Winter wonderings on Biotensegrity

Winter is a natural part of life.  It calls us inwards and downwards.  Into hibernation, into reflection, into solitude.  It's not always easy with less sun and warmth.  I wonder, how does our buoyancy emerge in winter?  I'm pretty sure that buoyancy is related to our body's biotensegrity.  

Our conventional view of biomechanics is that our body acts like a stack of blocks.  This is a compression structure like a building.  This can be an exhausting view of the body, one that weights us down.  Tensegrity structures our formed differently.  Here we think of our body as a system of struts (bones) that are suspended in a tensioned network of cables (myofascia).  This view sees the body as a whole, dynamic, interactive system. If you would like to read a more on this Mary Bond has a great blog here.

Rest for a moment with your spine upright.  Contemplate - your vertebra are not stacked up like blocks, they are suspended  in a network of tissues.  How does that feel? Try playing between the two views.  How does it feel different to imagine your vertebrae as blocks in a column.  Compare this to imagining living bones suspended by soft tissue.  It is more buoyant, more dynamic, more spacious?

Perhaps changing perspective like this can help us when the winter blues are getting us down.  We can rest into the fundamental, dynamic capacity of our body. We are not machines, we are living creatures.  If we remember that we are elements of the natural environment maybe sometimes we can put down our devices and tune to our subtle and wild living nature.