What’s in a Brain?

Not only is my chiropractor enthralled by my crooked spine, he’s a great audience. I’m guaranteed to get a laugh every time I see him. He’s also a sports therapist, so I like to ask him random questions when I’ve been pondering the unique oddities of my compostable container. I’m so strangely wired, in fact, that sometimes we both learn something.

Lately I’ve had problems with my teeth aching, but rather than going to the dentist like a normal person, I decided it was a nerve issue better addressed by chiro—and I was right. A couple of visits and some postural instruction later, and my teeth are quiet again. It also got me thinking about my nervous system. So I asked him:

“All our nerves are contained in the spinal cord, right?”

“Yes,” he said, “except for seventeen facial nerves. (He knew this because my teeth quandary had sent him back to the manual; boy, we had a laugh about that!) Everything else runs through the third and fourth cervical vertebrae via the spinal cord.”

Now was the time to spring my logic on him, but not before I got his expert take on the subject. “So, where does it start?”

“In the brain.”

So much for logic. “Oh!” I exclaimed. “I thought it started at the base of the spine and spread upward, like a tulip bulb!”

He thought this was hilarious. “No, no. The nervous system starts at the brain and continues from the base of the spine into your legs and feet. I’m surprised at you, Ruth. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it shows how much I value my brain!”

I’m really more of a heart person.

Fast forward to the ancient Egypt exhibit at the Royal BC Museum.  It’s a fabulous meander through life on the Nile in the time of the pharaohs, spanning everything from geography to society to the afterlife. I’ve read a bit about the ancient culture and the rituals around mummification, but the exhibit taught me a few things I hadn’t previously known about the process of prepping the body. I knew the internal organs were removed and given their own individual jars—lungs, liver, stomach and intestines—but I didn’t know (or remember) the heart was replaced in the chest cavity and (get this) the brain was discarded. Turns out you don’t need it in the afterlife!

It’s not that important in this life, either, no matter how hard it tries to convince you otherwise. It doesn’t house your soul. It’s the mortal version of Windows: it keeps the compostable container alive, but it doesn’t know a darned thing about life.

Well, maybe it knows enough to fear dying. It runs the machine and houses the self-preservation software. It’s also got an impressive array of tricks to keep us believing it’s smarter than it really is. As the comic Emo Phillips once said, “I thought the brain was the most important organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me that.”

Sure, when faced with imminent danger, the fight/flight response kicks in, but the brain is part of the standard mortality package that includes motor skills and bladder control. I suppose the intellect resides in the brain as well, as intellect lacks compassion for anything and anyone save itself. Intellect ridicules compassion and empathy. It sneers at getting by on what you need rather than raking in the lion’s share. It’s all about survival of the fittest—but not necessarily the smartest. It believes what it’s told (sort of) and makes up what it doesn’t hear the first time. To its credit, the brain is a good storyteller—the writer in me likes that point—but it does tend to focus on horror rather than hope, keeping itself relevant in the guise of keeping us safe.

I could go on, but I’m not a neuroscientist. I don’t even play one on TV. I do know, however, that my heart is far smarter than my brain will ever be. I suspect this is because my heart houses the innate wisdom of spirit, that which connects me to each of you and to the greater source of All There Is. What resides in my heart is truly eternal, limitless, immortal and divine. What resides in my brain is temporary, transient, subjective and useful only until I reach my carbon-based expiry date. It is utterly fallible, and utterly human. It provides the contrast our spirits need to help us experience this phase of existence. It’s not as smart as it is shifty, but if I’m going to be a true creature of spirit, I will be glad of my brain for as long as I am here. It serves a significant purpose, after all, but let’s get real.

I won’t need it in the afterlife.

Get a Heart On

I move that we ban romance from Valentine’s Day. Love comes in many shapes and sizes, but let’s face it, romance is about chemical response and doesn’t go the distance. How many diamonds bestowed today will sparkle for the same lover five or ten or fifty years from now?

Oh, Ru, you’re being cynical.

Okay, maybe so. I may be taking the bait set out by the same big eastern syndicate that made Christmas a crass commercial racket. You know the message: that you’re not a winner if you don’t have a lover to ply you with roses and chocolate and a strand of costly bling.

Pah! I say! Who needs a lover when one has love? And I do. Boy, do I ever! I have a life full of people who love me, and whom I love in return. No love of mine is unrequited... except perhaps the torch I carry for John Taylor. Ah, contrast.

I digress. Love, as I say, comes in all shapes and sizes. Love for a friend. Love for family. Love for a pet. Love for a plant. Love for oneself—and this is no small thing. Too many of us think we’re unworthy of being loved and this is simply not so. Everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone is loved by someone, somewhere.

One of the most beautiful poems I have ever read was written by Ravindra Kumar Karnani. I have no idea what inspired me to post it here, but it seems an appropriate sentiment to help anyone who may feel lost, alone or unloved on this day when love seems more important than on any other (which, by the way, it’s not):

God, Speak to Me

The child whispered, “God, speak to me”
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, “God, speak to me!”
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
“God, let me see you” and a star shone brightly.
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
“God, show me a miracle!”
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So, the child cried out in despair.
“Touch me God, and let me know you are here!”
Whereupon God reached down and touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

Rest assured, you are loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

To Be in Paris

I’ve heard it said that when you ask yourself a question, your heart will answer immediately and honestly. One morning I picked up John Taylor’s autobiography to look for a particular reference, and got lost with him in the mid-80s when he was buying property all over the world. Eventually, he said, he gave up on the “perfume bottle real estate thing” he had going— John Taylor of London, Paris & New York—and finally settled in Los Angeles.

A step down, if you ask me.

The question I asked myself, just for fun, was of the three big cities, in which one would I choose to live? The answer came in the next beat:

Paris.

???

Quelle surprise? I think not. Considering how my new favourite tea is Murchie’s “Paris Afternoon” (thanks, Ter!), I listen most often to the Paris Café channel at jazzradio.com, and I have a thing for Musketeers, it’s hardly a surprise at all. Must be the romantic in my soul—or perhaps a memory from another life, where I am almost certain I got into trouble with a gang of dissolute artists, musicians and poets.

Ironically, I am not a fashion plate. I do not wear French perfume. I would never drive a Citroen, and when I think of red-white-and-blue, the Union Jack pops to mind. I do, however, adore champagne, baroque architecture, and sidewalk cafés.

While in my early twenties, I spent a few days in Paris. My companion was a native so language was no barrier, but I was too young to appreciate where I was for what it was. I visited the Louvre, was unimpressed by the Mona Lisa, took the train to Versailles and blew a whole roll of film on the statue of Neptune Rising from the Sea, ate street food because the restaurants were too expensive, and discovered the joy of Perrier Citron (mineral water with a shot of lemon cordial), though the café waiter was rude and I later found out why: tips were automatically added to the bill, so there goes the incentive to be well-mannered with the tourists.

Mind you, the Parisians are kind of notorious for dishing ʼtude at foreigners. They’ll warm up if you try to speak French—the worst thing you can ask off the bat is “Parlez-vous Anglaise?”—and the whole world has been advised of how immigrants are perceived by the nation as a whole, but still, it’s an elegant, magical, beautiful, romantic, noisy, bustling city of light, art and culture and I would definitely do it differently if I had it to do again.

Or maybe I’ll just live there again in my next life.