Re-conceiving Our Bodies

(Excerpted from Your Body Mandala, Chapter One, “Organ of Embodiment”)

In The New Rules of Posture I wrote: “Connective tissue is a blanket term for all the tissues that separate, contain and connect everything else in the body.”  This sentence implies that “everything else” —bones, organs, muscles--is what matters. Although I went on to discuss the continuity and communicability of fascia, I was still adhering to the conventional view of the body.

Current fascia research suggests that we’ve had it backwards for several millennia. This research indicates that bones, muscles, and organs--indeed, all other tissues in the body—may be, in fact, specializations within the unified medium of fascia. A primary constituent of embryonic development, fascia is the very clay of our creation. In other words, fascia is the stuff we’re made of. 

What if we were to re-conceive our bodies as fascia? We know that primitive life forms emerged from the oceans onto land and into the air. We can imagine those early creatures evolving special functions: lungs to breathe, limbs to crawl and creep, teeth to tear, a tongue to suck, ears to process sound--whatever was needed to eventually become humankind. Contemporary human bodies, as specialized as our anatomy books portray them, still consist of this primary membranous material that is prior to all else. Consider the possibility that our specialized organs—reproductive, perceptual, and neuromuscular systems and all the rest—might be creation’s after thoughts.