How do we become aware of our environment through having a real Encounter?
We encounter the environment through our senses.
But how do the senses actually work via the nervous system?
Mechanical scientific views give us a picture of the nervous system comprising of the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system.
Our everyday awareness is possible due to our ability to sense our environment.
Yet, what are the senses and how do they sense and what of someone who may not have all the senses in the usual way, like a blind person?
Our senses enable us to experience each other, our environment and ourselves.
The empirical model comprises of 5 senses, found mostly through the doors in the head.
The 5 senses help us perceive our world through seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing and the sense of touch. The empirical scientific model mostly describes the nervous system, instrument function, namely the brain, cerebellum, spine and nerves, yet the description of the instruments which enable us to sense our environment is not the description of the actual sensing itself, it is only a description of the mechanics thereof. in a similar way we would describe the plumbing system needed to transport water but without describing the nature of water itself.
The empirical model suggests that anything which is not perceptible with the 5 senses are not considered real and can not be observed, therefore it falls outside the knowledge we can gain through objective observation.
Yet, we may ask, if we were to study an apple objectively, without also sensing ourselves while we were observing the apple with our 5 senses, what do we really get to know about the apple?
When we share our observations we get to know alot about how the observer feels, looks and experiences the object, but not so much about the actual object itself, because the object is actually a subject.
Should we remove the apple from the room and can no longer see, taste, smell, feel or touch it, does it then no longer exist, which would be as the empirical model suggests?
What about how a blind person may perceive the apple and the heightened sense of touch and hearing such a person develops in order to encounter their environment?
This empirical model seems crude and limited in its description of how we are able to perceive reality.
Another model which describes our ability to perceive and encounter our environment is the Anthroposophical medical model.
This model describes our sensory development as having 12 senses or 12 doors, which develop over a 21-year span, yet it does not end there.
Rudolf Steiner first indicated 12 interconnected senses through which we get to know the world around us and get to know our inner life as well, 120 years ago.
This knowledge was not entirely new, but a new way to describe an ancient kind of wisdom in a scientific manner.
Anthroposophy indicates that the first four senses are developed during the first 7 years of early childhood.
They are the sense of balance, self-movement, life and touch.
The next 7 years marks the development of the "middle" senses, the sense of smell, taste, sight and warmth.
This is followed by the next 7-year cycle wherein the higher senses like hearing, speaking, perceiving the though of another, perceiving the individual ego (the individuality) of another is developed.
The sense of imagination can also be considered a higher sense.
The health of the higher senses depend on the health and development of the "lower" senses or senses we develop during the first 7 years of life.
Thus, our sense of balance is connected to hearing.
Movement is connected to speaking.
The sense of Life is connected to thinking.
Through touch we connect to the ego or sense of our individuality and the ability to perceive another individuality. The process of individuation takes time and it is an important part of our development and just as important to value another person's individuation.
With the sense of Life we experience a sense of wellbeing or pain or discomfort in our own body, but we can also sense discomfort, pain or sorrow or joy in the body of another individual.
The Life sense provides us with a reference point, a gauge for our experiences.
It is generally believed in empirical circles that a creature requires a nervous system, consisting of brain and nerves or a spinal cord to which nerves are attached. in order to sense, perceive, gain information and respond to its environment. Yet, these are only the visible instruments or counterparts of the super-sensible in ourselves.
We must not let this scientific way of understanding darken the spiritual understanding of our humanity and ability to sense our environment, because there is always a very fine line between physical and metaphysical truths.
Material, scientific points of view, classify the Central and Peripheral nervous system as the foundational organs of function, yet they are also enabling sensing or perceiving abilities. Thus these organs are not only organs of function but also organs for perception.
The empirical view only classifies the Central Nervous System (CNS), consisting of the brain, cerebellum and spinal cord as receptors which process and responds to sensory information.
The Peripheral Nervous System, (PNS) which include the somatic, autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems consists of the nerves which branch out from the brain and spinal cord, then connects into organs to regulate involuntary movements. like our heartbeat and breathing, yet even those organs can be regulated by the human will voluntarily. That is the difference between conscious and involuntary breathing methods.
Without a spinal cord a human being would not be able to sense its environment the way we generally do.
Nerves are part of a communication highway between the CNS and body parts like limbs and organs. The organs of the PNS are the nerves and ganglia.
The Somatic Nervous System(SNS) system is made up of motor neurons and sensory neurons.
Yet, even the nervous system is an "organs of perception", not only organs of function.
Vertebrate animals and human being's organs of perception and reaction include the spinal cord, which is linked to the brain with many nerves.
Each thin nerve strand is connected into an organ or limb and it is generally believed that a sensation will be passed from nerves to the central sense organ, the spine, like messages along a wire.
Mechanical science asserts that sensations from the periphery reach the spinal cord, which runs through the centre of man, then from a point in the spinal cord the impulse of the will is sent to the limb.
Yet, an impulse of the will can not really have its origin in physical matter, as though the physical matter decides for itself what should be moved without the individual's consent.
Even though these nerve strands divide further into a network of nerve endings which send signals, via the spinal fluid, to the brain, there is a sort of interruption, a boundary line between what is physically and spiritually experienced or sensed.
A person has a relationship with his own body at the same time as he senses his environment.
There is a space, or an allowance for the soul relationship with ourselves and our environment before any "command" from the brain is given, the "command' actually comes from the soul or will of the person first, so that we may feel at one with our impulse to move or act.
If this process of information reception-perception-activation did not contain a small break in it, the whole process of perception would simply be biological and material, without us needing to participate in it, without us recognising that there are certain conditions which exists at the same time as certain actions.
The soul or will can not be found somewhere between the sensory and motor nerves-wires, because it does not originate nor develop there.
Yet , the soul needs a nervous system in order to feel its own existence and the world in and around us.
Therefore, the nervous system exists so that we are able to feel the world in us, not just to pass a message between nerve "wires" from our sense organs like eyes, ears, nose or any other organ.
In this way sending signals to the organs or performing voluntary movements incorporates a soul aspect and a will aspect, yet we are mostly unaware of our will during the process.
If a person's sense of Life went through a challenge during its development , that sense of Life may become impaired.
Such a person may not experience pain in the same way other people do.
The sense of Life also gives us a sense of our inner Life, a sense of freedom, vitality, energy or faintness, it helps us differentiate our own Life-sense from that of another.
Our parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for stomach/bowel movement, prepares us for rest and slows down the heart rate.
Children can retain and integrate information much better when they are not anxious or nervous, when the parasympathetic nervous system is healthy.
Children learn optimally in environments that feel warm, calm and supportive, where they sense trust, truth , beauty, soul-nourishment and wellbeing.
In this view each of the senses have a physical and spiritual aspect.
Furthermore, the movement of spinal fluid is related to rhythmical breathing.
We can, with our will, breathe better in order to nourish our nervous systems as organs of perception.
Spinal fluid moves up the spine on each inhalation and flows downward on the exhalation.
Now we see that the nervous system, through the spine, is connected to our 12 senses and to our soul/will-force.
The wise old saying we have for a person who shows up half-heartedly, is a "spineless" person.
This really refers to the fact that such a person is not acting with all his might, loving what he is busy with, fully present with his will, engaged in the action.
A spineless person can not discern between the physical and spiritual boundary-line which exist in the centre of their being.
This can have paralysing effects.
Such a person may need to take a new stand or take action in order to renew their connected sense of the spiritual boundary-line, or spiritual gauge, which runs through the centre of their being.
If our nervous systems develop in a healthy way during childhood, we will have a healthy sense of Life in adulthood.
The sense of hearing is connected to our sense of balance.
Interestingly, the hearing process in the ear is an enhancement of the crude hearing which takes place throughout the skeleton.
Anthroposophy gives us the picture of our legs transmitting their vibrations to our whole body, if the legs are shaky and nervous the whole body feels shaky.
Even our skeleton vibrates, because the whole body is a chamber of resonance.
The auditory ossicles (stirrup bone, anvil and hammer) rest on the drum of the ear.
A consciously listening man connects himself with the vibrations he hears.
These small bones are a metamorphoses of the leg.
It looks just like a tiny leg standing up, upon the drum of the ear.
Snakes do not have legs, nor these tiny bones standing up in their ears, they feel their way through the environment with their bellies.
The legs "hear" the heartbeat of the earth in a crude way, while the ear-bones mediate what is heard.
The Life sense is an inward feeling we develop regarding our sense of wellbeing.
The Life sense brings us in touch with the truth of our inner reality.
The sense of Touch is not limited to the hand or the skin.
For example, we feel the ground beneath our feet when we are walking , not just the skin on our feet.
Only if we had an injury, would another sensation, loke pain be introduced.
When we tend to the pain, we restore our sense of Life and the rightness of Life.
When we touch something we experience it.
The touch passes through the hand to the instrument we are holding, stretching ourselves into our instruments or environment or another person we meet.
Senses are free spaces in the body where the external world can enter and become enhanced, they are also spaces from which a person can go out towards the environment to meet it as if swimming in inaudible music.
Music which can only be made audible by a person's conscious interaction with the environment.
When a person finds the sound of the meaning of the interaction and describes it audibly, that is a close encounter.
Rudolf Steiner describes the human being slipping out into the environment, through the senses, as a mediator.
I once experienced this while swimming with wild dolphins.
I experienced myself slipping into their world, with them, I had no expectations of them, everything about the encounter was a surprise, no thoughts only a picture of our being together arose in my heart.
A sort of melting with them in their environment, perceiving as they perceive.Yet, I did not lose myself in the melting.
During that timeless moment I did not feel in any way lost in the Ocean, but rather profoundly myself, swimming into a most beautiful symphony, the music finding its way into me.
An experience of pure ecstasy.
Profoundly healing, deeply nourishing, simple, expansive, yet, the most intimate closeness.
I became acutely aware of how each thought or deed can either injure or heal us, especially the finely tuned nervous system.
Projected thoughts we have about other people and our interpretations of their experiences can also either injure or heal them and us.
We are mostly injuring ourselves and others with our thoughts and deeds and need to sleep or meditate in order to restore this damage we do to our nervous system.
Ordinary, dry, colourless thinking is extremely tiring for children and adults alike.
With such dry thoughts, like scientists often have when they are dissecting an animal, in order o understand it, you can imagine that no real meeting between the scientist and the animal can take place, because that kind of meeting is only a meeting with a lifeless object, taken out of context and no longer a healthy, living representation of its environment.
Such a study can not resemble an encounter, because an encounter is more like music being made visible.
An encounter is possible when someone can enter a sort of meditative-alert state, which arise when they are fully engaged and the senses come alive.
It is terribly draining to learn in an uninspired manner.
Terribly draining to limit knowledge to books, instead of feeling and perceiving real experiences.
All vertebrates have a spine, which act as an organ for perception, through which their senses are enabled.
Invertebrate animals such as snails, beetles and worms also have a nervous system (organs of perception) and brain, or nerve centre, where nerves connect, but they have no spinal cord.
In Vertebrates the principal nerve-cord passes through the spinal column.
Invertebrate nervous systems are much more closely connected with the rest of the world than the nervous system in man, they are in close communion with the world and perhaps this is the reason why their nervous systems run along their bellies.
Invertebrates feel the whole environment.
Flowers are something they feel inside of them.
Rudolf Steiner indicated that there is a common spiritual organism that perceives, sees and hears through the invertebrate animals.
Everything which we see around us is a body for this common spiritual organism.
Invertebrates are the eyes and ears of this common spiritual organism.
They perceive the world as a direct, inner, full-body, experience.
In Ancient times human beings also had a much more direct, acute, heightened sense of the world, than what we can understand through anatomical science today. They were also in much motr intimate relationship with the natural cycles of the earth and surrounding planets, moon and sun.
Human beings are much more separated form this common spiritual organism than the invertebrates, at this time in our development.
Some Ocean creatures, like the jellyfish or octopus, have a small brain with a nerve-network which lights up or change colour according to what the octopus experiences in his environment.
But what of a creature who does not have a central nervous system, spinal cord or visible brain?
How do they sense and respond to their environment?
The sea sponge is such a creature without a nervous system.
Sponges are the only multicellular animals without a nervous system.
They do not have any nerve cells or sensory cells.
However, touch or pressure to the skin of a sea sponge will cause a local contraction of its body.
Wiithout a CNS, sea sponges respond acutely to their environment, their response looks like a sneeze.
This implies that a nervous system is not a requirement for sponges to sense their environment.
They are like sense-organs of the bigger spiritual organism they are part of, they are like eyes and ears sent out by the earth into the Sea.
Human beings differ from animals and plants in the sense that we walk upright and our hands are free to help and serve others.
Animals are very specialised and they can also help their environment and human beings, even without hands.
For example, my sense is that the high pitched sonar sounds whales and dolphins make, are like acoustic massages that recalibrate the magnetic field of the earth.
Dolphins and whales keep the magnetic field of the earth in balance, yet we crudely go into their environment with our instruments, without any regard for the service they gift to us, with their presence .
Sensing and merging with our environment to find meaning and purpose for our existence is a process which evolved over many-many epochs through a complex system of development which did not simply arise as something mechanical, resembling a wiring system that produces signals like an automaton.
We are beautifully complicated, mysteriously instrinsic works of art.
-Charissa