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“Body-mind” is a phrase I have ended up using because there is no adequate word in common usage to express this idea.
There is a consciousness pervading all levels of our organic body – well, many consciousnesses, many layers of collective consciousness that are intimately bound up with physiology and anatomy. Cells are conscious. Small agglomerations of cells have a collective consciousness that is “more than the sum of its parts”. As do organs, muscles, limbs, end so on. This complex, somewhat hierarchical, fractal melange of sentience and physical biology leaks into the sphere of conscious awareness as emotions, interoceptive experiences, intuition, reactivity, mood, and sensory information. It even forms some part of what is usually thought of as identity in the form of physical “presence”.
Many people have described the body-mind. After experimenting with psychedelics, Aldous Huxley used the term “Mind at Large” to describe everything we are subliminally aware of in any one moment, and recognised this was too much information to use in the day-to-day necessities of surviving:
To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.
Aldous Huxley
And it’s a two-way street. The layer of cognitive and quasi-conscious Mind clearly organises the whole organ-ism into action. But the more cognitive end of consciousness - that is usually thought of as will, resolve, presence of mind, thoughts, imagination, awareness - also leaks back down into and is continuous with the body-mind. Jung’s “unconscious” is in some ways close to the idea of a “body-mind”. But it is normally thought of as “psychology”, and therefore not usually packaged with the anatomy and physiology or innate biological intelligence. The collective unconscious also has somatic aspects and effects, which are recognised in the ideas of transference and counter-transference, and alluded to in the inseparability of observer and observed found in the Upanishads and quantum physics.
[The hero] shares this paradoxical nature with the snake. According to Philo the snake is the most spiritual of all creatures; it is of a fiery nature, and its swiftness is terrible. It has a long life and sloughs off old age with its skin. In actual fact the snake is a cold-blooded creature, unconscious and unrelated. It is both toxic and prophylactic, equally a symbol of the good and bad daemon (the Agathodaimon), of Christ and the devil. Among the Gnostics it was regarded as an emblem of the brain-stem and spinal cord, as is consistent with its predominantly reflex psyche. It is an excellent symbol for the unconscious, perfectly expressing the latter’s sudden and unexpected manifestations, its painful and dangerous intervention in our affairs, and its frightening effects.
Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 580
from Lewis Lafontaine: https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/02/02/gnosticism-3//
It is not in reality (even though we do all the time in our culture and language) possible to separate out the body (or body-mind) and cognitive (“conscious” [3]) mind because there is and never has been a clear division. Sentience, perception, attention, memory, anticipation and other qualitative “mental” activities and states evolved from the very beginnings of Life - in parallel with and as an integrated aspect of biological anatomy and physiology. Yes here we are with two words: “BODY” and “MIND”, and when speaking or thinking these words it is extremely difficult to have any sense whatsoever of their mutual synergy.
The phenomenon that distinguishes life forms from inanimate objects is semiosis ... the capacity [to enter] and processes of - communication and meaning-making.
Thomas Sebeok (2001) [1], quoted from Kull & Favareau (2022) [2]
Health requires that this body-mind is fully integrated within itself and also uninterruptedly through into the layers of cognitive and rational mental space that are widely considered to be definitive of “human-ness”. This kind of integration requires a compassionate (as opposed to a dysfunctional, dominant, colonial, or anxious etc.) relationship with the body - a compassionate relationship between the cognitive mind and the Body-Mind.
Many people can listen to their cat more intelligently than they can listen to their body. Because they attend to their pet in a cherishing way, it returns their love...
Their body, however, may have to let out an earth-shattering scream in order to be heard at all.
Marion Woodman (1928-2018)
References & Notes