I always found that radiators gave a muggy kind of warmth, while many friends grew up with houses on the chilly side and a coal fire in the front room. You hear stories from people my age and older about how cold their houses were as a child and yet none of them seem to have suffered and maybe quite the opposite. These days people often sit in their houses in winter wearing no more than a t-shirt and I’ve good reason to think that, as a nation, we are getting softer. Not having a fire and a warm room to relax in would be unbearable and I’m looking forward to my new Rayburn for next winter. For the time being though I am rising to the challenge and enjoying the strength and vibrance that finding fortitude gives me. Even when I have my new Rayburn I won’t stop loving the great outdoors and will always embrace the cold and will never be too mollycoddled by the wonders of civilisation.

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C7

February 9, 2021

Paraplegia is usually defined as paralysis of the lower limbs. ‘Plegia’ means paralysis and ‘para’ meaning two (a twisting of the original Greek meaning of ‘besides’, as in one beside the other, leading to a pair and so two limbs). However, in order to truly understand paraplegia it is better to see it as characterised by the ‘missing back’. It is as though the posterior third of the trunk has been sliced off. My rehabilitation assessments have always been videoed and in the early days it was still analogue technology and video cassettes. Relatively poor quality from a home camcorder and so every so often a professional cameraman would come and film. He was a Russian who spoke no English so I had little idea of what he was saying. It turned out he was shocked at the lack of depth to my body. He described me as being like a playing card. From the front I looked fairly normal, while from the side I was flat. Nerve damage will paralyse the muscles in the legs, however, the collapse of the structure of the trunk, that should provide the foundation for the use of the legs, is what prevents the recovery of nerve function.

There is so much more depth to my body now and the back is really taking shape, although there is still some way to go and its capacity is still progressing through waves of development. Yesterday C7 disappeared. C7 is the lowest vertebrae in the neck and in a well developed body is always prominent. It is at the transition form the convex curve of the cervical spine, in the neck, to the concave curve of the thoracic spine of the chest and back region. When I was as flat as a playing card there was no prominence of C7 and during waves of development it has appeared, disappeared and reappeared again. As the neck gains more depth it disappears and when this is followed by the back catching up, and gaining more depth, it reappears. It would have been interesting to notch up a record of how many waves of development there have been. It would be in the hundreds. Not thousands but definitely hundreds. At times these waves of development were happening twice a week, but with the back very much nearer completion they happen less often, though no less significant with each wave building up a new layer of structure.

It is interesting to see that the lack of prominence of C7 is not confined to paraplegics and is also evident in some able bodied people. Although not severe enough to prevent the use of the legs it is nonetheless a lack of development with inevitable consequences. This is particularly noticeable in those with ADHD where the lack of physical capacity results in the lack of capacity to remain focused. I came across such children while working at a Secure Children’s Unit and although I am no longer involved it remains an ambition of mine to one day use my skills, in developing a physical body, to help young people overcome their difficulties.

With these waves of development in the past I noticed minimal effect on my stature and it was only by feeling for the prominence of C7 that I knew what was happening. Now though the disappearance of C7 leaves me with a profound inability to hold my head high while it is preceded, and after a while succeeded, by an incredible natural ability to do just that. The closer we get to building those final outer layers of the trunk, the closer I get to feeling for the body’s true stature.

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