Pulse

The state of your enthusiasm or energy; feelings about health; anxiety about death.

Put your hand under your clothes so you can feel your heart beating and the pulse of life in you. There you have it, the conscious you is touching and directly experiencing in a quiet moment how that mystery we call Life is right there in every moment of your being spontaneously giving you existence. You are touching the unconscious. You can feel it moving right under your hand. You know it is not your conscious will, knowledge or beliefs that is pulsing that beautiful movement. Right now life is breathing you and beating your heart. And that is just the very evident surface signs of what it is doing. Feel it! Do you really fully understand that? Isn’t that an amazing miracle and mystery? Wouldn’t it be wise and wonderful to get to know that mystery directly and more fully?

Part of acupuncture involves reading pulses. In both Chinese and Japanese systems, the pulse is read – in three positions and at three depths – at the radial artery, just above the wrist. We use our index, middle and ring fingers, placed side-by-side along the course of the artery. In total, then, there are six positions: three on the right wrist and three on the left wrist.

Pulse-reading is an aspect of the medicine that, for most, requires many years (decades, lifetimes) of practice in order to master. It requires great energetic sensitivity — a capacity to “listen” very deeply. It is an art-form as much as it is a science. I’ve also felt it to be something very much like a language, or – to use computer lingo — an operating system. It’s a means of translating information from one medium (the client’s bodymind) to another (the practitioner’s bodymind) which depends upon the creation of specific cognitive/perceptual alignments.

J. Esquirol, a French psychiatrist noted for his humanitarian attitude toward patients, spent considerable time in the 1830’s sitting beside sleeping mental patients, observing their facial expressions and movements and noting their pulse and respiration. He claimed that he often knew when patients were dreaming and could predict the general nature of their dream content from this combination of behavioural and physiological indices.

Another example of pulsing it given in this mans dream: The bull then turns to the left, where a cow is visible. The halter is still hanging from its neck, so to prevent it being hindered I approach it to remove the halter. I am careful because its horns are long and splendid. I notice that the very tips of the horns are delicately carved in a simple curved design. I manage to pull the halter off and the bull sees the cow. It responds, its whole body indicating a change. I particularly notice or see its tail. This appears to be stretched out on the ground as if the bull is lying down with tail pointing backwards. As I watch I see ripples of movement in the tail, surging and pulsing. I have the impression of deep impulses of life surging in the body of the bull. The cow at first does not want the bull. There is some memory of the cow running for the open gate, but it doesn’t go out. It is unnecessary anxiety.

Useful questions or hints:

In what way was the pulse mentioned and used?

Do I worry about my pulse/heartbeat?

What does my dream say or suggest about the pulse?

See Understanding this Site – Being in Control – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems – Life’s Little Secrets