Deciphering Substance
The term
“gut feeling” implies the notion of a form of innate wisdom
resident in the physical body.
In early
civilizations, the tradition of examining the body parts or entrails of
slaughtered animals by priests and soothsayers for encoded prescriptive
information lends credence to this idea of visceral knowledge. In Kundalini
Yoga, wisdom uncoils like a snake from the base of the spine.
Medical endoscopic technology gives us the ability to scan the entrails
of live human bodies. My process to deal with gut level awareness means
entering into imaginary dialogue with the body’s “lower”
or “base” nature, its fluids and functions, to discover intelligence
at work and respond to its messages. It includes the examination of instinctual
drives and behaviour patterns (attack/defend, fight/flight, repress/release,
etc). Gut feelings at the pit of our stomach include fear, apprehension,
dread, queasiness, uncertainty, a sense of rightness or wrongness about
time, place or person.
The limbic system, the primitive reptilian part of our brain, is involved
in controlling emotional and motivational activities, and in memory and
learning. It seems to play a role in paranoia and passive-aggressive behaviour.
Gut level awareness, I believe, as a function related to reptilian consciousness,
is responsive to form, touch and the organic outline rather than the shattering
effect of emotion or the analytic impulse of mind. To be a positive evolutionary
force, the creative process relative to gut level awareness must overcome
gravity, uncoil inertia and immanence, and marry cold wet matter with
the dry heat of intellect and spirit.